Hello and welcome back to CeX’s coverage of E3. Everyone’s ‘favourite’ company were up next to show off their game line up for the next generation. The reaction to Microsoft’s event was less than positive so read below to see if EA brought anything particularly interesting to the forefront of gaming.
The Conference in short:
EA opened with a game from one of my absolute favourite game developers, PopCap. Plants vs. Zombies: Garden Warfare introduced a class-based third-person shooter with an incredible sense of humour and interesting cooperative gameplay mechanics; it was a perfect way to hook the audience.
Titanfall was up next and my enthusiasm for the game didn’t waver since I saw it on Microsoft’s stage. This mech-shooter is definitely a title I’m keeping my eyes on.
A quick teaser trailer from DICE games showed a new Star Wars Battlefront in development before the conference moved onto a more extensive look at Ghost Games’ partnership with Criterion on the brand new Need for Speed Rivals. A brand new mechanic titled All Drive intertwines single, cooperative and multiplayer modes seamlessly into one open world – a pretty nifty selling point for this arcade racer.
The ‘future’ of role-play games was shown next with a pretty impressive trailer for Bioware’s Dragon Age Inquisition. Whether it’s the future or not, the expansive world of Dragon Age has always been a fan favourite and is sure to impress.
EA Sports were up next with a whole host of announcements for their upcoming titles. NBA Live made a dramatic return for the ’14 edition. The emphasis was on a new mechanic called bounceTek – the idea that every single time the ball left a players hand it became it’s own separate entity. With this in mind the future of basketball dribbling and player movement could potentially be blown wide open. How it plays is a completely different story, so we will have to wait and see. FIFA 14 was up next with the intuitive Pro Instincts and Elite Technique mechanics that help increase player AI and physical interaction with other bodies and the ball. Madden 25 showed off a similar mechanic called true step that also will potentially help players interact better and in more human ways to plays on the field. Perhaps my most anticipated title saw Dana White, Jon Jones and Benson Henderson arrive on stage to announce EA’s UFC. This dynamic partnership will bring one of the world’s fastest growing sports to consoles but little was really demonstrated other than talk of unprecedented contact with the Full Body Deformation mechanic. EA’s sports games all looked stunning and in principle all the ideas sound astonishing; how much of an impact they will truly make is a question we can only answer with hands-on content.
Comprehensive overage of Battlefield 4 was up next and a nifty surprise with the announcement of Mirror’s Edge 2 concluded EA’s conference.
The Verdict:
Plants vs. Zombies: Plant Warfare and Mirror’s Edge 2 made EA’s conference seem really good because it began with a high note and ended on a high too.
All the sports announcement just like every year promise to bring never-seen before life-like simulation of all our favourite sports and then we end up playing them and realising it’s not as different as we all thought. Time and gameplay will truly show how significant these new systems will be to creating a new type of sports simulation but for now we can all agree that regardless we’ll probably buy them as by this point we’re all suckered into it anyway.
DICE’s Star Wars Battlefront was also a sweet reveal.
So to conclude EA were steady and consistent, which is really all you can ask for at this stage with little gameplay to show off. A few nifty surprises and a constant stream of games made this an ok presentation.
Igor Kharin
