E3 press conference overview part Duhx : Electronic Arts

In the PS2 generation, EA was considered the devil. Well now that title is owned by Activision, for reasons not directly connected to this press conference. So anyway, I had no real expectations of EA itself since I always associate EA with Madden which I assoicate with... nothing? I forgot what I assocate it with. But over the past years EA has made some good games. The most interesting part, however, was to see the new EA partners. I was surprised by the fact that EA actually was capable of keeping me interested for 1 hour and 30 minutes so that I wouldn't have to reach for my Kamen Rider figures to keep myself entertained. Also it's funny how EA is a company I (possibly wrongly) associate with Americans with all the sports and shit yet most of the people who presented something were all clearly european, or atleast French Canadian. No wait that's Ubisoft.

It all started on a high note with Need For Speed Hot Pursuit developed by Criterion, the studio that brought us Burnout. Need For Speed was a game series that probably needed to be put in to capable hands to stay relevant, and this is exactly what they did. They showed some one on one car chases. It looked fun, I'm not the hugest fan of racing games but I play them sometimes. Would consider buying.

Then there was a demo of Dead Space 2. Dead Space is a game I only didn't play out of being a pussy. The game didn't seem scary when you're watching it together with thousands of people over the internet but I'm sure it would get to me after a while of playing it alone. Also the demo ended with a cliffhanger, and they said that they would show the thrilling conclusion in Sony's conference.

Then they demonstrated a 24 player game of Medal Of Honor, but truth be told, it went too fast and too perfect to seem like people were actually playing it, especialy since noone was talking. Atleast in the Gears Of War 3 demo from Microsoft Cliffy B and his nigs seemed to communicate.

Then they showed a teaser for another Battlefeild. Battlefield is a series I know even less about than I know about CoD.

Also Gunclub, some sort of EA service for their shooters.

Then it was sports time as Peter Moore came on the stage. I wasn't terribly thrilled but I didn't hold it against EA since that's what EA does. It makes sports games.

First game was EA MMA, following hot on UFC Undisputed's footsteps. Now if there is something I like about EA Sports is that they make nice trailers. The thing about MMA games is that I think the gameplay is shitty, but maybe I just don't get any game about fighting that doesn't involve parts of cricles and directions. Also no schoolgirls or fireballs ether.

Then there was a fitness game. I seriousy don't think the people that care about this sort of thing would be watching this.

Then Joe Montana came and had smalltalk about sports with Peter Moore while they showed footage of Madden NFL 11-ty umpleen. I don't think Joe Montana knows shit about video games, but atleast he seemed like a nice person.

Then, after a philosophical speech from some british person about existence and free will, they showcased some Sims stuff. Once again I don't think the Sims crowd was watching.

Then it was EA partners time. They first talked about some of their partners in the crowd, like Respawn and Bioware, who had nothing to show this year, Then Cliffy B came with some other people and presented...

Bulletstorm. Bulletstorm is claimed by Cliffy B as a balls to the wall over the top action shooter as oppsed to dogshit brown shooters most people make, including himself. But then they showed a gameplay demo. My first reaction was ''Clifford, if this is your understanding of over the top then you are boring as shit, since the Japanese shooter games like Vanquish or even cookieface's Devil's Third look over the top than this.'' Altough it did look like Bulletstorm had more going on than say, a Tom Clancy game, it still did seem like it wasn't making most of the ''over the top'' thing. I watched it and the only thing that crossed my mind was ''who is that voice actor I'm hearing''. Turns out it was Steve Blum putting a bit of Solid Snake in to his voice.

Then they showed Crysis 2. I still stay by my opinion of Crysis main selling aspect is graphics. A friend of mine can try telling me that Crysis is fun and open ended, but I still couldn't get rid of the throwing up reflex from seeing another cuntgargling game about spacemarines killing aliens in first or third person with a rifle. Also it featured 3D. Yay, I said, with the same enthusiasm as this picture.

So all in all, it was surprising that EA could do a coherent and interesting press conference. I'm interested in seeing more partner projects with EA.