EA Press Conference
/
Our greeter at the EA Press Conference.This year EA had a number of games to show off, and I even cared for most of these games. To power the majority of these games EA has created two new game engines. The Ignite engine that is to power all of the new titles from EA Sports and the Frostbite 3 engine will power just about everything else. So what games did they show as the cream of the crop this year?
Once a mad scientist zombie, always a mad scientist zombie.The first game they showed off was "Plants vs Zombies: Garden Warfare". This is a third person shooter/tower defence game similar to "Dungeon Defenders". (Don't know what Dungon Defenders is? Check it out via Steam.) You choose which plant you want to be, you set down some additional plants to help out, and then you take out the zombies as the waves come in. In the demo they showed 4 plants; Peashooter as a mid ranged shooter; Chomper as a melee fighter; Sunflower as healing and ranged damage; and finally Cactus as a long range sniper type of plant. The game showed a few waves finishing up with a boss zombie; the disco zombie. The graphics were great and it looked like fun. The game will come out for Xbox One and PS4.
Next up was the new title from Respawn Entertainment, "Titanfall". This mostly multiplayer game has two main aspects to it. The nimble pilots and the powerful titans. And these appear to be balanced to fight each other. The game will be available for Xbox One, PS4, PC, and Xbox 360.
Need for Speed has made its return this year with "Need for Speed: Rivals". In it there were a combination of single and multiplayer elements. It started with two different players, one a street racer and the other a cop. The street racer was, well, street racing and the cop was with a crew doing a patrol. All though this patrol looked identical to the street race, I think it is just called a patrol to make it sound legal. About halfway for each groups' race, they encountered each other and started a police/street racer pursuit. This one we can expect this coming Spring.
This brings us to "Dragon Age Inquisition". This game will have an open world and will be bringing back some old characters from previous titles, while introducing new ones. This was all that we were really told on this title.
Of course this being an EA press conference we cannot forget the sports games. They touched on "NBA Live 14", "Madden NFL 25", "FIFA 14", and the UFC. The main point for all these games was to show off what could be done with the help of the Ignite engine, which allowed for a more realistic sports presentation. The engine performed on a whole new level compared to past sports games in the way a player moves or how they interact with the ball or orther players. It was impressive to see.
This brings us to "Battlefield 4". The conference had 64 live players all working together on stage to show off the multiplayer. The presenter had an iPad that showed a commander view allowing him to direct troops and make tactical decisions such as air strikes on land based targets. The demo ended when the opposing team showed they can take a whole building down if they want to.
Last thing I am going to bring up is the three teased games. First was "Peggle 2", then "Star Wars Battlefront", and finally "Mirrors Edge 2" We got such short glimpses of these that all I can say is "eeeeeeeeeee whenisthisgoingtocomeout?".
And that is all for EA. The lineup looks strong, if not predictable for the most part. I will admit that I was surprised when they didn't mention "The Sims 4" at all, but maybe they are saving that one for PAX?