EA Play E3 2017 Conference

Today E3 was thrown into full gear by the EA Play Conference. There were some impressive announcements made, the biggest being the the most expected. So lets jump into things.

I am going to start with the last thing they announced as it was the one that I was looking forward to the most, and the one that almost made me forget about the rest of the conference, Star Wars Battlefront II. 

First off, SINGLE PLAYER CAMPAIGN!!!!!! As you may or may not know, I am not really a fan of games that force you to play multiplayer all the time. I am making efforts to give games like that more of a chance (Overwatch), but it is a slow climb. That was the main thing that kept me away from Battlefront. But with the announcement that not only are they going to have a single-player campaign mode that fills gaps between The Return of the Jedi and The Force Awakens, but if you have the game on PS4 or Xbox One you can do couch co-op! I thought this feature was going the way of the dodo, but no! It is alive and well!

There was also a bunch of stuff about the multiplayer as well. Guess you can't have a Battlefront game without multiplayer, huh? Any who, no longer are vehicles and heroes given to those that are lucky enough to find a token on the battlefield. You earn that $h!t by getting points in the game. From what I could tell you can get points from kills and from accomplishing objective goals. When you die you get to see how many you earned and the total you have. Then you can use the points to spawn as special character classes, vehicles, or as heroes. We saw Darth Maul, Boba Fett, Rey, and Han Solo. Their was a full match between clones and battle droids after the presentation that show cased much of this nicely. You can see it here. Lastly, the game will be supported with free DLC. That is right, FREE! I love that they are doing the same thing they did with Titanfall 2. The first DLC is going to be Fin, the over-hyped Captain Phasma (may her part in the next movie be bigger), and the planet from The Force Awakens.

OK, next game that caught my eye was Anthem. 

So far it looks like BioWare and EA are ripping off Destiny. But given that all we know about this is it is pretty and science fictiony, I can't really state that for sure. Guess we will find out more tomorrow at 2:00 PM PST.

Also, if you are wondering why this caught my eye despite knowing almost nothing, I like sci-fi, what can I say?

Next there is A Way Out. This game had a big emphasis on co-op. OK, the game has to be played in CO-OP, either online or on the couch (yay couch co-op). The main point is to escape from prison. One guy is a new to the joint while the other has been their a long time. Each one solves problems in their own way. The example shown was one used bribery and guile to get what he needed, the other brute force. It looks interesting and I will keep my eye on this one.

And those where the games that caught my eye. Sure Need for Speed Payback looked cool with the truck and the taking down of the cars and it being really pretty. And Battlefield 1 players get an expansion coming with the In the Name of Tsar. But I haven't played a Battlefield game since 2142 came out. Yeah, that whole multiplayer thing I mentioned above.

Oh yeah, and the sports games. I haven't played a sports game since an NHL game for the N64. Sorry to disappoint if you came here looking for in depth analysis on NFL 2018, NBA 2018 or FIFA 2018. But they looked good!

To round up, Star Wars Battlefront looks amazing, Anthem looks pretty from a pre-rendered cut scene, and A Way Out could be fun, if you have a friend that can either come over or has the same game on the same system. Which as an adult this is actually kind of a tall order at times.