E3 2012: EA Press Conference

EA’s conference opens up with a short trailer for the upcoming Dead Space 3, giving us a small look at the overall story and setting, along with key gameplay moments.

Next , Visceral Game hits the stage and gives everyone a quick rundown on some of the new features the game has to offer such as locations, characters and the most significant one being drop in and out Co-Op. With this explained a live Co-Op demo is shown from Act 2 of the game, where you see both characters team up to take down a horror that lives on the planet.

Once the Dead Space 3 hype was over. A promo trailer for Madden NFL 13 was shown, in which more details were given on aspects of the game. One point to note is that the game is now powered using the new Infinity engine which allows for stronger impacts, better physics, and countless animation possibilities. Another new feature is the Connected Career mode in which Hall Of Famer, Mr Michael Irvine is invited on to the stage to speak more on the new mode and his own experiences in his career. Once this was done, they went a little more in depth on the Career mode, looking at areas such as Leagues, player choice, upgrades and social integration. The Madden NFL 13 presentation was ended with a short gameplay trailer.

GM Maxis, announces Sim City Social for Facebook and Sim City for PC, which uses their new Glass Box simulation engine. The new Sim City for PC adds features such as construct-able worlds and Multiplayer. The presentation ends with a quick look at the upcoming game.

Battlefield 3 is up next, in which we are given details on Battlefield 3 Premium. This provides new exclusive ingame items, new dog tags, deeper customisation, unique events and advanced features. Members also get access to five new expansion packs. Battlefield 3 Premium is available today for PlayStation 3 users and next week for Xbox 360 and PC. The presentation ends with a short video looking at what players can get if they sign up.

Bioware announces a slew of new content for their MMO, Star Wars: The Old Republic such as characters, difficulty, playable species and a new planet. The presentation ends with a sneak peek at upcoming updates set to be released this year.

We are given a live demo of Medal Of Honor: Warfighter, where apparently each mission is based on an actual event. The demo takes us to Somalia where we launch an attack on a pirate enclave. Also a little more was given on the Multiplayer Campaign called Global Warfighters, twelve different Tier 1 units from twelve different nations. The presentation ended with a highlight trailer looking at key moments from the game.

EA Sports talk more about their upcoming sports titles, starting with Madden NFL Social. You can start the game on Facebook and finish it off on your phone. Other areas that were touched on were physics in NHL, the services in NBA Live and finally FIFA. A short live action promo trailer was shown for FIFA 13 in which they went further into the Football Club. New announcements include the Football Club Catalogue, the ability to keep stats from FIFA 12 to FIFA 13 and a new Iphone app. A lot of new features where touched on for FIFA 13, including an improved Player Impact engine. Tactical Free Kicks, Complete Dribbling and Attacking Intelligence. The presentation ended with the world’s first gameplay premiere of FIFA 13.

A new multi year, multi product partnership was announced between EA Sports and the UFC. From here we can expect UFC based titles to come from EA Sports in which they will be distributed to over 120 countries worldwide. Dana White appears on stage to give more insight on the partnership.

Need for Speed: Most Wanted reappears but this time, it’s being developed by Criterion. A short trailer was shown before Criterion gave us more info on what we can expect from the upcoming game. It was mentioned that the Auto log tech from Hot Pursuit would be making a return in which we were then treated to a live demo of the game, featuring cops, fast cars and a lot of destruction.

Crytek makes an appearance on stage, talking about their goals, Crysis and the Crysis Engine. They also talk about the environments in the new game stating that you will be playing through an urban jungle full of deadly swamps, high rise canyons and raging rivers. A live demo was then shown featuring the high paced - gun action Crysis is known for.

Overall I’d have to say the EA press conference went pretty well. Some really good games were on show and overall they look to have a strong line up coming through in terms of Most Wanted, Crysis 3, SimCity and Medal Of Honor: Warfighter Etc. While the sports games didn’t really appeal to me, at the moment it looks like EA is showing a lot of promise.