Sat here watching the Live Stream from Gamescom, EA promise a good show, will it be true? As always, Foolish from Gameztraffic will provide his opinionated views on the proceedings.
They start with Fifa, presented by head of EA Sports, Peter Moore. talking about EA Sports sales, he claims Fight night round 4 is the best fighting game in the world, a very risky claim. Fifa 10 trailer shown, looks very good indeed, arguably the most fluid gameplay i've seen in a fifa game. 360 degree dribbling, and virtual pro face recognition promise a great end-user experience. Improvements to the defending and goalkeeping look impressive. In short, the game looks amazing.
Producer of Fifa 10, David Rutter, promises another video. Improved Online Matchmaking, based on location and skill, and different filters and a new Fair Play Ranking system look the headlining features. GameFace, where you put yourself in the game, looks amazing. Virtual Pro promises to make the game more personal, with accomplishments, unlockable celebrations, with a new online club mode, Regional and International leagues, and you can be poached to other clubs, sounds amazing. You can download your friends gamefaces into your game to. Santiago Bernabeu stadium is back in Fifa 10, as many fans complained of the lack of it. Live Season 2 will be announced in september. The practise arena has been updated to reinstate the practise matches from earlier games like fifa 99. A New urgency option means strikers get in better positions and commit more to games. Defenders also position themselves better, and perform spectacular blocks and clearances, doing anything possible. Secondary Saves and Goalkeeper positioning and animatons and desperation saves mean the game is pretty much identical to real football.
You can now create your own set pieces, which looks really innovative, allowing you to set player runs. You can trigger the set pieces in game to confuse the AI. As David puts in, the game feels more "organic". Momentum and lateral displacement looks very good indeed. PC and Wii benefit also from the 360 degree dribbling as well as 360 and ps3, meaning "total freedom for the game".
Peter Moore is back, talking about EA active, claiming its better for weight loss than Wii Fit. risky. Unveiled is the new Ea Active expansion pack, Ea Active: More Workouts. Boasting new stretches, ab exercises and fitness activities, with a new 6 week challenge. Looks good for those looking to lose weight. Peter Moore is back to show EA Active himself. A german guest, Katarina Witt, a 2 time olympic champion figure skater blatantly plugs the game, but she joins Peter Moore on the stage to do some exercises. Peter is pretty rusty at the game, but not too bad. Katarina gets on everyones nerves, with doing nothing whatsoever. Peter squatting reminds me of a bear in the woods. Katarina seems full of herself. Peter is out of breath, doesn't really make me want to play EA Active. Peter Moore is off the stage.
Johann is back. Talking about The Sims, with some impressive sales figures. Julie Turner, the service director from The Sims 3, talks in german to the crowd, making them happy. Plugging the Sims 3 expansion pack, which we at Gameztraffic covered earlier this month. 3.7 million sims 3 copies sold, with 2 million members using Sims3.com. Showing some impressive custom objects, it makes me wonder why they are playing the game, and not creating stuff for a career.
The sims 3 is the number 1 site on twitter, with high ratings on youtube and other social sites. If you want to know about World Adventures, check the earlier post. Indiana jones lookalike alert on the video. Recording songs in simlish include Stefanie Heinzman,, Matt and Kim, Pixie Lott, Young Punx and grammy award winning Nelly Furtado. Video shown about Simlish Recordings of songs like Mama Do,. Interesting, but why no heavy metal? Additional artist to be announced, please be Metallica.
Worldwide Premiere trailer for World Adventures, featuring Simdiana Jones. Graphically it looks nice, but not great. The Locations are all very well made however, with the Egyptian tombs looking awesome.
Johann is back, and is introducing DICE studios, makers of the Battlefield series. Patrick Soderland and Karl-Magnus Troedson are now on stage, talking about Battlefield 1943, a fantastic game past the 1 million user mark. Battlefield Bad Company 2 will be released on March 5th 2010, a slight delay, boasting better multiplayer gaming that Modern Warfare 2. Risky, but if they pull off the battlefield hallmarks of destruction, vehicles and squad gaming, they could well beat Modern Warfare 2. New vehicles include Transport Helicopters and Quad bikes. Boasting great squad gameplay like Battlefield 1943, with exclusive achievements, sounds amazing. An improvement to the Frostbite engine looks amazing, meaning there is literally no place to hide. A trailer from the DICE team showing Battlefield Bad Company in a desert enviroment for the first time looks incredible. The homing rpg squad feature is debuted, loooking incredible. This Game really could be the game of the year for 2010. Multiplayer looks fantastic, and the Batllefield 1943 music is back again.
Johann is back, introducing Brutal Legend. The lawsuit is mentioned, and the lawsuit is in EA's favour, Gamers rejoice. Tim Schaffer is on the stage, promising multiplayer gameplay footage. Brutal Legend, in his words, is an action game battling through a heavy metal world. The world is based on falling into an album cover. Looks a great world, not fantastic, just great. Three main weapons, an axe called the Seperator, boosting Tim Schaffer's ego. Upgradeable weapons sound awesome. The 2nd weapon is a guitar called Clementine, with the power of the world amplifying the stage effects such as pyro and lightning meaning he kill groupies with it. Looks pretty awesome tbh, although i still have a feeling the game will be a disappointment. The third weapon is the car, called the Deuce/ Druid Plow, built by eddie, the main character himself. Armed with guns, upgradeable as are the other weapons to a pretty much awesome vehicle with a devestating arsenal. Mission by mission, you unlock allies and minions meaning you can do double team attacks. Very awesome attacks such as Mosh pits and Lighter waving means the game is a game of a metal concert, and thus will be incredible. A demo of the game will be out September 17th..... sounds incredible. i can't wait.
Johann is back, introducing Justin Lambros to show Dante's Inferno, an action game. First i've heard of this game, based on a poem or story. Typical karma system based in the 6th circle of hell, where Hereses is. Game looks pretty cliched, meeting heretics and deciding their fate, very much like the little sister options in bioshock, deciding whether the people can stay in hell, or you free them from hell. Finsihing moves also decided, where you can kill the demons, or absolve them. The game is out on 360, PS3 and PSP on February 9th 2010 in USA, and February 12th 2010 in europe. New trailer shown, looks pretty awesome with some pretty cool enemies and graphics being shown.
Bioware are up next, showing 3 games, introduced by Dr Ray Muzyka, starting with Dragon Age- origins. Ray looks like a supply teacher. Dragon Age is a traditional rpg, following on from games like Neverwinter Nights, however they break the mould by picking 6 classes, each completely different. Also the heroes are anti heroes. In the game, every choice has a consequence, with no experience for a player being the same. Collector's edition boasts some awesome add-ons, making me want to play it, with bloodwarrior armour for both this and Mass Effect 2. Trailer for Dragon age shown, looks very cliched, but with good graphics and fantastic blood effects. Cliched Fantasy Story however means the game may get very tedious, very quickly. Ray is back on stage, talking about Mass Effect 2, released in 2010. Sheppard is back, leading a team on a suicide mission. You have to figure out why humans are disappearing. This game promises to be even better than Mass effect, and the game is playable at Gamescom. Mass effect 2 seems very similar to the original, just the 2nd game in the trilogy. What decisions you made in the original will effect the 2nd game. Seems pretty awesome. A new character is shown, an awesome bodyguard-style dude. The game looks like its being published by EA this time, not Microsoft. The gameplay looks fantastic, but as i wasn't a fan of the first game, i'l wait for a demo before i make my mind up. Gabriel Rodriguez from lucasarts is on to talk about Old republic, boasting to be the first MMO to be entirely voice acted, with over 40 novels worth of dialogue. This game is intended to be worldwide compatibile, with german, french and english localizations.
Pretty optimistic i think you'd agree. First ever public demo of the game is at Gamescom, i wish i was there. German Localised trailer for old republic being shown. Understand it all, its the same as the E3 trailer. Looks incredible too, even to someone like me who isn't a fan of MMOs or Star Wars.
Last up is Jesse Abney, and Stephen Viljoen, talking about Need For Speed Shift. Promises a true driver experience, redefining the racing genres. Cockpit view for the first time in Need for Speed, with Live Gameplay video. On the Spa track in belgium, driving a Pagani Zonda R. Looks and sounds amazing, with added telemetry features. Stephen's a fairly bad driver. Points are added to driver level for sticking to the racing line. The cars and sounds look and sound authentic. The Cars literally shake at high speed, and with photo-realistic tracks, this game could finally make need for speed decent once more. Ends with a spectacular crash. Driver profiles are in the game, shows what driving style, badges and rewards you have. Very similar to Barracks mode of Call of Duty, but for a racing game. Screenshot of london teasingly shown. Game ships September 17th, and the presentation ends with a fantastic trailer, highlighting just how far need for speed has come.
Well that was the EA conference. In conclusion, nearly every game shown looks to be at the top of it's respective genres. A very powerful showing for Electronic Arts, certainly giving us food for thought
