Tonight We're Going to Rock It, Tonight!
It's hard not to be impressed by the number of licenses EA has managed to round up. And not just any licenses, but quality licenses. The once former leviathan of publishing seems to have taken on a very fresh look at gaming content, seeking to publish not just vanilla shooters, but taking chances on novel IPs like the highly anticipated (and pictured above...also highly) Tim Schafer game Brutal Legend, which was dropped by previous publisher Activision (who is now suing because they gave up their ugly duckling which became a swan). However, their press conference, while filled with exciting news and great game videos was similar to the tragic Nintendo conference in their equally depressing dearth of demo love.
Demo-less-ness aside, EA seems is packing a powerhouse of titles for the upcoming future, including updates to familiar franchises with Need for Speed: Shift, Madden 10 (presented by ex-m$ofty Peter Moore), the sweat-glistening Fight Night Round 4, and the return of the orgasmic rape simulator (don't worry, it's SFW) with Mass Effect 2. The truly great part was that over half of the games trailered at the conference were new IPs, including the God of War-like Dante's Inferno, RealTime World's cops & robbers MMO APB, Bioware's two new RPG's, the generic looking Dragon Age, and the freaking awesome looking Lucasarts collaboration, and first fully-voiced MMO, Star Wars: The Old Republic, GTA:Paris, also known as Saboteur, and of course Schafer's masterpiece Brutal Legend.
EA also showed off its new attempt to get people "fit" with Active, but I'll forgive them for that since despite being demoed at the Microsoft press conference, they are the ones publishing The Beatles: Rock Band. Check out the full video of the conference after the jump along with the reprint of my liveblog twitter feed.
Liveblog Twitter Feed
[EA Presscon 2:03] Electronic Arts up next, being treated to montage of EA titles and big licenses to a pop-music, now event is on.
[EA Presscon 2:05] Trailer for God of War...err Dante's Inferno. Pretty sure these guys have never actually read Dante's Inferno.
[EA Presscon 2:08] SIMS 3 trailer, honestly can't tell what's new from SIMS 2 or anything before.
[EA Presscon 2:10] "Little Pet Shop" targetted at girl stereotypes in the WORST possible way. Seriously, can we break down some barriers?
[EA Presscon 2:12] Wow, that sounds like stock "business training video" music. Hilarious!
[EA Presscon 2:14] Whoops not done stereotyping girls yet. "My Fashion" line of games and "Pajama Party." All guy aud is dying...
[EA Presscon 2:16] Seriously, this is making me die a little inside. Please stop EA, for the LOVE!
[EA Presscon 2:17] Need for Speed: Shift, moving away from arcade style? Closer to a PGR or Forza game. Doesn't look as good as Forza 3.
[EA Presscon 2:20] Props for cool in-car crash view. Haha, giving a way a BMW, that's what it's come to, eh?
[EA Presscon 2:22] I see Dragon Age guys talking, but I'll I hear is "Cliche, cliche, cliche." Ready for the new sh!t"? Is it 2002?
[EA Presscon 2:26] Mass Effect 2, sweet. Clearly Commander Shepard lives. And there's a nuke...a space nuke?
[EA Presscon 2:28] Huzzah, it's Peter! 10 bucks on a new game tattoo :)
[EA Presscon 2:32] Fight Night Round 4 launching June 5th, looks great as always, but no Super Punch Out.
[EA Presscon 2:33] MMA game from EA Sports. Clearly looking to combat the new UFC title. Tattoo tease from Peter, oh you!
[EA Presscon 2:38] Madden NFL 10 now bringing team management tied in with real stats and manageable from your iPhone.
[EA Presscon 2:46] Not much of Active shown, but have heard good things about it.
[EA Presscon 2:47] Pete Sampras now on the stage for new Wii Tennis game. Apparently it's easier than real Tennis, according to Sampras.
[EA Presscon 2:51] The Saboteur, Assassin's Creed in Nazi controlled France. Game starts in B&W and adds color as you influence areas.
[EA Presscon 2:55] Tim Schafer up to talk about Brutal Legend, probably the game I'm most excited about this year.
[EA Presscon 2:56] Awesome, a character was hair so awesome he can fly with it, and guy whose bass playing can heal the sick.
[EA Presscon 2:57] Ozzie Ozborne doing a voice for Brutal Legend. New Trailer to hit on Tuesday, teaser now.
[EA Presscon 2:59] Keeper of the Sacred Beer-tree. Excellent!
[EA Presscon 3:00] Crytek up on stage, just talking about Crysis 2, no videos, no nothing?
[EA Presscon 3:00] Jack Black commercial, not so funny. Let's hope he wasn't the comedy writer.
[EA Presscon 3:05] Teaser for APB, not much to talk about yet. So far few live demos.
[EA Presscon 3:08] Bioware & Lucasarts up on stage dressed as Jedis. Talking about The Old Republic MMO.
[EA Presscon 3:10] The Old Republic to be the first "fully voiced" MMO, not more text bubbles.
[EA Presscon 3:13] Cinematic trailer for TOR, showing massive fight between Jedi council and Sith warriors. Looks pretty awesome.
[EA Presscon 3:17] That's it for EA, sort of a let down compared the Microsoft Conference.