E.A. E3 Press Conference

Now for a quick rundown on Electronic Arts's Press Conference and my opinions on it. The start made me laugh, they opened with a rundown of what's to come then said "A franchise loved by millions" will be on stage next. Suddenly we get what appears to be the static, drums and lens flares of Battlefield 4... followed by; "BRAAAAINS!" Yep, that's right, it's Plants Vs. Zombies: Garden Warfare, the game that actually might convince me to buy a Used Xbox 360 (yep, that's right Microsoft, suck it, I'm getting a whole used console now). It looks to be a lot of hilarious fun and it's coming to both Xbox 360 and One, take a guess where I'll be putting my money. After this however things take a bit of a dip then rise, dip then rise for an interesting EA Press Conference.

Star Wars: Battlefront, let's put that out there. Whatever they're doing with this game, it looks to be exciting and it got the nerd community all riled up even if it was just a basic 5 second CG trailer followed by a logo. That was a rise, what followed was the announcement of Need for Speed: Rivals. A game that looks pretty solid, but it's really gotten to the point now that not much new in the way of racing games can be offered, a problem faced by Nintendo with their own comedic racing franchise, Mario Kart. The cloud-based opponent A.I. from Forza looks interesting their "Drivitar" as they called it. Yeah, that's going to be an E3 meme for years to come alongside "My Body is Ready", "Giant Enemy Crab" and of course "Non-Specific Action Figure"... man that last one was weird. I'd call Need for Speed a dip, but it was actually alright, it's just they didn't announce anything actually new for it and spent an awful lot of time on it.

This semi-mistake was followed by showing off Dragon Age III: Inquisition, a game they seem to be taking their time with now, due to be released about three and a half years after it's predecessor Dragon Age II, the game is going open world, with you having your ability to influence the world to save it or destroy it. Oh and there's actual dragons this time. So basically it sounds like a better version of Skyrim. The lore in Dragon Age always appealed to me more than in Elder Scrolls, especially the Quinari, they're pretty awesome. I also love the way Dragon Age mirrors their world to ours in the middle ages but in a more fantasy setting. This was followed up by about twenty minutes of sports games. Don't get me wrong, I like sports, hell I love football, I am an ardent Tottenham Hotspur fan, often waking up at 4am to watch games over here in L.A. that are airing at sane hours back in London. But EA Sports took to center stage for so damn long with a weird lyrical intro with a basketball, lots of talk about dribbling and while I'm sure it's all nice and I've played Fifa quite a bit, though I still suck bad, they spent so damn long on it. Especially right after they spent no more than three and a half minutes on what could be BioWare's masterpiece. Perhaps like Battlefront EA just didn't have much to show off of the game. It was a CG trailer once again afterall. Interesting that they've kept the more stylised art style.

There was also a bit more on Battlefield 4, doesn't seem all that different to Battlefield 3 but still looks like a solid game and given how fed up I'm getting with Call of Duty, seems like the game I'm going to try out next as an FPS, along side their new I.P. Titanfall, which looks pretty mecha-badass too. The visuals of BF4 and it's sound are once again absolutely superb I should add. Though aside from "Commander Mode" returning from their previous entries, I didn't' see much new stuff about Battlefield 4, afterall the game is due out soon, so how much more can they say?

Final Thoughts: Overall EA had a fairly good conference, it wasn't much in the way for more hardcore gamers. Nerds like myself were a little disappointed we didn't see more but there's certainly a lot to look forward to and either way, there's always... GARDEN WARFARE.

Conference Rating: 7/10 - GOOD