The hours I spent killing Ewoks and suicide flying fighters into starships in Star Wars: Battlefront I & II are easily some of the best times I had as a gamer. So it was with enormous raindrop like tears and arms wide open that I watched the teaser trailer for the new Star Wars: Battlefront like a long, lost love had returned home and things were going to be alright.
Am I over selling this a bit? God I wish I was because it would be less embarrassing.
Last month Disney shuttered LucasArts and laid off 150 employees effectively ending the company’s 30 year history. Now Disney has struck a deal with EA to bring future Star Wars games to consoles and other platforms. The closing of LucasArts was definitely a sad day in the video game world, but this should excite fans of the galaxy far, far away because it means that all of EA’s studios like Bioware, DICE, etc. can now develop new Star Wars titles.
All I ask is that I get a proper KOTOR III….or revive Battlefront.
“The Walt Disney Company (DIS) and Electronic Arts Inc. (EA) today announced a new multi-year exclusive licensing agreement to develop and publish globally new games based on Star Wars characters and storylines.
Under the agreement, EA will develop and publish new Star Wars titles for a core gaming audience, spanning all interactive platforms and the most popular game genres, while Disney will retain certain rights to develop new titles within the mobile, social, tablet and online game categories.
“Every developer dreams of creating games for the Star Wars universe,” said EA Labels President Frank Gibeau. “Three of our top studios will fulfill that dream, crafting epic adventures for Star Wars fans. DICE and Visceral will produce new games, joining the BioWare team which continues to develop for the Star Wars franchise. The new experiences we create may borrow from films, but the games will be entirely original with all new stories and gameplay.”
So EA had their big Battlefield 4 reveal last night showing 17 minutes of the game in an attempt to show how this game will be a new era for Battlefield. While the game is undeniably beautiful, the new era thing may be a bit much. After watching it, here is what I took away from the footage:
1. The game might as well be called Military Again: Shoot Things.
2. It is now a requirement that all modern military shooters must shoot down at least one helicopter every three missions.
3. This does at least make me excited to see what other games that utilize the Frostbite 3 engine (next Mass Effect) will look like.
4. Can we just go back to shooting Nazis….at least for a few years?
5. The guy named Irish (?) looks like Booker T. I kept waiting for him to do a spinaroonie in the middle of a firefight.
Not to be outdone by Tomb Raider’s numbers, EA has released their own set of numbers for SimCity in a press release. If you really want to read the entire, long winded thing then I applaud you. I am just going to post the numbers that EA touted this morning.
In just two weeks:
– SimCity players have logged more than 15 million hours of online gameplay.
– More than 5.7 million original cities have been created since launch.
– More than 780 million buildings have been built.
– SimCity mayors to date have built enough road and railroad tracks to circle the globe more than 40,000 times.
First thought from me is exactly how many of those cities have been created, lost and recreated because of the SimCity servers not being able to handle the number of players online at one time? It is like when Sony mentions the lifetime sales of the Playstation 2. Sure it may be the best selling console ever, but how many of those consoles were multiple buys by customers because the first few years of PS2’s were pieces of shit? I had three, how about you?
I am happy that Maxis and EA are finally getting the game to a serviceable level, but there is no other way to describe SimCity’s launch other than one of the biggest cluster fu**s to happen in gaming.
It’s March Madness time again and we all know what that means!! It’s Madden cover vote bracket time!!
Yeah, I know college basketball fans are wondering why football has to try and take attention away from the greatest playoff system going in sports and I am sure Roger Goodell would simply say, “It’s football, f*** you.”
ESPN.com has the 64 player bracket up and it is a fine list of legends and players from today for you to vote on and see who will grace the 25th anniversary cover of Madden NFL. Although I am not sure why Jake Delhomme is on the list. I was pretty sure I saw him working at a Zaxby’s last week.
When you go and cast your vote, just remember that even though there is a long list of quality players to choose from they left out the one quarterback that should be on the cover every year.
Ryan Leaf.
Reports are swirling that EA has officially put the “dead” in Dead Space and effectively cancelled the franchise after sales for Dead Space 3 did not meet expectations. EA has been laying off employees in their Los Angeles and Montreal studios as part of the company’s restructuring plans, which now includes no more Dead Space.
EA’s expectations for the game were too high and everyone knew it. Last year, CEO John Riccitiello said he thought that Dead Space 3 could sell 5 million copies. Remember when selling a million copies used to be considered a hit and sequel worthy?
Despite the sad news, Dead Space 3 received a glowing 9.5 review from us and should be experienced.
UPDATE
EA has responded to the story this morning saying that the Dead Space franchise is still alive and well at Visceral Montreal and remains one of their most important IP’s.
During a recent media and technology conference, EA’s chief technical officer,Rajat Taneja, had many glowing things to say about Sony’s recently announced behemoth Playstation 4.
“We are excited about Sony’s news and the launch of the next-gen of consoles. At EA, we have never been as prepared or more ready for the start of a new console.”
Taneja went on to say that there were really no more limits with development that they have experienced in the past.
“We no longer have to constrain our games or ration computer graphics, memory or bandwidth. We can let the games really flourish in 1080p, 60 frames a second” on PS4, presenting “a level of gameplay experience that is unprecedented.”
He also talked of EA’s enthusiasm about the next generation of gaming with the PS4, “We are excited about Sony’s news and the launch of the next-gen of consoles. At EA, we have never been as prepared or more ready for the start of a new console.”
Fans of Mass Effect 3’s multiplayer are getting a nice, shiny new DLC pack to download today and the best part is that it is absolutely free.
Mass Effect 3: Reckoning will add new allies, weapons and equipment. Geth Juggernaut, Cabal Vanguard, Talon Mercenary along with others are now playable characters as well as seven new weapons and equipment like the Geth Scanner and Batarian Gauntlet.
Mass Effect 3: Reckoning is up on PSN and XBL. Take a look at the trailer below.
A pair of new trailers for Tiger Woods PGA Tour 14 show how this year’s entry into the franchise will be a celebration of golf’s great history. To go along with the list of modern day stars like Tiger Woods and Rory McIlroy, there is a host of legends including the likes of Ben Hogan, Jack Nicklaus and Seve Ballesteros.
The game will feature an all new physics engine as well as player specific swings and classic versions of historic courses.
[amazon_link id=”B00A7QA0Q6″ target=”_blank” container=”” container_class=”” ]Tiger Woods PGA Tour 14[/amazon_link] releases on March 26th.
In the wake of THQ’s auction which saw their properties and studios sold off, one glaring party left out was the WWE name. Some have said that EA was in the market to pick up the sports entertainment brand but they have denied those rumors because we know how EA doesn’t like to buy franchises and ruin them.
Now it seems that Take Two, the parent company of 2K, has stepped up to the plate and purchased the rights to Vince McMahon’s multi-million dollar name in games. It is sad to see the THQ era of wrestling games come to an end, especially with WWE 13 being such a great game last year. At least the team at Yuke’s and THQ went out with the best WWE game ever. Now we get to look forward to the future.
WWE 2K14 anyone?