Tuesday, June 10, 2014

EA E3 2014 breakdown extravaganza!

This is Dave Fluffytails,bringing you news live from the Los Angeles Convention Center, for the fantastic, magnifiscent, innnncredible....annual Electronic Entertainment Expo 2014, commonly known as E3, courtesy of the live Gamespot laggy stream!

Millions of fans have flocked in the website to get a glimpse of tommorow..today! Preceded by Microsoft, it was EA's turn to drop the bombshells. Or better say, give us some more refurbished games!

Quick breakdown ladies and gents!
  1. Star Wars: Battlefront
  2. Dragon Age: Inquisition
  3. The Sims 4
  4. NFL 15
  5. Fifa 15
  6. PGA World Tour 2015
  7. Mass Effect 4
  8. NHL 15
  9. UFC 2015
  10. Dawngate
  11. Battlefield Hardline
  12. A new ip
  13. Mirror's Edge 2
So the Worst Company in America for 2013 was rather predictable once more with their only unusual announcement a very alpha footage of a game that involves parachutes, helicopters, vehicles etc. All in first person view.

Presenters brimming with confidence and ludicrous hand gestures, Barack Obama as a sim, our own representation of Greece in the person of Steven Papoutsis and amazingly bad descriptions, E3 is a trolling heaven for the presenters of Gamespot! Kevin Van Ord sneezing was the most explosive moment after the terrible on stage players.

Let's grab the bull by the horns and start rolling the info! Trolls rejoice, i'm going to inject you with mind-numbing details and overly biased opinions about each game i saw and how much it interests me!

1) Star Wars: Battlefront

I like this franchise. I remember wrecking havoc as Darth Vader. It was cool but i never played it on real multiplayer. Don't ask why. I am trying to remember what i saw and it's not much. A bunch of guys from DICE (yay Stockholm city!) at different landscapes revisiting the sceneries of the old Star Wars movies trying to get a feeling of how the battlefield would look like and feel alive. It's not one of my most anticipated games, but after enjoying the multiplayer component of Battlefield 3, i expect DICE to make it worth the wait and eject the repressed memories of Force-Unleashed 2. You will only see minor details or in-game footage such as a speeder in the forests.

The boys are back..

2) Dragon Age: Inquisition

This is actually funny. Incredible franchise with limitless potential but great mismanagement during the end. The first game was a classic. Bioware really gave me an experience i lacked since Kotor. Great characters, nice storytelling and presentation, great bond with the characters too. Then Dragon Age II came to hit my little fairy mirror with a ten-ton sledgehammer. Boring stuff. I do not remember a single thing from that game. Maybe some shady elf-dude with a dagger that tried to doublecross me and i am not even sure it's from that game.

The footage shown was nice, the graphics were brilliant for this type of game and the gameplay felt fluid. The overhead tactical camera makes a return from the first game, something that is welcome. I can't say i care about the characters much at this point. The presentation was terrible, just a cheap shot punchline for each character, like "oh this is sissy, what's her true agenda?", or "he can escape anything but his own past". Ok i do not recall the exact lines but i did expect some more creativity. But they didn't want to spoil anything so early before release so it is sort of understanding. There was also a nice lady playing an instrument in real time. Oh and the Fereldan Dragon looked so awesome! But but....Witcher 3 "cough".

Bioware, please don't mess this up!


3) The Sims 4

So there comes a middle aged lady, suitable enough to fill us in the Sims 4. After 3 games and a dozen spin offs, let a lone a GAZILLION expansions that have been rehashed, reused and renamed to milk consumers and make them spend their hard-earned $$, i was cautious on what to expect. More mini-games, more sim interaction, more customization, more in-game purchases...And they pretty much lived up to the expectations!

You can now customize your sim with more details, perks and traits, shape his personality and make him a devil, an idiot, a mucha-lucha wrestler or an angry old lady that hate's Chuck's poems. Chuch was the protagonist sim in the demonstration and he died from laughter. Literally. They downloaded another custom-made sim from another player and the global database into their game and she started playing the piano. And Chuch died. Oh wait that's the new feature! I am done with Sims after Sims 3: Pets. No thanks! At least have the balls to rename it to The Sims: The quest for money.

Why did they ever go away?...


4) NFL 15

I won't lie. I don't know anything about rugby, nor i care. I am from Europe so i watch football. Soccer. Call it however you like it. So i will only give the details about this game. It's the same yearly reboot and the biggest difference is the defensive tweaks so they make playing defence during games more interesting and less boring. I cannot understand the technical stuff but they did show improved camera angles to help the player and thrust him into the action.

New year, new game for EA sports.

5) Fifa 15

"Feel the game". That's the new FIFA's punchline. To be honest i was always a PES fan but i became increasingly fond of FIFA games over the last few years. But all this yearly releases reminds me of my favorite shoes. I wear them so much that they don't feel that special. This year is all about player emotions and improved AI and physics along with the basic improvements in graphics, pitch wear and tear, facial animations and crowd improvements. Oh and was it me or Luis Suarez looked horrible in the gameplay video?

If that's the cover picture then they really need to find their marketing director.


6) PGA World Tour 2015

Now this is actually interesting! I am not sure how to feel about this game. Like hockey and rugby i don't enjoy seeing people hitting balls with sticks to put them in the hole, let alone play that game in my spare time. And i do not have loads of free time i can tell you that! But what if you took the best conventional golf courses, rendered them with Frostbite 3 engine, added crocodiles into lakes and huge battleships during an apocalyptic World-War setting golf course? It's like battlefield everywhere! It could be also called Battlefield World Golf Tour. 

Gives a new meaning to golf without limits.


7) Mass Effect 4

Throw me any bone that has Mass Effect written on it and i will jump and hunt it like a ravenous wolf starved for days. But all they showed was planet exploration and the amazing achievement of reaching new planets and discovering what's there. Oh wait...that's...been done before? Craptastic.

I did expect to be shown some basic stuff and secretly hoped for a tiny bit of early gameplay but that was like trying to coax Gabe Newell to disclose information about Half-Life 3. I am excited about this game and they have 2 more games after that to screw the ending like the last one, so yeah, this will be a definite purchase. Plus i hope that the game will look better now that the new consoles are here (atrocious textures of the characters in Mass Effect 3 yay!).

What does the future bring for the Mass Effect universe? Stay tuned.


8) NHL 15

One more game i cannot discuss much nor i have the experience to do so is the new NHL game for next-gen consoles. I also game on a PC and hockey is scarce in Greece, though that will change when i move to Sweden soon. I do have a friend that plays it here as a goalie but i would rather play the real thing rather than do it in my room. But that's just me. They did not show much of the game though, just a trailer with some scripted scenes. A pass for me.

If you are a fan of hockey, do not miss this!


9)UFC 2015

"'You must be shapeless, formless, like water. When you pour water in a cup, it becomes the cup. When you pour water in a bottle, it becomes the bottle.."

Rings a bell? It should, because Bruce Lee said it and he comes to kick your ass in the newest iteration of UFC! The game looked cool, felt fluid enough but it's not coming out for PC, which makes me a sad panda since i practice kick-boxing for 3 years. It had gameplay of one round against a 2 time lightweight champion of the UFC ending into a spinning high kick and a head knockout for Brucie boy. If you are a fan of the series, you will like it.

Bruce Lee in tight boxers kicking ass.


10) Dawngate

A Moba for a tablet? Who? What? Why? I skipped that presentation because i could not be bothered. Go play Candy Crush Saga or Bejewel'd.

It does look nice for a tablet game.

11) Battlefield Hardline

Battlefield was the last game shown with a breaking announcement that you can sign up for the beta which starts now! A fat santa-like dude from SONY briefly came and explained how you can do it in PS4 as well.  You can sign up for the limited slots in the closed beta here.

The concept was over 2-3 years old since BF3 came out. The game looked like BF4. Gorgeous visuals, mayhem, destruction of a bigger scale with a massive crane demolishing a big part of a skyscraper. We saw some new weapons, a real time use of the zip-line, the grapling climb and even more horrible players shooting other horrible players. The mode shown was heist which involves thieves getting the loot and the police stopping them. I loved Battlefield 3 and i skipped BF4 (lucky me!) so i might as well get this on release if it's bug free (trolololol). They also had 64 computers after the end of the show for gamers to test it and some weird computer camp on the roof of a tall building with players playing Hardline there on a helipad.

I liked it, it reminded me of Payday 2 and i am curious if they will make it work and how they are going to incorporate the vehicles, choppers and how on earth they would fit jets there if there are any!

I hope this breathe's some fresh air into the franchise. But give me Bad Company 3 already!

12) A new ip

Not much to say here, just a very very alpha footage of a game that involves every transport known to man, flying squirrel parachutes, atv's, bikes, cars etc. All in first person view in different locations and landscapes. I still do not see the purpose of this game or what would the objective be but let's wait.

13) Mirror's Edge 2

Faith is officially back but do not expect much from the E3 showing. They just talk about the character and her strength and determination and how they design her and how it all started bla bla and how they mounted camera's on parkour artists to capture the feeling jibber jabber and how they want the game to evolve and feel fluid.

I like the franchise, i hope this cultivates into something nice! Looking forward to more footage.

High hopes for this one too!

Soooo that's it from Dave Fluffytails, the worst journalist in the world covering the worst company in america! Ubisoft is next! Get ready for more Assassin's creed!

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