E3: EA Press Conference

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Electronic Arts showed off their 2009-2010 offerings at an E3 Press Conference, here is a recap.

So, not long after the Microsoft Press Conference this morning, was the Press Briefing for EA.

They started with Dante’s Inferno the third person action game that follows the plot of Alighieri’s “The Divine Comedy“.

As a transition, we got to see a quick trailer for The Sims 3 but of course, we’ll all know much more about this game in just a few short hours.

Next was tween market games, Littlest Pet Shop and a new series of games called the Charm Girls Club. There was a short ‘hair teasing demo’ from some girls to show off one of the many minigames available in the CGC series.

Things changed here to some of the more serious new games, like Need for Speed: Shift. (EA is giving away for BMW M3 at E3) and Dragon Age: Origins which is coming out this October. We got to see some in game cinematics for this, but they don’t look much different than what’s already been released in commercial trailers. They showed the trailer for Mass Effect 2 and talked out it’s release next Spring.

Next was a good amount of talk from EA Sports where we got to see a little of in game action from Fight Night Round 4, coming out June 25th, and an announcement for an MMA (Mixed Martial Arts) game coming out in 2010. There was some good news for fans of the Tiger Woods games where, EA is launching Tiger Woods PGA Tour Online where you can get and share information from the game direct in a internet browser. This news led to the news of the interactive site called Team Builder that’s available today, a month before Madden 10 comes out. The Team Builder site will be available wherever you can get online (yes, there’s an app for that) and you can use it not only to keep track of your teams and scores but also to create your own team. Of course, one of the things EA Sports wanted to talk about was their new EA Sports Active which in the two weeks since it’s release has sold 600k units. They’re taking their new property seriously and already have an expansion planned for this holiday season. The last part of the Sports announcements was the new Grand Slam Tennis. This game comes out next week and utilizes the new Wii Motion Plus. Surprise guest Pete Sampras came on to take over from the VP during some quick match play, and said that Grand Slam Tennis is ‘easier’.

After all the Sports announcements, things changed gears again, and we got to see a trailer and some in game play footage from The Saboteur. One of the coolest things we saw in this game play is the black and white world that starts to colorize as The Saboteur starts writing the wrongs of the Third Reich in Paris. The Saboteur is planned to ship this holiday season.

Next was a little Brutal Legend trailer footage as well as a nice video from Jack Black. If you’re a rock/metal fan you might find the big names of Ozzy Osborne, Lita Ford, Rob Halford and Lenny Kilmister a good reason to check out the game when it comes out on October 13th.

The Crytek CEO came out and announced that they’re working with EA on Crysis 2 for the Xbox360, PS3 and PC. But there was no footage, no screenshots or concept art, and no dates.

There was also an announcement about EA’s partnerships with Realtime Worlds to develop the new MMO – APB (All Points Bulletin) an interesting sort of street gang type gameplay with highly customizable characters.

Lastly, we got the announcement from Bioware and Lucas Arts about Star Wars: The Old Republic the highly anticipated MMO that takes place thousands of years before the appearance of Darth Vader. One of the interesting announcements about this game is that it will be the first ever fully voiced MMO which means thousands of speaking parts throughout the entire game.

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