We have moved a couple of miles from Microsoft"s press conference to the Orphem Theater in downtown Los Angeles as we await the start of Electronic Arts pre-E3 2011 press event. EA has already announced that some EA Sports titles as well as Mass Effect 3 will have Kinect support but what else might they reveal? Stay tuned as we will begin constant updates to this post soon.
The press conference has begun with a live demo of Mass Effect 3 which just got a release date of March 6, 2012. Commander Shepard is trying to fight of a massive Reaper attack with a big gun travelling on a rail. It seems to be more action pack than previous games in the series. A new action pack trailer was also shown.
Next is Need For Speed The Run, the next game in the arcade racing game series. For the first time in the series there will also be action sequences that will take place out of the car. The live demo of the game, running on Battlefield 3"s Frostbite 2 engine, looks pretty incredible and the on foot sequence where a driver gets out and runs and jumps through buildings is very cool. He also gets into some man-to-man combat with a cop. There"s a final sequence where the driver has to get out of a wrecked car before a train smashes it.
Next comes Star Wars The Old Republic. Raids, big boss battles, and Tattoine will be shown during E3 2011. A CGI trailer, combining new footage with previous CGI trailer footage, was shown.
The theater filled with smoke as the next video showed off SSX, the next snowboarding game from EA. It will use satellite mapping to recreate the major mountain ranges for the game.
FIFA 12 is next. The next version of the best selling soccer game will have an all new graphics engine, new tactical defending and more. It will also have a realistic player physics model that will allow more contact between layers on the field. A video is shown telling us how the FIFA game franchise helps to promote soccer worldwide.
FIFA 12 will also have the EA Sports Football Club, a live service that will allow fans to connect with other FIFA players. You can choose your own football club, track progresss of your friends, take on challenges to advance in the Football Club"s leaderboards and more.
Next come Madden NFL. After a quick video, NLF players Ray Lewis, Peyton Hillis and Clay Matthews showed up on stage with Matthews holding the Super Bowl trophy. The game is due out on August 30. No mention was made of a possible strike by NFL players.
EA announced that The Sims Social, a new version of the Sims series, will be coming to Facebook.
Next its former baseball player Curt Shilling to talk about and show off a trailer for the upcoming 38 Studios fantasy RPG Kingdom of Amalur Reckoning. The trailer looks good.
Next comes Insomniac Games which announced its next major game OverStrike. The game centers on a team called OverStrike 9 who have to fight threats in the near future. There"s lots of action and high tech gadgets (personal force field, stealth and more. It"s coming for the Xbox 360 and PS3.
Finally there"s Battlefield 3, which now has a launch date of October 25. A trailer shows off the graphical features of the game"s Frostbite 2 engine. Then another demo shows off Operation Metro, set in Paris. Developer Digital Illusions also announced Battlog, a social network which will be 100 percent free. A multiplayer open beta will go live in September.
A live demo was shown as a tank battalion is moving in the desert to face off against another tank group. Again the game is a visual treat. The demo is mostly in first person. The action switched to an aerial view as we witnessed a bombing run on a target before the tank crew gets there.
That"s it for EA"s E3 2011 press briefing. Now we head to Ubisoft"s event just a few blocks down the road. See you there.
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