Electronic Arts Message Board older than one year ago

We're of the firm opinion that your time is too precious, too valuable to be spent reading a full review for a game that was already reviewed many, many years ago. What's the point of applying a score to a game that's old enough to be enrolled in the sixth grade? That's why we invented Deja Review: A quick look at the new features and relative agelessness of remade, revived and re-released games. The original Crysis is an abstract concept for many. Whether through actual technical limitations or a perception thereof, it was the destroyer of worlds and PCs, seen as out of reach for all but the most tech-driven of PC gamers. It's been so easy to get caught up in the question of "can it run Crysis" that there's a swath of gamers who have never asked "how is Crysis?"

But here we are, with Crysis (the first) finally making its way to six year old hardware. It runs. But is it fun?

Crikey, from being an unknown (and yet somehow inevitably always an FPS) project of rumour and vapour, there’s already footage of Syndicate to coo at/smash up your house in rage because of. Ten minutes of it! Which you can watch below.

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Popcorn Dragon will be ready for some sizzling sales on the iOS App Store this winter. The title was just revealed at an EA event in New York, with no announcement of price or other target platforms being made at this time.

In the game, you shoot fireballs and make popcorn that the dragon then attempts to eat. Think: popcorn Fruit Ninja with a cute, mythical beastie. Also, given how much EA paid for PopCap, we're sure that it paid competent lawyers to work out any potential legal issues that could arise from a children's book with the same name.

ENTHUSIASM! Those clever folks at Bioware have been able to explain what’s going on with Mass Effect 3′s new multiplayer (including some kind of drop-in and drop-out co-op mode) via a new move-o-screen presentation which is delivered via “Bioware Pulse”, and contains considerable enthusiasm for the idea of Bioware games. And why wouldn’t it? They’re quite literally some games you can play, if you want.

Video! Below! NOW!(more…)

As the debate continues about whether the Battlefield 3 beta was a mistake, we can all agree that the series delivers amazing destructible environments. So, go ahead and gargle this destruction trailer as a palate cleanser after that bitter beta.

#easports Another hall-of-fame sports star—Bill Russell, the Boston Celtics great—has sued Electronic Arts over what he calls the unauthorized use of his likeness from his college career more than 50 years ago. More »

Siliconera's mystery mole has provided more details about the premise of Dead Space 3, including one new character whose presence sounds like it will change the tone of the game significantly.

We'll put the specifics after the break in the interest of protecting your delicate eyes from (unconfirmed) spoilers, but we're pretty sure this will be a central (read: widely advertised) aspect of this still-unannounced game anyway.

The Battlefield 3 open beta isn't just for fun and war games. EA has been listening to feedback from players and the Battlefield Blog now has a list of the most important fixes that will be in the game's final version (with a full list in the Battlelog news section):

I do so love maps, and just one of the maps I have been taking a look at this morning is this one from Star Wars: The Old Republic. As if there were any doubt about the amount of content Bioware are churning out for this MMO, this Unity-powered map details every planet that features in the game, across five sectors of space, and even details a number of the spacecraft that will feature in the game. I think it’s a bit of a shame they didn’t opt for a “zoom” sort of navigation of the maps, but it’s fun to see the game laid out in this way.

Anyone have any other map-related news?

Today we are faced with a series of questions. How is it possible to convince even more people to buy The Sims 3? Who would be targeted in such a drive? People who are still clinging to the arguably more complete and less buggy Sims 2, where they can already own pets? What about the cynics and naysayers, can they be convinced? What is the hook that will snare a new audience? EA have decided to offer a teaser, which is kind of like a demo but not. The teaser can be downloaded or played online through the Gaikai cloud service. That’s a new one on me so I decided to see how it worked and what it offered. The first and most difficult step was making my way inside.

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EA has announced a new service called EA Legend, designed not for consumers, but instead to provide marketers with information about how players are using and engaging with EA products and their related advertisers. For example, EA would be able to provide advertisers with information about their users on iOS apps, Facebook games, and even online and other console games where advertising takes place, and those advertisers and marketers would then be able to figure out when and where best to reach the audience they want.

EA's Senior VP of Global Media Solutions Dave Madden says that the company has increased its reach by 30% in the past year, and that EA Legend will help advertisers break that audience down, and give them "actionable insights across all of our platforms and a complete view into how their campaigns are driving engagement with consumers."

In other words, EA's got your eyeballs, and EA Legend will help advertisers buy them. EA is premiering the service at next week's Advertising Week conference in New York City.

#syndicate Same cool concept, same cool aesthetic, very tired genre. More »

Battlefield 3's open multiplayer beta should now be available for all on Xbox 360, PS3 and PC. The infantry focused "Operation Metro" map is the sampler for the beta, pitting two sides against each other in Rush Mode. One team defends, while the other attempts to destroy several sets of objectives before they get turned to Swiss cheese.

The beta will end on October 10. There's not much time to fret afterward, as the full game will hit stores and EA's Origin shop on October 25.

Okay, here it is: the first Syndicate trailer.(more…)

I’ll tell you: according to Gamasutra, it’s coming out in February of 2012. The 21st in the North America and the 24th in Europlace. That’s relatively soon! Yes it is. Also, there’s now a website for the game over here. It’s not much of a website, but it does say this: “AT THE FRONT LINE OF THIS WAR ARE THE AGENTS, THE SYNDICATE’S BIO-ENGINEERED AND CHIP-AUGMENTED ENFORCERS. THEY CAN BREACH ANYTHING IN THE WIRED DATAVERSE INCLUDING THEIR ENEMIES, THEIR WEAPONS AND THE ENVIRONMENT THAT SURROUNDS THEM, MAKING THEM THE MOST EFFICIENT AND DEADLY TECHNOLOGICAL WEAPONS IN THE WORLD. TAKE ON THE ROLE OF MILES KILO, EUROCORP’S LATEST PROTOTYPE AGENT, AND EMBARK ON A BRUTAL ACTION ADVENTURE OF CORRUPTION AND REVENGE.”

Miles Kilo. That’s his name. That’s your name. You are him.

EA's poured millions into the development of Battlefield 3; what's another $1.6 million handed out to its players? In conjunction with the competition specialists at Virgin Gaming, EA is holding a "Battlefield 3 Worldwide Conquest Tournament" in early 2012.

Details are slim at the moment, but the competition will take place online, leading up to a live finale and the dispensation of said $1.6 million. For an idea of the scale of this, Virgin's Killzone 3 challenge had $40,000 at stake, and that was backed by shaving cream money. Thick, foamy shaving cream money.

Electronic Arts is hosting a gaming press event in Las Vegas this week, and was promising the reveal of "at least one completely new title" and it looks like that title is ... Shank 2?

In EA's liveblog, when asked "Is this the 'new ip' ?," EA's Andy Katkin replied, "You got it Mike." We're as confused as you are, but this other comment by Katkin may provide some insight. "Shank 2 isn't just a reboot of Shank," Katkin wrote, "it's an entirely new game." Klei Entertainment's Jamie Cheng said, "What we did was rip the game apart and reconstruct it to allow us to have more responsive controls and better graphics. We tore our combat system apart ... and created new controls to be able to use the enemies' weapons against themselves."

Klei also added an online co-op mode, a feature largely tacked onto the original, by way of a "prequel" level. "Instead of just giving another co-op campaign that you play once and never play again," Cheng explained, "we took the mechanics and created a new way of playing: multiplayer co-op survival mode." We don't know what that string of buzzwords means either, but we suspect we'll find out soon enough.

Shank 2 will be "available in early 2012," on the same digital distribution services as the original, though notably Katkin says he does not "know of" a PC release at this time.

Need For Sped: The Run, EA’s attempt to blend racing with scripted action, continues to intrigue me with the latest trailer. It doesn’t really show off that much in-game action, instead opting to set up the story in which the protagonist, Jack, finds himself forced into a $25m-prize race from San Francisco to New York. The trailer seems to hint a few of the events that might take place along the way, such as avalanches and fights with cops. It’s going to be genuinely fascinating to see how people react to this hybrid approach.(more…)

Pleasingly-looking RPG Kingdoms Of Amalur: Reckoning (which Alec got to have a look at in detail recently and will be writing about soon) has a new trailer, with a lot more detail about what’s going on in the world, and what you can expect to see and do a “hero” of that world. Go take a look, below. (Via Blue.)(more…)

#bioware Jade Empire, the Xbox-exclusive RPG BioWare released in 2005, is "a franchise that's near and dear to us," BioWare's founders said at Eurogamer Expo today. " It's a setting that we're really passionate about, and we still are." More »

#battlefield The Xbox 360 might be getting Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 expansion packs first, but the PS3 gets Battlefield 3 ones first. More »

Not unlike Microsoft and Activision's agreement to give Xbox early access to Call of Duty DLC, Sony and EA have arranged for Battlefield 3 expansions to arrive with an exclusive lead on PlayStation 3. However, Battlefield 3's expansions will stay exclusive to the PS3 for a shorter period: one week per expansion.

The deal kicks off with "Back to Karkand," which launches "later this year" and brings with it four Battlefield 2 maps (including Wake Island) rebuilt in the Frostbite 2.0 engine. The expansion comes free with first-run copies of Battlefield 3 for all platforms, though it now seems it won't be available for download immediately.

The Battlefield 3 beta opens on PC (check the system requirements), PS3 and Xbox 360 on September 29.

The Battlefield 3 multiplayer open beta will deploy on September 29 for PC, Xbox 360 and PS3. The beta map to be played ad nauseam is "Operation Metro." It pits two sides against each other in Rush Mode, where one team is tasked with destroying several sets of objectives, while the other defends.

Access to the beta will be available on September 27 to PC players who pre-order the game through EA's Origin service and to console players who pre-ordered Medal of Honor Limited Edition last year (remember that game?) Those uninterested in playing tester for EA can grab the full game on October 25.

#battlefield You've seen DICE's visually stunning war game Battlefield 3 on the PC. You've seen in on the PlayStation 3. Now see—with EA's official blessing this time—what the Xbox 360 is capable in the second trailer for Battlefield 3's "Operation Guillotine." More »

Electronic Arts' Visceral Studios in Melbourne will reportedly shut down this Monday. Kotaku reports that it has a source claiming as much, the IGDA chapter in Melbourne is "happy to help all affected" in any way it can and The Age's Screen Play Blog is hearing the same rumors.

Kotaku's source states Patrick Soderland of DICE, now a VP at EA's Games Label, decided the console game the team had been working on for the past few years wouldn't be profitable and pulled the plug on the project and studio.

EA Visceral Melbourne worked on Dead Space, Godfather 2 and Dante's Inferno. We've contacted the publisher for comment.

#battlefield The first thing I notice when I maneuver Sgt. Henry Blackburn, 1st Recon Marine, through the smoking door frame of the Tehran apartment complex isn't the smoldering bodies lying on the ground nearby, it's the piece of paper drifting through the room. More »

EA and Starbreeze Studios' remake of PC gaming classic Syndicate has been one of the industry's worst-kept secrets. First unveiled as "Project Redlime," copyright filings fingered the actual product over a year ago. And this morning, after leaking details of the game on its own Origin service, EA and Starbreeze are finally ready to "reveal" Syndicate to the world.

"We are excited to finally reveal what we've been working on the past couple years," Starbreeze CEO Mikael Nermark told a press release. "It's been a great experience working with EA, and an amazing opportunity for us to use our expertise in the first person shooter and action genres to bring back, and reignite, the signature action/espionage gameplay of Syndicate."

In Syndicate, you play "Miles Kilo, Eurocorp's latest prototype agent," tasked with navigating a "Machiavellian world run without government oversight with many syndicates vying for total dominance of their local market place," set in the year 2069. Helping you navigate that complex web of intrigue: GUNS!

"Our goal with Syndicate is to provide a challenging action shooter for today's gamers as well as fans of the original," says EA Partners' Jeff Gamon. But if you're worried you won't have enough guns, Syndicate offers "a separate and deep 4-player co-op mode featuring missions from the original cult classic." And while it may have taken EA and Starbreeze some time to officially announce the project, it isn't wasting time in getting it into our hands; Syndicate is expected to be released in "early 2012" for Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, and PC.

Oh dear. It appears as if some customers of EA’s latest annual hitting a ball with a stick simulator aren’t too pleased. The Tiger Woods series has been absent from the PC all the way since Tiger Woods 2008, but this year marked its return to the almighty desktop. Sadly, it seems that instead of being a port of the high-end console version, like what EA used to do, it is based on the free-to-play, Unity-based, Tiger Woods Online.(more…)

After the rumours spilled out, EA and Starbreeze’s well known secret is finally official. Syndicate (the official site isn’t yet working, but should be there) has been announced, and yes, it’s an FPS. And yes, it offers four-player co-op. And it’s only called “Syndicate” so far. Surprisingly, it’s due out early next year. They’re describing it as a “revival”. Because when you think Syndicate, you think “a unique and brutal sci-fi first-person shooter experience”. Right?

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#electronicarts The New York Times this morning published an extensive look at the system of tax incentives and breaks exploited by games makers, concluding that their write-offs to research and development costs satisfy the letter, but not the spirit, of 50-year-old tax policies that by now defy common sense. More »