Electronic Arts Message Board older than one year ago

The Secret World, Funcom’s modern day, pop culture-infused MMORPG, has just been given an official release date of June 19th. It’s a little later than some may have been expecting but it does provide plenty of time for some public beta testing. Although no dates for any opening of the beta have been provided, Ragnar Tørnquist, Funcom’s creative director and itinerary planner of the most lengthy journeys, had this to say: “The additional time will also allow us to carry out even more quality beta testing, and soon we will also be announcing several public beta events where hundreds of thousands of gamers will get to test the game prior to launch.” We’ve already played the game and spoken to the chaps behind it, and will have more coverage soon.

Charming-looking action-puzzler Warp, in which you play a cute (if slightly sinister) alien creature which must use peculiar reality-bending abilities to escape from its captors, is already out on the Xbox device, and will appear on Origin and Steam on the 16th of March. There’s a lovely launch trailer to underline this fact, and in it you can watch the protagonist, Zero, disintegrating(more…)

In another example of the games industry twisting a word until its meaning shatters into a thousand pieces of bacon shredding shrapnel, blinding a nearby piglet who only wanted to use his eyes to see what was happening, and who’ll now go through the rest of his life bumping sadly into your leg and hoping you’re not a rabid wolf… that piglet trusted you, damnit! See what you’ve done, industry? Anyway, you’ve tossed around words like “free” and “beta”, blinding curious little animals who only wanted to play with you, and now EA have gone and released a “launch” trailer for their FPS reboot of Syndicate, yet the game remains decidedly unlaunched. Well, it’s not on my PC and another piglet will never be able to appreciate eye things ever again.(more…)

There’s a demo of Mass Effect 3 out. And I don’t want to play it. The culmination of a years-long series, heavily focused on the story of Shepard versus the Reapers, is something I want to approach fresh and clean, not over-burdened by hints and experience. But that’s me – you may want to dive head first into the demo that offers two missions from the game, and lets you create a unique Shepard for the experience, I think. There’s also a glimpse of the multiplayer co-op doodah, but that’s not unlocking until the 17th – er, unless you have a Battlefield 3 online pass activated, and then it works today? Good grief, really? To get the demo you’ll need to head here, and then log in via Origin.

What better way to set foot into the upcoming week than having me going: “Stop! You there, yes you, wearing the ‘I Heart FemShep’ shirt and hugging the plushie Thane. No, the guy behind you. Yup, you. Nice neck tattoo. I know you have work, but there’s an important thing you have to see over *coughMass* here *coughEffect* and you *cough3* really, really *coughfootage* need to see it. Really. Re-ally.’ *wink*? If you want me to me more explicit: there’s a 40 minute video of the opening of Mass Effect 3 a few centimetres below this paragraph, so please stop anything important, like work or cutting an umbilical cord, and watch it.(more…)

#masseffect EA has put a "Mass Effect 3 Mission Command" app on Facebook, through which fans can unlock some Avatar items and possibly get chosen for early access to the game's upcoming beta. There's also a big sweepstakes opportunity to win one of two custom Xbox 360s, painted in the game's Paragon and Renegade themes. EA sent us these pictures earlier today. More »

Having poured many fevered hours into the release version of Kingdoms Of Amalur: Reckoning I can now ask you not to judge it entirely on its weak, wonky demo. Have a read of my review, and then mix the two experiences together to create a potion of critical insight +3.

Here’s wot I think.(more…)

Yesterday we got a chance to get our eyes on the upcoming Mass Effect iOS game, Infiltrator, during an EA press event. But while there's not much to say about the game (it's a third-person shooter set in the Mass Effect universe), it sure was pretty! Take a look for yourself in the gallery just below.

Being famous nowadays is mostly a challenge. Instead of being recognised for hard work, you’re recognised for being recognisable. Getting in the position to be recognised, just known, is more important than talent. Which makes The Sims 3: Showtime an interesting critique of current celebrity culture: if becoming a star is now a gameshow, it takes a game to show that the correct way of doing it is being talented and working hard.(more…)

#syndicate Not all Electronic Arts-published games will be given the Project $10/ Online Pass treatment. Rather than slap Syndicate with a one-use code that unlocks the game's multiplayer features, EA will keep such access free, to grow interest in the shooter's co-op mode it says. More »

EA recorded a net loss of $205 million, but its highest operating cash flow in 31 quarters for the fiscal third quarter ending December 31, 2011. In Q3 2011, EA generated $1.06 billion in net revenue, which is up from the previous Q3, with a net revenue of $1.05 billion. EA's cash flow from operations is recorded at $475 million.

EA's Battlefield 3 and FIFA 12 have each sold more than 10 million units, while Madden 12 sold almost 5 million. PopCap, which EA acquired in August, grew revenue 30 percent on a trailing 12-month basis, and its monthly active users for social games rose to 52 million, up from 39 million the previous year.

I’m not sure whether Channel 4′s The SuperMes is an extremely extensive advert for The Sims 3, or an arch criticism of the nature of reality television. Either way, it’s a man commentating over edited footage of the game, in an attempt to create a Big Brother-style narrative. You can see the first episode, spotted by Gamasutra, below.

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Are you one of those guys in a helicopter hovering near spawn points in Battlefield 3 (say, an aircraft carrier), wantonly exploiting the game and infuriating players? You may not actually be cheating, but we still think you're the worst.

That aside, Battlefield 3 developer DICE is apparently looking to address all cheaters, and not just that guy who ruins the game for everyone with his stupid, stupid helicopter, as the company has posted an ad for an "anti-cheat administrator." The move follows a recent redoubling of DICE's efforts to combat cheating in its latest game release.

Said administrator will be tasked with a variety of responsibilities, many of which you'd expect a community liaison to handle, though the list is oddly missing "put up with staggering levels of infantile behavior from legal adults." Can you tell we don't like cheaters?

In today's least surprising headline, it appears that the upcoming SSX will use an online pass. In an SSX video posted by Giant Bomb, an option to acquire and online pass can be seen clearly in one of the game's menus (pictured above). It's not clear exactly which features the pass will unlock, though some or all online multiplayer features -- a central part of SSX -- seem like a safe bet.

Again, though, it's hardly shocking, given EA's commitment to the concept. Last week, Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning was also confirmed to have an online pass.

We’ve already had a taste of Kingdoms’ blank stares and fighting-game type combat in the demo, but a new trailer shows much more of the world, and rather fancy it looks, too. It shows how the stories are told, as well as showing off some of the more impressive locations. There’s some emphasis on the side-quests, and it promises “secrets” scattered across the landscape, presumably to remind folks that this is an open-ended RPG like those other ones.

The game is out February 7th in North America and February 10th for the Kingdoms Of Europea.(more…)

#amalur Curt Schilling, the head of 38 Studios, has taken to his studio's own forums (and also NeoGAF's) to face the music regarding a buggy demo version of Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning and plans for day-one downloadable content. He's as plain-spoken here as he was on sports radio when he was a Major League Baseball all-star. It's an attribute that got him in trouble in his baseball career, but gamers seem to respond to it little better. More »

Bioware’s white-hot marketing plasma has congealed into a glistening multiplayer combat trailer for Mass Effect 3, which you can see below. In the excitable two-minute sequence, Super-Shep and his surprisingly humanoid alien friends get stuck into a good old clobberin’ session. There are quite a few explosions, and the footage is basically designed to show how while one player is shooting the enemy, another can be stabbing it, or blasting it with a grenade, or using their mutant brain energies to turn it into a far less lively version of itself. That’ll learn ‘em, eh space fans?

Mass Effect 3 will be teleporting star-credits directly out of your wallet on the 6th, 8th, 9th, or 15th of March, depending on which part of the congealed crust of the planet Earth you are tethered.(more…)

#zynga Earlier today, the makers of mobile gaming blockbuster Tiny Tower published the kind of open letter loved by video gaming's instantly and constantly angry *crag*-the-man constituency, not least because it can be disseminated by imgur. It alleged that Zynga, the popularly despised maker of Facebook McGames, stole Tiny Tower's idea and was reaping a dishonest profit from it. More »

#stickjockey Of all ironies, it's Electronic Arts now asking a judge to rule that some video game depictions of real-life names and symbols and products don't need a license. More »

Not the best quality video, for some reason, but the chaps at Evil Avatar spotted a Bioware trailer showing off Mass Effect 3 single player and talking to developer Mac Walters. I’m not sure if this was the video Bioware intended to release as it seems to cut out at the end there. I’ll have a look around and see if there’s a fuller version.(more…)

38 Studios/Big Huge Games’ promising but awkwardly-named RPG Kingdoms of Ham Sandwich: Baconing is only three weeks away now, and you can treat your EYES and EARS and FINGERS and WHATEVER OTHER ORGANS YOU USE TO PLAY GAMES WITH to a fairly sizeable Amalur demo from the Steams right now. So far it’s content I already played for a preview a while back, but it’s well worth a look yourself, to grasp the tone of the game (exposition-heavy fantasy wibbling, I fear, but generously the cutscenes are skippable), the look and the slightly weird-feeling controls, as well as exploring the different playable races, the beard-tastic character customiser and the first touches of combat/skill specialisation.(more…)

When she's not busy shredding the slopes and jumping out of planes, SSX veteran Zoe Payne is doing spin kicks and ... probably hanging out at Hot Topic or something?

Funny thing, The Old Republic – while I’m still not entirely sure whether I like it or not (here I am wrestling with its inherent single/multiplayer duality over on Eurogamer, incidentally), what it has successfully done is restore my appetite for MMOs. I thought that urge was dead in me since the great binge of 2006-2008, but no, there the old hunger for virtual globe-trotting is again. So, hellooooooo Secret World. I had barely a lick of interest in you a few weeks ago, having plonked you square in the “oh, another one” bracket, but now I hopefully wonder if you can meet my dark needs as well as doing something new’n'smart. Let’s take a peek at your gruff British Illuminati and see how I feel.(more…)

EA Interactive, the branch in charge of social and mobile gaming, has been folded into other divisions at EA, most notably to EA Labels and its digital ventures. EAi's former head, Barry Cottle, has jumped ship to join Zynga as executive VP of business and corporate development. Cottle was in charge of EA's social and mobile efforts, including The Sims Social on Facebook and Dead Space on iOS.

EA's digital business brought in more than $1 billion in 2011, and Zynga raised $1 billion in its IPO (although that is off to a rocky start). These are two major players in what we often see as a minor, slightly annoying subsection of the gaming industry, and it will be interesting to see what happens when their streams cross.

Forget about all that Facebook nonsense. SSX is trying to redefine the way you use the word "tagging" between friends with its geotagging feature, allowing players to set hard-to-reach points as challenges for other folks. That's way better than a photo gallery feature if you ask us.

Finding out that cheating has apparently become rampant in Battlefield 3's online multiplayer is somewhat of a travesty, considering how much some members of our staff play it. Neither of our main combatants have ever actually spotted a cheater (at least not in any verifiable way) while playing on Xbox 360, but the game's developer is nonetheless tracking down these nefarious rogues, issuing stat resets and outright bans to offending players across 360, PS3, and PC. The Stockholm, Sweden-based dev's at EA DICE "recently banned another batch of several hundred confirmed cheaters," apparently, and are only stepping up their efforts all the more as time goes on.

The first measure in this initiative will be an addition to Battlelog, one which allows players to report offenders via their online profiles, regardless of what platform they're playing on. With any luck, between the community and DICE, the contingent trying to ruin everyone's online experience will be stomped out quickly.

You know, I didn’t bat an eyelid at the Mass Effect/Dragon Age pre-order crossover stuff, because it seemed like a random lark within Bioware games. Not so! And not limited to the preemptory pounds, either. EA look like they’re going to try the cross-pollinatory approach across a bunch of their other games, too, starting with Mass Effect and Kingdoms Of Amalur demos. We mentioned this briefly yesterday, but there’s now a video (below) detailing precisely what you’d be getting for playing either game’s demo in the other game. This could be some clever meta-commentary on how trad sci-fi and fantasy settings are basically two sides of the same coin, of it could be a mad marketing ploy dreamt up to shift more units: YOU DECIDE!(more…)

James Ohlen is a senior creative director at BioWare, and has spent the last six years working on Star Wars: The Old Republic. We spoke to him to find out how he thinks the launch has gone, how the game is being received, and what we can expect to see in the first update, due next week.

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Next week’s update for Star Wars: The Old Republic is to be called Rise Of The Rakghouls, and plans to add some major new content to the game, focusing on story-heavy features. Senior Creative Director James Ohlen explained to us in an interview we’re posting very soon that along with “a lot of bug fixes and modifications”, there would be the titular new story-focused flashpoint, as well as expanding Karagga’s Palace to have five times as many bosses (five). And this is just the first of many updates they’re already working on. March promises a new planet, warzone, operation, guild banks… And then there’s the updates they’re already working on for next year. You can see the accompanying trailer below.

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Someone at British brick-and-mortar franchise Game seems to have confirmed our expectant attitude towards EA's Need for Speed franchise. The British retail outlet's Twitter account documented a trip to EA for a presentation, and casually let slip plans for a new Need for Speed ("Need for Speed 13!"), as well as mentioning the as-yet-unseen Medal of Honor sequel. As Eurogamer reports, the tweet is no longer available, though other volleys from the account confirm the retailer's presence at an EA presentation.

EA has spoken about a Medal of Honor sequel in the past, though this is the first we've heard of it in quite some time. It's said to be developed by EA's Danger Close studio, and we're not sure if Battlefield studio EA DICE will be once more tasked with handling the multiplayer component. Meanwhile, following the pattern of annual Need for Speed releases, it's likely that Burnout studio Criterion will be tasked with the thirteenth (!!) entry in the series.

We've reached out to EA for comment, but aren't expecting much more than some light under its breath cursing.

[Image credit: GAME]