Posts with tag electronic-arts
by Jason Dobson Jul 23rd 2008 9:20AM
Filed under: Culture, Business
In a season of Hollywood blockbusters, it's no wonder why Electronic Arts would want to sink its teeth into the movie industry's delicious celluloid pie. This morning the company announced that it signed with talent and literary agency, UTA, to help catapult its properties onto the silver screen.
EA currently has
a movie deal in the works for
The Sims, as well as plans to bring an animated version of
MySims to TV. In addition, earlier this year EA
signed a deal with Starz Media to develop an animated prequel to
Dead Space, as well as other unspecified franchises. But that's just the tip of the iceberg, as EA notes that this new deal will "significantly ramp up" efforts to bring its IP to other forms of entertainment, such as movies and television, as well as online, print, and social networks. With some of these projects likely to surface this week in San Diego during Comic-Con, are there any EA properties you could see yourself sitting through with a bucket of popcorn in your lap?
by Griffin McElroy Jul 20th 2008 6:30PM
Filed under: Sony PlayStation 3, Nintendo Wii, Microsoft Xbox 360, Sports
We're not exactly sure why anyone would want to punch EA Sports' charismatic figurehead,
Peter Moore -- especially in his cherubesque face. Still, we guess it's nice to have that opportunity available, should you someday develop a strong Moore aversion. However, traveling to Pete's home and mercilessly pummeling him would likely be a costly and illegal venture -- luckily, EA's upcoming
Facebreaker will reportedly allow you to
perform a beatdown upon a digital representation of Moore's visage, free of travel expenses and assault charges.
At their E3 booth, Electronic Arts
revealed that Moore's face had been scanned and entered into the game using the title's boxer creation feature. EA mentioned to gaming blog ButtonMasher that Moore's face will make it into
the final retail version of Facebreaker, perhaps as an unlockable character. We'll politely abstain from exercising our pugilistic prowess on the exec, though admittedly, we wouldn't mind seeing how
the tattooed spokesman held up in the ring.
by Ross Miller Jul 17th 2008 5:15PM
Filed under: Culture, Sony PlayStation 3, Microsoft Xbox 360, Action, Adventure, E3
In case you're curious as to how DICE is planning to fight against simulation sickness in
Mirror's Edge (not motion sickness, since you're not actually moving), an EA spokesperson provided a number of explanations during
our hands-on with the game. For starters a little white blip is now placed the middle of the screen. It turns blue when it's charged for the slow motion action, but more importantly, it serves to focus the viewer's eyes.
The rep told us that they interviewed ballerinas to see how they perform spins without feeling sick. Their trick is to focus on a certain object or spot on the floor, which inspired the devs to add the dot. For those who find it distracting and obnoxious, there is an option to turn it off.
Also removed was the head bobbing found in the earlier GDC menu. The rep said they are now viewing the game from your eyes and not your head. Finally, the developers of the game told us that the use of the sides of the screens provides a sense of peripheral vision in the game. We were told they hadn't decided whether or not to use letterbox widescreen for 4:3-resolution television screens.
by Ross Miller Jul 16th 2008 6:45PM
Filed under: Culture, Mac, PC
While taking us through an exhaustive hands-on with
Spore, Maxis producer Thomas Vu told us that there was a "strong possibility" that the company would allow you to export your creations – creatures, buildings and vehicles – from the game into 3D modeling/animation program Maya. Vu said it wouldn't be a stretch for other 3D-creation apps (e.g. Lightwave, 3D Studio Max) to be made compatible, too.
Also likely exportable is the music you create in the game, although Vu was not sure what format. What would be holding the feature back, explained Vu, was if it "didn't fit
Spore," i.e. how do we define the title? As a game, an app? He suggested that if community interest was strong enough they'd likely put it in. You hear that, community? Make our dreams as aspiring animators that much closer to fruition. We'll have more from our exhaustive session with
Spore later this week.
by Richard Mitchell Jul 15th 2008 7:45PM
Filed under: Culture, E3
When we sat down to get a fresh look at
Rock Band 2 at the
Harmonix E3 booth, the musical members of the dev team were happy to tell us that many people who try
Rock Band wind up pursuing real instruments as a result. When discussing the new drum trainer in
Rock Band 2, Senior Designer Dan Teasdale told us, "I feel kind of bad that we're turning people into drummers." Teasdale, as it turns out, is a
bass player bassist.
by Randy Nelson Jul 15th 2008 6:30AM
Filed under: Sports, E3
In case you weren't aware, EA's
Peter Moore likes sports. Probably the reason he's heading up
EA Sports, eh? This E3 – his first since being put in charge of bringing in the mammoth publisher's sporting
green – he obviously wanted to put his stamp on the brand, or, rather, his DNA.
EA Sports "Dynamic DNA," as it was explained during EA's pre-E3 press conference, is an intriguing new core gameplay gimmick for
NBA Live 2009 that uses real players' analytic data (the type provided to sports scouts) to influence their actions (i.e. make them more realistic in-game). "You can't script sports," Moore pointed out – in theory, Dynamic DNA will enable the virtual players to adapt to on-court situations as they would in real life, making their actions far less predictable than in past b-ball titles.
The concept comprises "Player DNA," which is focused on making players act more realistically, and "Team DNA," which builds on individual data and gloms it all together to (you guessed it) more realistically recreate the team dynamic based on all players' DNA. The end result – at least the results we could see during a short
Live 09 demo – is a much more visually believable looking game of hoops. Former NBA player and current color commentator
Bill Walton was also on hand for the demo, and was impressed by what he saw. Sure he was being
paid to be there, but what the hey?
by Ross Miller Jul 15th 2008 4:34AM
Filed under: Mac, PC, Simulations, E3
General Details
- The developers are considering mandating five-minute minimum play sessions for each phase of the game before you can unlock the next phase. It was unclear if this would be a first-time tutorial or if it would be required for each planet; we suspect the former, especially since Vu said you could use the creatures you've imported from Sporepedia during the tribal phase. Vu said they are also likely not to let you go back in time, e.g. once you hit Civilization Phase, for that planet/instance you won't be able to go back to cell/tribal.
- Want to know how Electronic Arts can milk the Spore cow? The tabs in all the editor menus were planned for multiple pages. Maxis has reportedly also discussed the addition of robot creature parts, but there is "nothing to announce" at the moment.
Continue reading Spore E3 Q&A part 3: General
by Ross Miller Jul 15th 2008 4:33AM
Civilization Phase
- In case it wasn't obvious, this was the phase that Civilization IV designer Soren Johnson worked on.
- There will be two city sizes -- major and minor -- each with a pre-set number of nodes to place buildings. The exact numbers of each was not revealed. Three types of buildings: factory, house and entertainment. You will notice blue lines that defin the national boundaries of each city.
- Songs can be attached to specific cities and heard when you are near them.
- Creatures are relegated to NPCs in the cities and you now control vehicles. There are three types of vehicles you can create: military, religious and economic. They are all meant for conquest -- the economic troops try to buy out other cities, the religious troops try to convert cities by projecting preachers to your cause, and military takes the old fashioned route.
- During this phase, there will still be less civilized creatures on your planet that may try to overtake your cities. You will also be forced to deal with Epic Creatures -- larger variants of your creatures with special powers -- that will really screw up your ambitions and must be taken out. In our playtest we attempted to take out Mega Ultra Chocobo that breathed fireballs. Vu said there was likely no reward for defeating such creatures other than not having to deal with them. They can also be temporarily converted with your religious troops for attacking other cities.
- You will have a superpower, based your creature's behavior (presumably in the tribal phase). Vu provided examples such as the economic-focused ad banners that can fly over other cities promoting your way of life, or the religious-focused "rain of frogs," where some creature (not necessarily frogs) is dropped into an opponents city à la the Egyptian plagues.
Continue reading Spore E3 Q&A part 2: Civilization/Space phase
by Ross Miller Jul 15th 2008 2:00AM
Filed under: PC, Microsoft Xbox 360
At the Electronic Arts press conference, Valve's Gabe Newell revealed that
Left 4 Dead sports a new cast of main characters. Here's your quartet, shown above, with bigger pictures in the galleries.
Left 4 Dead will leave you stranded in November.
by Michael Zenke Jul 14th 2008 11:15PM
Filed under: Culture, PC, E3, MMO
Just a few months after
Electronic Arts'
purchase of the Rupture social networking site, it looks like file-sharing legend Shawn Fanning now has his moment in the sun. Fanning appeared during
EA's E3 press conference today, introducing the new and improved Rupture service. It, along with the Nucleus offering, will offer new ways for players to collaborate on and compare their in-game successes. Nucleus sounds like an EA-game-specific Xbox Live-style tag. Gamers will be able to carry around their 'EA tag' around from game to game and across systems. Whether you're playing on the Wii or PC, your information will be safely stored in a central locale.
Rupture, Fanning's project, will carry this collaboration forward with an ability to track and challenge friends across games and platforms. Rupture will be open to any game developer that wants to make use of EA's API. They've already set up
an informational site for developers on the Rupture website. They're also planning to
extend the functionality of their in-development MMOs - a tantalizing possibility for WoW-weary MMO players.
Continue reading E3: EA previews new social networking model in Nucleus/Rupture
by Jason Dobson Jul 14th 2008 10:00PM
Filed under: Sony PlayStation 3, Nintendo Wii, Microsoft Xbox 360, Rhythm
No longer will Belgium virtual rockers have to settle for playing air guitar to dreams of living room stardom, as Harmonix and MTV have announced plans to bring
Rock Band to Belgians, as well as those in six other countries later this month, including Italy, Sweden, Spain, Switzerland, Netherlands, and Luxembourg.
According to the duo, the Xbox 360 version of
Rock Band will be the lead SKU in these territories, shipping on July 24, with other fake instrument flavors arriving sometime later in the fall. As with the
existing European release, the disc will include all 58 tracks found on the North American version as well as nine non-English tunes such as Die Toten Hosen's Hier Kommt Alex, Oasis' Rock 'n' roll star, and Playmo's New Wave. We welcome our new friends to the stage -- may you never fail out and your fingers never cramp.
by Ross Miller Jul 14th 2008 7:20PM
Filed under: PC, Sony PlayStation 3, Microsoft Xbox 360
Id Software creator John Carmack just announced at Electronic Arts' press conference that it has partnered with the publisher. The
Quake and
Doom creator has long used Activision as a publisher, but we wonder if things got bitter after the travesty that was
Quake Wars console ports. Id and EA? What a great ...
idea?
Update: The fruits of the partnership are beginning to bud as
EA re-announces Rage, "an all-new take on the first person shooter" for the PS3, Xbox 360, PC and Mac. Note much else new is revealed about the game, which was
named last August, but look for more info at QuakeCon.
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