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EA inks talent agency deal, more game movies coming


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?

Joystiq E3 Q&A: Spore detailed

During our time at E3 last week, we were able to spend about an hour with a very patient Maxis Producer Thomas Vu, who guided us through a near-final build of Spore (the whole thing) and answered a barrage of questions. Here's what we gleaned from our play session, broken down into each phase:

Gallery: Spore (E3)



Continue reading Joystiq E3 Q&A: Spore detailed

Facebreaker to allow breaking of Peter Moore's face


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.

How Mirror's Edge fights simulation sickness

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.

'Strong possibility' Spore creations will be exportable to Maya

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.

Overheard@E3: 'I feel kind of bad that we're turning people into drummers'


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.

Official Rock Band 2 web site launches

You've scoped out the new instruments, you've memorized the track list, new you can explore around the official web site for Rock Band 2. A quick perusal of the site reveals no real new information, but there is a nice high-res trailer for the game as well as some cool wallpapers and such to download.

Interesting, the site links two two separate retailers for "official" pre-orders: One from Gamestop which lists the Xbox 360 special edition bundle at $189.99 and one from Amazon that lists it at $199.99. Gamestop also list a PS2 version at a discounted $179.99. A true rock star probably wouldn't care about these minor discrepancies, but for a struggling garage band, those are spare dollars that could go to cheetos and gas for the van.

Overheard@E3: The wisdom of Bill Walton


At their conference yesterday, EA invited NBA hall-of-famer Bill Walton onstage to help them show off NBA Live '09 and its Dynamic Player DNA, and ended up stealing the show. Peter Moore, who also hammed it up with Natalie Gulbis, kept saying that Walton had gone off script, and that must be true -- anyone who wrote a script like this would never want for a job in Hollywood.


Continue reading Overheard@E3: The wisdom of Bill Walton

EAquation: NBA plus DNA equals a more lively 'Live'


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?

Spore E3 Q&A part 3: General



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

Spore E3 Q&A part 2: Civilization/Space phase



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

Valve reveals new cast for Left 4 Dead

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.

Gallery: Left 4 Dead

E3: EA previews new social networking model in Nucleus/Rupture

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

Rock Band adding seven countries to ticket in July


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.

Electronic Arts and id Software form partnership

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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