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Yesterday, we had the chance to check out EA’s E3 booth for a bit and we were pleasantly surprised. EA rules the video game sports industry and so we were expecting 2007 football, soccer, tennis, bowling, etc. In addition to all of these titles, we found that EA was bringing out some pretty cool innovation in games.
The first demonstration we saw was for Spore. The game is created by Will Wright, the creator of the popular Sims franchise and the imaginative world that has been created reminded us strongly of The Sims. Players start out by creating a creature out of what looks like a big ball of clay. The game allows you to choose feet, eyes, a nose, a mouth, claws, and colors. Even the shape of the creature is created by how you form your clay.
Once your creature is formed, you enter into a world with other creatures. The purpose of the game is to take over the universe, basically. To be accurate, the developers did say the game was to form relationships with other creatures, but we think that basically means take them over. You don’t kill the other creatures, just, you know, take over the entire planet with your inhabitants. Once you rule your planet, you can take a UFO and go visit other planets. It seems that the “making relationships” part of the game comes into play once you have conquered your own planet. Visiting neighboring planets can create friends or enemies. If you create enemies, the other planets can come and attack your planet.
The animation on this game is pretty cool and very vibrant. We were definitely impressed with the game.
After we finished this, we got to experience Madden on the Wii. I was excited to try the Wii for the first time and we were all curious to see how they could make Madden into a game for the Wii controller. As promised, the way you move the controller controls the gameplay. You whip the controller upward to hike, downward to pass, and a swift downward sweep allows you to kick. You can still select plays by scrolling through a menu with your controller. The Wii version of Madden could be a good thing for bringing new players into the Madden franchise. After all, not everyone wants to spend twenty-five hours learning 13,004 commands.
We rushed into a demo of Army of Two after regretfully giving the Wii controller back to the developer. Again, EA impressed us with this first-person shooter that was demoed on the 360. The game’s plot is about two US soldiers in combat. The soldiers are alone in their quest to fight the bad guys and must rely on each other to survive. You can play with a friend or allow the computer to control the other player. Commands to your partner are voice activated. Shout “Go Right!” to him and he will go right. Well, usually. A fascinating feature of this game is the other soldier’s ability to think for himself. For instance, when you are about to shoot a person, the other soldier will yell at you to stop. “We don’t shoot civilians! If you shoot him, I will shoot you!” Chances are, he isn’t kidding. And as you retreat, he mumbles, “That’s why everyone hates Americans.”
In fact, not ticking your partner off seems to be a key to success. At one point, the player shot a ceiling and it collapsed on his partner. Although we in the audience found it funny, the second soldier did not. He got up from the pile of debris and gave the player the middle finger (along with some words we won’t repeat in this article).
If one player is injured, the other player must revive him. This is where the game gets a little bit cheesy. As the player’s partner is reviving him, a graphic on the top left of the screen shows a soldier’s silhouette running away from the light. If the healthy player slips up trying to revive his partner, the silhouette stumbles and the light comes closer. Once the player has successfully run away from the light, he is healthy again.
This game looks very promising and we will keep you posted as we learn more about it. Right now, the game is set to release sometime in 2007.