All posts tagged ‘Electronic Arts’

REDWOOD CITY, California — “I’ve kind of made a habit of taking children’s fairy tales and turning them into dark, twisted content,” says game designer American McGee.

He might be understating the case a bit. As creator of American McGee’s Alice and American McGee’s Grimm, he’s best known (and pointedly parodied) for dirtying up a story from our innocent childhoods, then slapping his name into the videogame’s title.

With Alice: Madness Returns, McGee’s moniker is off the box, but the creative vision is unmistakable: It’s a creepy trip into a perverted Wonderland, where Alice is beset not by humorous anthropomorphs but nightmare visions. Electronic Arts will publish the game in 2011 for PlayStation 3, Xbox 360 and PC.

At a press event last week hosted by publisher Electronic Arts, McGee and story collaborator R.J. Berg discussed what gamers should expect from this long-awaited Alice sequel.

Wired.com: I haven’t played the previous Alice. Are there any plans to bring it back as a downloadable game before the sequel comes out?

American McGee: It’s certainly endured with the fans. I think that there’s an audience for it, but at this moment we’re just focused on Alice: Madness Returns. Any bringing it back would be up to EA and EA Partners. R.J. and I were here as employees when we created the first Alice.

Wired.com: Since this will probably be many people’s first experience, I’m guessing you’re crafting the game in such a way that you don’t need to have played the original to enjoy it.

McGee: Yeah, but there’s a definite need for us to honor and answer to the existing audience, people who’ve been loyal fans to the property over the years. We’ve done our best to blend together into the story elements from the first game. This is a natural sequel, a narrative sequel to the first game. So we get back in there and people who know the first game are going to have a lot of reward in terms of seeing locations that they may have seen before, characters that they knew from the first game. But it’s certainly not a requirement, bringing this game to console for PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 players, for them to have played the PC one.

Continue Reading “Q&A: American McGee Returns to Alice’s Nightmare Wonderland” »

The RPG had it coming.

DeathSpank, a comedy role-playing game from Monkey Island vet Ron Gilbert, simultaneously skewers and streamlines the venerable videogame genre one quest at a time. Released earlier this month for PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360, the downloadable game is one of the best of the summer thanks to its sublimely silly writing and simplified RPG gameplay.

Players take on the role of DeathSpank, a hero clad in a blessed purple thong and in search of an artifact called “The Artifact.”

The object you seek is just the first of many MacGuffins scattered throughout the adventure. Gilbert and his team at Hothead Games have crafted one long wild goose chase. Sure, DeathSpank must rescue orphans, slay mythical beasts and defeat evil overlords. But he’s also tasked with fetching a taco, special-ordering a 6-by-6 square of green felt and convincing unicorns to poop.

The whole ridiculous affair is made all the more entertaining thanks to oddball characters, masterfully executed running gags and an over-the-top voice performance by Michael Dobson, whose voicework is one part The Tick, one part Gary Owens. Play DeathSpank without exploring every dialogue option and you’re committing a cardinal sin.

Continue Reading “Review: DeathSpank Gleefully Tramples RPG Clichés” »

REDWOOD CITY — Electronic Arts’ Partners program will publish Reckoning, the new game from Curt Schilling’s game developer 38 Studios.

The former Red Sox pitcher and upstart gamemaker took the stage Tuesday at an Electronic Arts press event at its campus to announce some details about his studio’s first game, which will be fully unveiled to the public at Comic-Con International in San Diego later this week. We were not allowed to take photos of the game artwork or trailer, but if you’re familiar with the work of Todd McFarlane, you won’t be too surprised by it when it is unveiled.

The full title of the game is Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning.

“Our goal has been genre-changing combat in action,” said Schilling.

Reckoning, developed in conjunction with Big Huge Games, will be released in Fall 2011.

REDWOOD CITY — Will Wright’s out-of-the-box Spore is now the inspiration for a more traditional game experience.

At a media event Tuesday morning, Electronic Arts unveiled the next game from Maxis, and it’s not what you’d expect from the developer of The Sims. Darkspore is an action role-playing game with a gritty science fiction aesthetic, all bleak planets and killer monsters. It’s currently slated to launch in February 2011.

This is not an expansion pack. “Darkspore is its own, fully robust PC action RPG game,” said Maxis GM Lucy Bradshaw.

Darkspore’s campaign can be played alone or with four players online; EA also promises “intense multiplayer battles.” It’s influenced by Spore’s roll-your-own game design, of course — there will be “tens of thousands of collectible body parts and armor” with which to customize your main character.

“Darkspore is a game about loot; it’s about taht drive and motivation to unlock and collect better stuff,” said another Maxis developer.

Continue Reading “EA Unveils Darkspore, Maxis’ Online Action RPG” »

REDWOOD CITY — Electronic Arts is attempting to deliver the “most authentic war experience possible,” says Greg Goodrich, executive producer of Medal of Honor.

In a demonstration of the upcoming game at Electronic Arts’ campus on Tuesday, we saw the player take one part of a two-man sniper team hunting Al Qaeda. Or, a really stupid version of Al Qaeda that stands on top of rocks in the great wide open while snipers are slowly taking potshots at their friends.

There’s a whole lot of chatter in Medal of Honor. Your name is apparently “Deuce.” I know this because partner talks to you a whole lot while you’re slaughtering Al Qaeda by the dozens.

“In the big army, you’re more of a hammer. It’s a large instrument. In the Tier 1 elements you’re more of a scalpel,” says a military consultant on the big screen, whose face is mosaiced out. It’s due out October 12, 2010.

More screens below.

Continue Reading “Screenshots: EA Shows Tactical Medal of Honor Gameplay” »

LOS ANGELES — Gunplay, testosterone and destruction fuels Electronic Arts’ E3 lineup.

At a press briefing Monday at the Orpheum Theater, the publisher showed 10 new games due out in the next 12 months or so, all filled with the sort of high-powered thrills gamers crave. Need for Speed, Medal of Honor and Bulletstorm made the company’s presentation a hit for gamers tired of motion-controlled casual fare.

The first game shown was a new take on a popular racing franchise. Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit, due out Nov. 16 for Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and PC, takes the series back to its car-chase roots. Criterion’s latest entry focuses on pitting player against player in high-speed highway duels between fleeing daredevil drivers and the cops on their tail.

Continue Reading “Need for Speed, Medal of Honor Headline EA’s Testosterone-Addled E3 Showing” »

New downloadable content for Battlefield:Bad Company 2 will ad co-op gameplay and make it easier to unlock your gear.

Gamers on the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 will be able to download the new Onslaught mode for Battlefield: Bad Company 2 on June 22, Electronic Arts said Thursday. The mode supports up to four players, offering new challenges and achievements for both the experienced and those new to the game. The new co-op expansion will cost $10.

Those with little time on their hands can also drop $7 per kit to unlock all the items and skills related to each of Bad Company 2’s multiplayer character classes. Twenty bucks unlocks the kits for every class.

According to EA’s press release, these cheats don’t go up for sale until June 16 on Xbox Live and June 22 via PSN. But I’m seeing the kit upgrades available now via the Xbox Live Marketplace.

Battlefield: Bad Company 2 is a military-themed first-person shooter developed by DICE and published by Electronic Arts. It is one of the many modern combat games attempting to take a bite out of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2’s market dominance.

Correction: Reader arbdef, points out in the comments that the kits currently up for sale aren’t the short cuts, but rather camo upgrades for weapons and uniforms.

Image courtesy Electronic Arts

See Also:

• Embedded in the Bad Company Beta
• Like Free Maps? Buy Bad Company New

Kira Greer was sitting in a meeting one afternoon when she suddenly remembered an urgent deadline. The San Francisco instructional designer knew there was no time to waste.

She excused herself, saying she had to go to the bathroom, then rushed back to her desk. Quickly opening Facebook, she began furiously clicking on rows of virtual vegetables, harvesting her FarmVille crops before they withered and died.

“I realized I was hooked when I was planning my day around when I knew crops needed to be harvested,” says Greer, 33.

Leaving a meeting to tend to her videogame of choice was Greer’s wake-up call. “Once I realized I’d done that, I told my husband and I just came home and had a moment — d’oh! And I realized, OK, I’m taking it a little bit too far.”

“If there’s any way to explain it, it’s that I’m playing it right now, because you reminded me that I had crops,” she tells me over the phone.

Continue Reading “Farm Wars: How Facebook Games Harvest Big Bucks” »

By the time Tony Hawk released his third skateboarding game in 2001, we’d ollied into volcanoes, jammed with aliens in Roswell and donned Spider-Man’s costume to bust a Spidey Flip in a Mexican bullring.

Electronic Arts’ Skate 3, released this week for PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 (reviewed), doesn’t take gamers anywhere as exotic or over-the-top. And that’s its charm. The realistic setting and complex control scheme make for an engaging single-player experience, but it’s the wide range of online multiplayer options that make Skate gleam the cube.

Since the Skate series debuted in 2007, it has approached the nuts and bolts of skateboarding from a simulation perspective. Tony Hawk players might be able to pull off a 50-50 grind with the push of a single button, but Skate players must carefully line up, time and execute each trick with the tilt and flick of the controller’s two analog sticks. At first, this complex system can feel punishing. But once you get the hang of it, the game’s controls become a foundation that each player can use to develop their own virtual skateboarding style.

Skate 3 adds a handful of new moves like darkside flips and underflips. But the big news in this outing is the change of scenery. One big complaint of Skate players was that the first two games felt samey because they were both set in the fictional city of San Vanelona, California. Skate 3 puts down roots in an entirely new fake burg. Port Carverton is a sprawling urban haven that is home to a handsome, concrete-heavy university campus, a cluttered-but-line-filled seaside dock and more skate parks than you can shake your deck at.

Continue Reading “Review: Skate 3 Shreds With Slick Online Features” »

The battle of the holiday shooters just got a little more hairy. Electronic Arts announced Wednesday that Medal of Honor, a first-person shooter that reboots the popular series in a modern setting, will launch Oct. 12.

Set in Afghanistan, the game will mark the first time the Medal of Honor series has strayed out of the World War II milieu and into territory dominated by Activision Blizzard and Infinity Ward’s smash hit Call of Duty: Modern Warfare.

Activision recently revealed that its next shooter, Call of Duty: Black Ops, will be released Nov. 9. Respawn Entertainment, the studio founded by designers fleeing Infinity Ward after contractual disputes with their publisher, is too new a concern to have a game ready by year-end. (Respawn’s contribution in this particular fight will most likely come at a later date.)

Image courtesy Electronic Arts

See Also:

• Rumor: Medal of Honor Series Heading to Afghanistan
• Ousted Call of Duty Developers Respawn at Electronic Arts