Of course, EA CEO John Riccitiello's job is to make every decision his company makes sound both well-considered and awesome, even when he's backhandedly saying that some things didn't work out. In an interview with VentureBeat's Dean Takahashi, he managed to both dismiss their past games and sound optimistic, thanks to the enhanced spin tracking found in the Wii MotionPlus device.
"The Wii MotionPlus is going to be good. If I had to pick one thing we suffered from, it was imprecise control on the Wii. That meant certain genres were never going to perform as well on the Wii." The MotionPlus, according to Riccitiello, is "an opportunity for third parties to be more successful."
The new peripheral, along with Nintendo's now-famously "weak" E3 lineup, means that this is a good year for companies like EA to put out Wii software. "Frankly, if you look at Nintendo, it's obvious there is a chance for third-party success. They didn't show a lot of content from Nintendo's first-party group. They got a lot of that out last year. So third-party games will likely do better."
Another day, another E3 complaint. Yesterday, Alain Corre of Ubisoft commented on the size and location of this year's E3, wanting it bigger and better. Today, Electronic Arts CEO John Riccitiello joined the party, outright stating "I hate E3 like this." Hate is such an ugly word. Dislike?
Ubisoft's Laurent Detoc also jumped into the fray. Instead of taking a subtle approach, he laid it out straight and said "E3 this year is terrible. The world used to come to E3. Now it's like a pipe-fitters show in the basement." There is a debate on whether E3 should be a show for the world or an exclusive media-only event, and the difference between the two is massive. This year, only 5,000 media representatives attended, where in the past 60,000 eager gamers would cover the show floor.
With EA (and Ubisoft) having the resources to put on a bigger display than pretty much anyone in the world, it's no wonder they want as much room and as big an audience as physically possible. Again, what are your thoughts on this? Are you happy to be bombarded with booth babes explosive gaming news and excitement in May every year, or do you enjoy the lower-key, need-to-know approach of this year's event?
We're absolute suckers. We'll be the first ones to admit it.
After Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix was, well, pretty terrible, we thought we'd shy away from the next game in the series. License-based drivel isn't exactly our favorite genre of video game, after all. Seeing video action (and screens) of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, though, is just too much for fans like us to ignore. Especially since the books are over and done with (sniff sniff), we have to find something longer than a movie to hold onto the magic.
What say you? Are we complete fools, or are you hoping for some improvements in Half-Blood Prince as well? (On second thought, maybe you shouldn't answer that one.)
There are a lot of things we don't know about MySims Kingdom: its firm release date ("fall" is a big window), its purpose, or why all these little Sim guys are just so freakin' happy all the time. What we do know is that it's just as cute as its predecessor, the kingdom-less MySims, and the debut trailer above proves it. Their Simlish is pretty irresistable, too.
Considering the worldwide domination of all things Sim, it's no surprise that E3 will play host to precisely eight jillion updates about The Sims, Sim City, SimAnimals, SimSim the Simmy Simulator of Simness and other classic titles. What's that right there? Why, it's the box art for the upcoming SimCity Creator, which is a pretty decent looking addition to the legendary city-building series.
A press release has also recently arrived, but it doesn't reveal much more than what we already knew. Build cities, draw roads with the Wiimote, destroy them with big, scary monsters. Nothing new, but sounds like fun on a bun.
During their E3 press conference, EA released assets for a bunch of upcoming games. We showed the new SimAnimals earlier today -- these are the assets from the games we already knew about. More Sim stuff of a sort (SimCity Creator), more animal-related stuff (the utterly terrifying Littlest Pet Shop), and ... other stuff.
We've posted the gallery of the nice-looking MySims Kingdom below. Wait, why does the medieval MySims game have rocket rides? After the break, you can find the rest of the galleries, including Pet Shop, Creator, FaceBreaker KO Party,Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. It's at least an excuse to break out old EA slogans.
This week brings plenty of videos for you to watch on the Everyone's Nintendo Channel. From a look at how All-Play works in Tiger Woods 09, right down to another video of Alyson with Wii Fit. So, check out the list below, situated in handy bullet-point form:
EA has just announced a new Sim satellite game called SimAnimals, in which, much like you mess with virtual families' lives in The Sims and ruin people's houses in MySims, you control a floating hand that interacts with various wild animals. You can "reach out and touch, pick up and move everything in the game from foxes and bears to trees and flowers." See those bears? You can throw 'em.
If you can refrain from being a jerk, you'll be able to gain the trust and friendship of the various animals that populate the SimAnimals forest. SimAnimals is planned for Wii and DS this January.
While we were eavesdropping on Microsoft's E3 press conference, we heard some really exciting stuff. We're not going to get into details (that's what the link is for, folks), but there was something mentioned that might interest Wii owners, too: the Rock Band 2 track list. We've gotten a little taste of what to expect before, but this list has a total of eight-four songs. Seventy-five of them are main tracks, while nine of them are bonus songs. There's also so much awesome on the list that we don't even know what to highlight.
Granted, this list is from Microsoft's E3 keynote, so you should be a little wary -- although these tracks were announced for Rock Band 2, they weren't necessarily announced for the Wii version. Still, unless Harmonix really, really hates Wii owners to the point that they'd gimp in-game content, too, we'd say you don't have much to worry about.
Check out the full, whopping list after the break.
This week's most notable release is surely Camelot's latest and greatest golf game, We Love Golf. We've been covering the title for quite some time and are glad to see it finally release. Will it offer up a better experience than other competition on the console, such as Super Swing Golf 2 and Tiger Woods 09? Only time will tell.
According to new job postings from EA Los Angeles, the Boom Blox team is looking to beef up its roster of artists and designers. The text in the job listing suggests that, if not asequel, a new game in the vein of Boom Blox is on the way.
The listings seek designers and producers to "bring accessible, quick-to-the-fun games for all ages to the Nintendo Wii!" and specifically recommends experience with physics-based gameplay. At the very least, it's good to know that, despite non-awesome sales of Boom Blox, the EA LA team is still working on casual-style games about knocking stuff over instead of being transferred into Madden-type stuff.
There's no job listing, unfortunately, for "well-known figurehead from film industry."
Soft rock god and midget Bon Jovi is amongst the latest group of artists confirmed to appear in Rock Band 2. Game Informer magazine identified seven new tracks from the instrument fest, finally confirming what we all suspected: that the "leaked" video from earlier in the week was a fake. One piece of speculation that doesn't look fake is an earlier list of rumored tracks, many of which match up to the latest official batch. And here they are, along with their YouTube links:
Game Informer also reveals that the drum kit has been tweaked (to incorporate expansion slots for cymbals, velocity-sensitive pads, and a sturdier, reinforced drum pedal), and that Harmonix will release a deluxe drum kit which can double up as real electronic drums when you're not playing the game. There will also be quieter buttons on the guitar, a "less squishy" strum bar, and a mode that lets players listen to their performances. Hopefully all of this applies to the Wii version!
Hold your lighter aloft and sway past the break for a full list of Rock Band 2's confirmed (and rumored) tracklist to date.
For those of you who don't know, Australia is still waiting on Rock Band -- for any console. In fact, Australia is waiting without a release date ... until sort of now. Despite the fact that local online store DVD Crave lists Rock Band for an October 10th release, nothing is set in stone until we actually see it on the shelves. In fact, it appears Rock Band is only listed as a "game only" item. You can't exactly start a band with no instruments.
DVD Crave is known for selling imported games, but the region says PAL right there. We're not sure how they plan to sell the game without instruments, unless it's a special version -- saucepan and air guitar compatible. Still, the release window is the important part, so we'll soon have all the details on how to buy the full Rock Band bundle in the country Harmonix forgot.
At first glance, this purported footage of Rock Band 2's entire tracklist could easily pass as the real thing. Fooling the entire internet is a tricky business, however, and closer examination of its contents reveal some glaring inconsistencies. For one -- well, for three -- we found a trio of song names that had been misspelt. Also, what's with the difficulty markers, and the way they move about? Hmm. And again, for effect: Hmmmmm.
Still, if this is true, then it's one hell of a line-up; Comfortably Numb could seal the deal for us on its own (you can see the entire list after the break). But no, we're calling this fake, even if it is several shades of awesome -- what say you?
Our most cruel and unmerciful bosstypes over at Joystiq managed to try out EA's upcoming Wii port, Skate It. While they commented that the game does require a bit more concentration than your usual casual romp on the Wii, overall the whole thing was fairly easy to pull off. As you can see in the controls diagram below, it doesn't look easy. But, in action, it's more intuitive than you may think.
Be sure to head over to Joystiq and read the rest of their feet-on impression of Skate It.
