E3 2008 – EA Round-up

With the throngs of people filling up EA’s booth at this year’s show, I found it harder to remember what games I wanted to see with each claustrophobic step. “It’s EA,” I thought. “I’m sure that I’ll see what I need to see in a matter of minutes. Oh, crap, Mirror’s Edge – oh yeah. Oh man, and there’s Dead Space. Ok, well that’s gotta be all that – hold on: SPORE! I was a fool for forgetting that there’s some top-tier titles on the way from everyone’s favorite game giant.

So, the first stop I wanted to make was Mirror’s Edge (more screenshots below), like any good red-blooded parkour-loving American would. It’s crisp and clean visuals were a magnet from across the room, I must say. The build that DICE and EA were showing, unfortunately, was lacking. The main mechanics of the game - which I assume are the free-running elements that occur fifty stories above the ground - were on-display, and they worked well. Strangely, this was all that was shown in the hour that I spent in EA’s booth. The story of the game concerns an Orwellian city of the future where “runners” have taken to the rooftops to deliver the world’s most valuable currency – information. Something is afoot with the police, however, and our main character is soon faced by dangers greater than the mile-long drop to the pavement in front of her. The game’s style and main character are admittedly very appealing, and so is the idea of a first-person game featuring jumping between the rooftops. I just didn’t get to see enough of it. Maybe the demo-person was feeling particularly stingy due to the fact that it was near the end of the day, but I ran through the demo in just about five minutes. There was no hint of any combat or things of that nature. Hmm. Oh well. It’s certainly interesting enough to really check-out once it ships this holiday season.

From there, it was Spore, one of the games on everyone’s to-see list this year. What can I say about Spore that you don’t already know? Not too much, I’m sure. The new creature-evolving simulator from Will Wright, creator of the mega-popular The Sims, is at once simple and profound, light-hearted and terrifying. I watched a man build up his own amoeba in front of me for the better part of an hour, and I was mesmerized the entire time. He ate food, grew fins, mated, spawned more of himself, grew legs, walked ashore, started socializing and building a clan, and had he got to play longer, would have developed space travel and taken to the stars. Spore is going to be one of those games that hooks a huge swatch of people – just wait. There are so many facets that revealed themselves in just five minutes of gameplay, that I’m sure any gamer who picks up the game for more than ten minutes will be hooked for the duration. Argh! It got me, and I only played myself for about eight. It wasn’t fair. In the end, there is so much potential content in Spore that all I could see in front of me were thousands of wasted hours; and it was a beautiful, beautiful sight.

And Holy Surprise, Batman, next was Dead Space, a third-person survival-horror game from EA’s Redwood Shores studio. Wow. What the Redwood team has pulled off in terms of art direction is nothing short of phenomenal. I didn’t get any hands-on time with the title myself, but I was exceptionally intrigued by the controlled demo that one of the devs presented. Wow. This game features a sci-fi setting not unlike any of the Aliens motion-pictures here. A lone character is stuck in some dark hallways with a ton of creepy crawlies and an unnervingly dwindling stock of ammunition. Nothing quite new there, but what robes it wears! First off, the pacing of the game seems perfect. You’ll not fight ten thousand enemies who swarm your every move; you’ll have some time to experience the silence and the dramatic encounters with some really disturbing creatures. That was the first thing I noticed. Secondly, the design of the main character’s weapons and armor are top-notch. You won’t find any of the machine gun, shotgun, pistol rigmarole that bogs down your favorite shooter in banality without you even realizing it. No, you’re supplied with two guns that each serve a couple of different functions.

The main gun seems to feature four different types of ammunition, and the other, smaller gun works as a sort of telekinesis ( ala Half-Life’s gravity gun ) and as a tool to slow down your enemies. What’s amazing about the design of the weapons, though, is the fact that they resemble tools. It’s refreshing to see such innovative weapon design in a sci-fi shooter – pushed aside are some of the traditions of what a weapon is, and instead comes a sort-of omni-tool design that you can imagine was built from the necessities of dealing with out-of-control alien life-forms. This bleeds over to the armor, as well. Amazingly, all of the suits functions and status meters are mapped to the back of the suit, including the traditional life-bar. So simple and so elegant: everything you need to know is on your character’s back at all times! Aside from occasional pop-up “holograms” that show what weapon setting your gun is on, any trace of a heads-up display is gone – it’s all integrated into the suit! For these keen design choices alone, the game scored many points with me. Add to all of this the sumptuous level design touches, and you’ve got a serious game to watch out for. I’ll be honest: with the all of the incredibly tense fighting of nasty creatures in small, dark places, I feel like I’m finally seeing Doom 3 as it was meant to be. Believe it.