EA E3 Presser: Battlefield 3 And Mass Effect 3 Get Release Dates, Something About Sports

The grand finale to EA’s press conference was a live gameplay demo of Battlefield 3. I dread to think of the PC specs it was being shown on, but that is a fine looking game. I was impressed by the visuals and audio design, and the drama they’re able to produce really made me feel quite gripped by the demo. Impressive stuff. The game also got a release date: October 25th, with an open beta in September.

The game will be coming with Battle Log, an online bungie.net-style site with friends lists, the ability to create platoons and most interestingly to me, real-time stats. And it’s all free.

Mass Effect 3 was demoed and also looks great, as you might expect. It too got a release date; March 6th, 2012. Or, if you use the American (broken) date ssytem, 3-6-12. Clever.

In the demo we saw Shepherd getting into a bit of trouble fighting a huge mech. He was able to call in an air-strike from the Normandy, as well as an orbital strike. The story is set up to make this game an epic battle for Earth.

There was a lot of promotion for Origin, EA’s online store-thing. Pretty much every game had some kind of exclusive content up on that site. It’s clearly something EA are wanting to push hard.

We got a peak at Need for Speed: The Run, which is the first NFS game that’s piqued my interest since the original Hot Persuit. You’re racing from LA to New York, with the gimmick being it’s all tied into your real-life social network (via a service called Autolog), so you can compare stats and times with your friends.

It’s also the first NFS game where you get out of your car. In the demo shown the car you’re driving gets totalled, leading to a roof-top chase where you try to escape the cops. Everything looks tied to quick-time events, but changes the pace up quite interestingly. Especially for a racing game.

Other things we saw:

• Dr Greg Zeschuk from BioWare showed us a very nice looking trailer for Star Wars: The Old Republic and explained the game is very big.
• A new SSX was announced using a flashy CGI trailer.
• FIFA 12 will be filled to the brim with exciting new tech such as “Precision dribbling”. It’s apparently a “revolution in the full 90 minutes on the pitch”.
• EA Sports Football Club is a new cross platform (consoles, mobile and Facebook) service tracking achievements and other social-stuff.
• Madden 12 is about sport.
• The Sims Social is a super creepy Facebook game where you use your real friends, and what appear to be real events (like breakups), as Sims. It wierded me out.
• 38 Studios showed a bit of Kingdoms Of Amalur: Reckoning
• Insomniac games showed off their new IP, Overstrike. A four player co-op game. Four cliché-ish characters who are the black sheep of the special forces, in the future, fighting bad guys. The game is aiming to be funny too, which was apparent in the trailer.