If you haven’t read the first part of my E3 experience journal, make sure you do.
After finally getting to the Shrine Auditorium and having a bit of time before the EA E3 panel preregistration pickup started, I got some Game of Thrones in and ate a gas stop sandwich.
When it was time to preregister, I was one of the first two people there. The other person was named Curtis. He won a contest to come to EA’s announcement panel. We registered and shot the shit until the event got started.
As we all gathered in line at the doors of the auditorium, I met a journalist that works for the Jayce Hall Show. He told us a little bit about how the Microsoft panel went before we were let in.
After I was told how much of a flop the Microsoft E3 panel was, I felt a little bad for the optical engineer guy I shared the cab with. Then I remembered that they’ll still sell tons of units either way and I felt a little less bad for him.
We entered the Shrine Auditorium. To our left in the main entrance area was a giant mech from Titanfall. Unfortunately, my phone camera does not capture how awesome the thing looked, but nonetheless, here you go:
What do you do for a living? Oh, I guard promotional mechs.
We were let in an hour before the event started. However, sitting down felt amazing because there had been nowhere to sit outside while I waited around for the event. I got my notebook out and patiently waited for the panel to start.
Stage Lights was my favorite game announcement.
Peter Moore came out to let us know the panel was about to start. He made a joke about how Kotaku should make sure to write their two articles on how disappointing the panel was. That joke got some genuine laughs as opposed to the normal video game panel jokes that fall flat and make the person on stage seem a bit awkward.
I am not a very big Electronic Arts fan. I had no real excitement going into the panel other than the fact that it was related to E3. However, some of what they presented really did impress me.
Before getting to the positive aspects of the panel, I just want to drive home how little I cared about sitting through so many sports game announcements.
The best part about the sports and Need for Speed segments was that they kept bringing out celebrities. The athletes and the actor that plays Jesse Pinkman in (the amazing series) Breaking Bad made a little bit of sense. However, Drake and the poet who talked about basketball kind of stuck out as a bit strange.
Can’t wait to play that FIFA, though #YOLO
Now on to the good stuff: the panel itself was really cool in terms of stage technology. They had some crazy stuff going on with the different monitors moving around.
I had never really cared about Plants vs. Zombies before seeing this panel, but the Plants vs. Zombies: Garden Warfare game they announced actually looked like a fun multiplayer game. Plus, the whole Call of Duty spoof bit was pretty funny.
Titanfall looks pretty dang cool. Seeing the mech in the lobby before the EA E3 panel made me curious about what the game was; the footage they showed made me want to follow its development.
The team stated they wanted to give players a single player experience in a multiplayer environment. The game mechanics themselves seem interesting. All of it sounded good and I really hope this ends up being a great game because who the hell does not want to run on walls and pilot mechs?
I’m not a fan of most modern FPS games, but Battlefield 4 seemed pretty interesting if only for the fact that they took the destructible environment bit a step further and made it so entire skyscrapers could collapse.
Dragon Age 3: Inquisition gave me some mixed feelings. I loved Dragon Age: Origins like it was my baby, but hated Dragon Age 2 for how much I felt it took the series several steps back in the wrong direction.
Inquisition seems like it might be good. I will have to hold my opinion on it until I get more information, but I was stoked to see Morrigan.
The last two games I’ll talk about made this event pretty awesome for me. It’s pretty obvious which two games they are.
Star Wars: Battlefront is getting a new game. I didn’t play much of the old ones, but what I did play I absolutely loved. I always wanted to see a new version of the game on the current generation of consoles, but the next gen is even better.
The crowd’s reaction to the announcement trailer was enormous considering it was such a short teaser. Aside from the last game announced, there was nothing even close to that amount of energy in a reaction for the rest of the panel.
Lastly, I am super stoked for Mirror’s Edge 2. The first game was one of the reasons I even picked up a PS3 in the first place. I cannot wait to do some more crazy parkour action.
All in all, I was pleasantly surprised with EA’s E3 event. My absolute favorite part was that after closing with the new Mirror’s Edge game, everyone in the auditorium exited to George Michael’s hit song “Faith.”
Make sure to stay tuned to my page as I continue to cover the rest of E3 this week. I will give a much more detailed write-up on the games I get hands-on experience with. There will also be more and (hopefully) better quality pictures.
