EA Play
Who wants to be first?
Recently a few of the guys from GHQ were extended an invitation to an EA Games preview evening down in Wellington at the cake tin. On show would be some of the games to be released in the coming months in their current build status, how could we say no to this opportunity.
Arriving a few minutes early (well you cant blame us for being keen to get some game time in) the preview was being held at one of the Westpac Stadium lounges with quite a decent view of the field (so this is what its like to be in a corporate box).
Pretty much straight away it was into the games hands on. The setup for the night involved all the PS2 and XBOX titles running on large Plasma screens and the PC titles running on some unknown hardware with 17" LCD's, the impact the Plasmas had was to be seen to be believed and returning home to a normal TV was something I was not looking forward to.
 The first game I had a play on with was an XBOX title, The Lord of the Rings - The third age. Picking up the controller for the first time I got a tad lost in the menu system initially as someone had been playing it before me. Once I managed to restart the game and figure out the basic controls I was away.
Initially you are exploring a forested area and learning about the basics of movement and control but the game wastes no time in getting a bit of combat involved. This was the first time that I've played an RPG, it was a quick learning curve with the turn based combat that eventuated though the animations of the sword play and attacks, the combat control system was very easy to pick up and I was soon slaying orcs and goblins left right and center.
Some of the more detailed aspects of the game would no doubt keep this title in the play list for some time as you are always picking up rings, amour, swords and alike to up skill your character and take on the monsters further on through the game. (At some point you end up fighting a balrog, which I can imagine would not be a piece of cake to defeat).
The demo we had available to play enabled us to fight on the side of good but from the press we took away you'll also be able to play on the dark side for those that feel the need to lay waste to middle earth.
 Staying with the Middle earth theme the next game was based designed for the PC, LOTR - The battle for middle earth. Instead of the RPG format which lends itself to consoles, this title is a real time strategy game, allowing you to have complete control over all that you see.
Picking up the game was reasonably easy with the controls being pretty standard amongst RTS games and initially I had the fellowship to control, as they worked their way through the caves of Mordor.
Working my way through the tunnels the game felt quite similar to Dungeon Siege with a small group of players moving forward and simply killing everything in sight (not saying that it wasn't fun of course) and every now and then getting Gandalf to heal those that where looking a tad short on health.
Moving outside, the game took on a whole different persona, instead of 8-9 characters under my control, I was suddenly in control of huge armies and having to look after resources to keep them fighting fit. The interface was fairly intuitive and easy to figure out (ahh the joys of not having a manual to figure stuff out with). Graphically the game was outstanding with a fair bit of time spent watching the individuals in a huge battle fight it out (though some humorous glitches were noticed with this early build. These will of course be sorted out in the final release)
 Moving on as games became available, next up was Medal of Honor - Pacific Assault (screenshot from www.eagames.com). The game that we had to try out was the demo that is currently doing the rounds and is well worth the download, while only really providing about 5-10 mins of gameplay, the level in the demo gives a good feel for the game and as we found out, a taste of the improvements to the AI.
One of the favorite moves in the MOH series has been the bash action, letting your enemy know that you where able to get up close and personal with the kill (an especially good feeling in multiplayer). The AI now uses this very effectively and if you let them get in close you get to watch your health diminish rapidly, we also noted that when grenades where thrown at a group of enemies if we hadn't pre-armed the grenade to go off almost at the moment of impact the AI would simply kick the grenade back at us and duck for cover (something we didn't do the first time it happened through sheer shock at what the AI had just done).
The squad movement has also been improved over previous titles with your squad providing actual cover-fire that is useful and making semi-intelligent decisions as to what cover to take depending on the situation.
Graphically the game is a huge leap from previous MOH titles and gives you a real sense of the location that it's set in with trees and dense vegetation being represented extremely well. This is one game that should be filling the hard drives of the GHQ staff in the very near future.
 Onto the game that was the main feature of the EA Play night - with 2 Plasmas setup to give everyone a chance to have a go, Need for Speed Underground 2.
The demo we had available (on the PS2) still had a lot of options locked out (of particular was Car Damage on or off) but enabled us to get a feel of some of the handling and features that would be available in the game. In the pre-release demo, you get to spend your time driving through the streets of the city that it's been set in, want to paint your car? Head over to the paint shop, feel like getting a new set of forged pistons? Then best you be tracking down the location of the tuner shop. All the while there are other vehicles racing around the city that if you catch up with you simply tap a key and you can challenge them to one of several new race challenges that should keep everyone happy.
 Everything that was loved from the first title in the Underground series appears to have been kept but tweaked to a new level and a whole bunch of new effects and options added. You think you had a lot of customization options in the original, then your jaw will be on the floor when you start to play with the options in underground 2.
Graphically, the game looked all right but as I am used to playing Underground with the motion blur turned off, on a PC. The PS2 version with motion blur turned on made it hard to fairly compare the two, I'll leave comment on this till the final game is released and I can accurately compare the two games on the same platform.
As for the promo video with Brooke Burke... What can I say EA, you've outdone yourselves there on that one, my only question - when can we have her down here to promote a Nexus Underground 2 LAN?
Moving onto FPS on consoles was Goldeneye - Rogue Agent (played at the presentation on an XBOX) moving to the dark side of the bond world you get to play the villain for a change (something most people have always wanted to do.. why save the world when you can just take it over).
Bazz and I managed to get onto one of the demo machines and loaded up a game of multiplayer via split screen, a lot of laughs were to be had as we both are more used to the mouse/keyboard control system and coming to grips with the XBOX controller for aiming and moving took us both of a few minutes to wrap our heads round. Once that was sorted, the gameplay was actually quite a bit of fun, with the ability to use two weapons at once being found to be very useful (when you ran out of ammo in one weapon simply start firing with the other while you reload the first as the fire buttons for each weapon where separate).
Bazz, as per usual, managed to get his eye in quite quickly and proceeded to rack up the kills at which point I let Stone take over and hopefully provide Bazz with some competition while I stood back and had a better look at the game. Stone gave Bazz a good run in Goldeneye making use of a particular nasty rocket launcher. I had a play in single player mode to see what the game had to offer in those moments when you feel like just carving up some bad guys. The AI of the enemy was not to bad with cover being sought when I started firing and occasionally trying to sneak around cover to get a better angle on me, once again it was fun to play but nothing groundbreaking. The controls had me going nuts with subtle taps of the sticks sending my crosshairs from one side of the enemy to the other and not actually stopping where I wanted it to (though watching dedicated console gamers later on brought me to realize that I just need more practice as they had it down pat). Graphically the game looked fairly standard, but this is probably more to do with console limitations (or possibly that this was still early code) but once you got into the game you didn't actualy notice, which in my thoughts is the sign of a game that draws you into the action rather than leaving you sitting back admiring the scenery so a definite positive there. If you like the bond games then the ability to fight on the other side should see you picking this game up for a blast when it's released.
 Moving towards one of EA's staple outlets, we had a look at FIFA Football 2005 on the PS2, yet another game that I wasn't really to familiar with but during the quick play that I had with it it, it seemed that EA have made the gameplay simple enough to pick up that your average gamer can just pick it up and perhaps score a goal or two. The animations of the players and the graphics around the field were outstanding. We'll be attempting to get hold of a copy of this game for a bit more of a play at a later date but listening to the people playing it that had played previous versions, only good things were commented on.
Racing again and we had a look at Burnout 3 on the PS2, currently available in stores this got away from the thinking aspect of some racing simulations and just got down to business.. the business of totaling every other car on the race track and what a blast it was, debris and destroyed cars everywhere with some great animated graphics to go with it, if you've got a yearning for some mindless fun and carnage then this has got to be on the list of games to play
Lastly on the preview list was The Urbz - Sims in the City, unfortunately I didn't get a chance to get much of a look at this but basically looked like the Sims go street stylz. You character gains reputation (street cred) as the game progresses, using that to further your success within the game. For those that have played the Sims, this looks like an interesting departure from the norm that has been established.
That was about it for what was on offer for hands on gameplay but there were trailers for several games that are also high on the 'watch this space' list a quick summary as follows
NASCAR: Chase the Cup
The video we saw of this title was quite impressive to say the least, with not only the standard oval NASCAR racing, but oval dirt track racing mixed in as well.
With some further research, it appears that this is the title for EA's upcoming NASCAR title for consoles, the PC version is actually under a different title with more emphasis being placed on physics, graphics and audio to make the PC version more of a simulation than an arcade racer. There's quite a decent simulation following in NZ for racing Sims and here's hoping that EA get this one right.
 Battlefield 2
If the video we saw was even half what the game is going to be, then I can see Battlefield 2 being an instant hit, think Half Life 2 and Doom 3 levels of anticipation from the gaming community. Watching the promo video pretty much left me with my jaw on the floor, every time I see demos or gameplay videos from BF2 there seems to be a new feature that I just never thought of. An interesting piece of information from a reliable source was that the medic class in BF2 will have defibrillators and as well as being able to revive fallen comrades, just think of the fun you can have with the enemy.. defib kills anyone? (and yes, it was tried and is possible). EA is working very hard with Dice to have this title in stores in Feb 2005.
During the night a speech was given covering EA's direction for the coming quarter and slightly further on, from a gamers point of view it looks all good. An interesting fact is that the gaming industry is looking like cracking the $100 million dollar mark this year in NZ Sales, surpassing even the music industry and closing in on the box office.
Much fun was had and alot of positive feedback from both sides was taken away from the night, once again a huge thank you to Jemma at EA for extending an invitation to the GHQ Staff (Ivan filling in for Tony aka Happy), we look forward to working further with EA to both showcase their products and get into the gaming events that they help make possible
GamerHQ
-Jetboy
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