Starting out with the Host Andrea Rene, who I feel got stuck in a rock and a hard place with this weak presser, as she’s known for being a better host for her other appearances. Honestly, I somewhat had to honestly cringe on her segment with Respawn’s developer Vince Zampella due to the weird comment about getting to hold a light saber. Like I don’t know if she was trying to be funny, sarcastic, or sexy here? I was confused with it. Again, I don’t blame her for the conference, but I didn’t feel like she was a good fit for this given the response. Then again, I don’t think that anyone could have made that Conference work.

As for the games shown, I have a few thoughts.

Battlefield V looks nice, presentation wise, but given that it’s mostly a cinematic trailer, we didn’t really get to see a lot of in game footage. What we did learn though from Dice was that the environments are now destructive, and you can dive roll out windows (which might be interesting if you’re into that) as well as having movable artillery (which didn’t happen in the last game) which could be useful if you’re into that. Also they reiterated the lack of Loot Boxes and premium passes, yet didn’t mention anything about a deal with microtransactions. On top of this they’re bringing back a Battle Royal to the game.

There’s not much I can say on this other then what has been said already, although the fact that it’s pretty much what DICE has been doing in regard to the main series anyway. Given that leveling up has some ties to currency, I’m wondering if in lieu of loot boxes they’re just going to microtransaction this game. What has me a bit worried about the Single player aspect of the game is that there’s hints that it’s going to be tied into the live service which makes me think that it’s going to be limited play offline, and for someone that prefers playing mostly off line…

Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order had no trailer at all. Just Respawn’s Vince Zampella explaining what it is. I’m not even sure if they were planning to have it be something to be presented (why even mention it if it’s not ready to be?) but it was a really odd vibe with that moment. The game itself doesn’t seem to have a lot going on. What we know was that it’s taking place between Episodes III and IV, and deals with a padawaan that escaped from Anakin’s moment of being nutty and you can use lightsabers. However, unless this is Kaan’s story we’re kind of running into the whole “Luke not being the last Jedi” story thus nullifying the line that Yoda said somewhat. Unless he or she never takes the Jedi oath.  I mean, sounds cool, but we don’t even know what sort of type of game it is. We do know it will be out during the Holiday season 2019. So that’s a plus, but I would think that we’d at least have gotten a quick moment of something to see.

Star Wars Battlefront II made me roll my eyes a bit, as it was repeated trailer footage over and over, which personally annoys me, but I guess was the only thing they had to show. So we saw the new Solo Content, Yay –I guess? And learned we’re getting an expansion for the Clone Wars with Obi Wan, Grievous, Dooku and Anakin showing up for that. No surprise that EA had the Director of the game saying that they made some mistakes over EA actually apologizing for their horrible practices. Yeah, no EA, you don’t get a pass for any of the BS you pulled this past year.

Unravel 2 by  Coldwood Interactive  came out the day of the conference, which was a nice change of pace. I will say this much the creative team was nervous, but showed a great deal of love for Yarny and his new companion. The fact that this is local co-op is a plus, and seems to be a fun game. Already I’m loving the blue Yarny and it looks like it’s going to be a strong story. The one thing that was rather sad about this game is that it’s not coming to the Switch and –apparently according to the development team via Twitter –they don’t have the resources to do that, even though this game and the previous one would have been a good choice for the Switch. The fact that the team said it wishes they could do it makes me wonder if EA is sending any money the way of the Originals teams that they have. If not, they should start considering porting games like this to the switch because I can tell you it will sell even more over on that console then the Xbox and PS4.

Sea of Solitude is yet another Indie that I would say saved the EA presser from falling into a F grade and leaves it at an E. The creative director from Jo –Mei games, the creators of this game from Germany, Cornelia Geppert, was extremely cute and excited to be on stage. Her infectious excitement made people applaud even more when they put the trailer on the screen. The thing that caught my attention about this game is that it covers the idea of depression and loneliness in a very strong and very direct way. The designs of the monsters and the story about a human becoming a bird like creature, which I think has ties to German folklore is really cool and again, I wish this was coming to the switch, although we don’t know at this point if it will or won’t. If EA was smart it would allow for it.

And then EA decided to screw up the love that was being given to them via the indies by pulling out…a mobile game of Command and Conquer.

Command and Conquer: Rivals…I have words about this. The original game series was a Real Time strategy game that had a lot of complexity to the creation of the game play and the set up to maintain and manage your resources while taking out the opposing team. The last game of this nature from the Command and conquer franchise came out in 2013, on PC, and then Victory was shuttered. Which leads us to the new game. Command and Conquer Rivals is mobile and while the team does boast some former members that worked on Command and Conquer a lot of the game play relies on the idea of tapping the smart phone screen. There’s no camera movement so you’re in a static place and can’t see what’s around you to figure out what you need to do. Given the reaction to Rivals so far, it seems like people are not too happy with the situation. This game, apparently, is trying to get in with the Clans like games. Which makes me wonder if we’re going to see a lot of money grabs from EA on it.

Something slightly worse was the whole shoutcast that was put up by EA, and that I wound up skipping because it seemed way too staged. The fact that it’s also a one vs. one deal makes me think that they’re going after the Pokemon go crowd as well.

The final piece from EA was the Bioware game that I’ve been dreading…

Anthem, is…in a word…Sad. I don’t mean it’s sad in the sense that it’s physically depressing to see as it has the same sleek Bioware style, that’s not the issue. I expected nothing less from Bioware and the team behind this game. My issue for the sad comes from the fact that it’s a Game as a Service, or GAAS. Which means it’s on line all the time, and that means if you have crappy internet connections you may as well skip this game. While they mentioned that the game will have no loot boxes, there was nothing about no microtransactions, and, given the nature of the game and the whole “We have content for years to come” it makes me think that this is going to end up catering only to people who like to play Destiny. The fact that normally fans of Bioware tend to like RPGs, and thus more single player affairs over multiplayer affairs makes me think that EA is trying to use Bioware to grab at the GAAS players. Now, on the one hand, it’s true that there are a lot of players that like GAAS games, and I’m not saying that they’re bad. The issue becomes, again, if you don’t have the net for it, and given the FCC crap that just went through it makes me wonder how badly this whole thing will work out. Also if you don’t like Always online games you may as well pass on this because that’s all this is going to be.  How do you manage to make Iron Man fighting Monsters seem dull. Great Job guys at doing that. 

We also saw notices about Fifa 19, and it’s practically become a monopoly given that Konami and another studio lost their license of the Championship and another tournament from Soccer. Not much changed  other than some sort of mini game, and then we had Madden and NBA, and I think that was it. I didn’t pay much mind to a lot of it because after seeing the indie presentation it felt like EA had lost touch with what makes for a good presentation….