As the largest publisher in the industry I suppose it is easy to present a great collection of games that everyone wants to play, or maybe it is just easier to ignore the ones that weren’t great. As such, Electronic Arts did not disappoint this year and even made one of the biggest splashes at the show when it announced support for Xbox Live!



From here forward, EA Sports and EA Games titles will fully support Xbox Live! Including such titles as Madden NFL 2005, NBA LIVE 2005, FIFA Soccer 2005, Need for Speed Underground 2, Burnout 3, GoldenEye: Rogue Agent and the Battlefield: Modern Combat. Support will begin with NCAA Football 2005, scheduled for release in July.



Obviously this is huge news for Microsoft as there is now one less reason not to buy Xbox. Also one can infer that since EA and Microsoft now are playing friendly that EA’s developers might spend a little extra effort polishing Xbox versions, rather than quick and dirty ports that often have graphical flaws and sometimes even less detail than that found in the PlayStation 2 version.

EA Sports:

Aside from the Xbox Live! news, the EA Sports line continues to improve and face creation in the games is something that the developers have obviously spent a lot of time working on. In one demo, for the next Tiger Woods game, players can actually customize the faces right down to acne or acne pocks! While this is cool, sometimes you just have to wonder why someone would actually want to replicate this aspect of their face.



NCAA Football 2005, the first title supporting Xbox Live! will also feature improved crowd reaction and even the ability to create signs for the fans to display! The “Home Team Advantage” system that EA has created will allow players to mash buttons to excite the crowd. An excited crowd will cheer loudly and can cause the opposing team to miss calls or generally become intimidated and less effective athletes.



Another new aspect of the game is the ability to create signs for fans to hold. Before game begins, players will have the option of creating custom signs that say anything one wants to express. These can be simple “Go Blue!” or longer more custom ones aimed at specific players.



Players will also be able to create unique stadiums and teams so that even if your alma mater is too small to be included in the game you can create a facsimile of it. Or if you went to a school too small to host a team, like me – UNC Wilmington, you can create a total fantasy team plus stadium and then go out and try to build a dynasty.

Battlefield 2 and Battlefield: Modern Combat:

The primary difference between these two games is that Modern Combat is for the consoles (PlayStation 2 and Xbox), while Battlefield 2 is for PC. Additionally Battlefield 2 provides a single player experience using bots, while the console versions are multiplayer only. Both games also present a much more persistent experience featuring stats tracking and rankings.



These games take the classic “Battlefield” gameplay and thrust the Americans, Chinese and Middle East Coalition into scenarios. A huge disappointment for me was that these new games will lack the history lessons found in the earlier games and will apparently also lack a detailed fiction to replace it. Instead it seems that battles will involve contrived scenarios like invading a city or protect a landmark. This is in contrast to 1942 and Vietnam where you were invading a city because it was an actual battle and there was history behind it to motivate the player. This design decision was made so that no one gets upset about who might be the potential aggressors in reality.



The games do look great though, I just wonder if it will feel the same fighting as an American soldier invading a Chinese base, as it was coming off a landing craft in Normandy knowing that you had to win the battle because the future of the free world was at stake.

Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban:

For the most part this game seemed pretty straight forward as a 3d adventure based on the book. Like the book the game features an older cast of characters and this time you can also play as Harry, Ron and Hermione. Visually the game is also darker and more edgy – matching the style of the novel.



The thing that caught my attention was their Eye Toy mini-games. Though it is actually a set of six mini-games stuck on the DVD rather than part of the primary storyline, this is still quite a cool feature. Players can actually reach up and grab a Quidditch snitch (or try to), help de-gnome Hagrid’s garden or even try to catch the chocolate frogs by clapping their hands over it and making a mess.

General Thoughts:

Sometimes in the battle of the giants a smaller giant can win big by doing a favor for a larger giant. What that favor might be will certainly become clear in the near future. For now I am sitting back and watching for who plays the next card.



EA is big enough and Sony’s market share is so large that EA did not need to support Microsoft if it didn’t want to. By acting as they did originally, they effectively endorsed Sony’s philosophy for online.



It is hard to imagine that this was a mere exchange of money. Certainly Microsoft must have given EA some assurances or even some privileges going forward to get them to support Microsoft’s service.



Something in the equation has changed and EA now seems to be a strong advocate of Xbox Live!