EA Sports: Team Builder and Madden Online Franchise

EA is bringing a new level of connectivity to it's sports games. Beginning with NCAA 2010, you'll be able to customize your own team, including logos, colors and players. But don't take our word for it, head on over to: the Teambuilder website and check it out yourself. 

If college isn't your thing, this year's edition of Madden will include online franchise. Say good-bye to productivity. You can trade, draft and schedule games from the EA Sports Connect website, your cell phone or iPhone (there's an App for that).

EA Sports: FIght Night 4/ MMA

Peter Moore takes the stage to show off Fight Night 4. The original helped to usher in the current generation of consoles and the next iteration is aiming to push it even further. 

We get a live demo pitting Tyson vs. Ali. Game is much more dynamic. Round Three was scripted in up-close areas. That's changed. Ali knocks out Tyson, and we get a close-up of the new muscle and sweat dynamics. 

Fight Night Round 4 hits June 25.

EA is also moving from the ring into the cage with EA Sports: MMA. Game is already in production at EA Tiburon. 

The Saboteur

Imagine Get Up mixed with Max Payne... Saboteur has an intersting black and white comic-book feel to it, which they explained is actually a feature of the game; as you improved the area's will to fight, the color will return to the environment.

The Saboteur features a very interactive environment, allowing you to actually jump in a car to make your escape or even climb the Eiffel Tower, should you choose to.

More on this one later, as this looks like it could definietly be awesome.

Bioware shows off Dragon Age/ Mass Effect 2

Bioware's founders take the stage to show Dragon Age: Origins, a game they feel will redefine the fantasy genre. The game will challenge your perceptions of right and wrong and is the culmination of Bioware's experiences.

New trailer is shown and we have our first official announcement that it will ship on PC, Xbox 360 and PS3. Trailer shows off some story elements. Game has a Lord of the Rings feel, but with a unique twist. Expect lots of blood, orcs, magic and some other "situations". 

Game releases on October 20.

Next up is Mass Effect 2. Shepard isn't dead, he's back and leading a mission that he isn't expected to survive. We get the first gameplay trailer. Game is faster-paced than the original (good), but doesn't lose any of the drama. The Normandy's crew is back. 

Need for Speed: SHIFT

Need for Speed: Shift players achieve awards based on their personal driving style. Clean laps will get you points towards being a careful driver. Slamming into other cars will also earn you profile points, but towards being an aggressive driver.

The idea behind the profile points is to reward players for playing, not necesarrilt for winning, but for playing in their style. This should allow Need for Speed: Shift to appeal to a wider audience.

...also they will be giving me, I mean, giving away a BMW M3 car on the last day of E3, so that is sure to pull quite a crowd.

EA Girls

EA is targeting the girls hard and heavy with new games this year, from EA Girls:

The Littlest Pet Shop series gets four new games, with Littlest Pet Shop Online, Littlest Pet Shop Friends: City, Littlest Pet Shop Friends: Country and Littlest Pet Shop Friends: Beach.

Also,
Charm Girls Club titles were shown, including Charm Girls Club:My Fashion Mall, Charm Girls Club:Show, Charm Girls Club:Prom and Charm Girls Club:Pajama Party

EA's Press Conference lineup: E3 2009

Upon signing in at EA's E3 2009 press conference, press received a USB thumb drive with various assets. While it can't be guaranteed that everything shown today is necessarily included on the stick, with the possible exception of really big surprises, the games we cn expect to learn more about include:

• Army of Two: The 40th Day


• Battlefield 1943


• Battlefield Bad Company 2


• Brütal Legend


• Charm Girls Club


• Dante's Inferno


• Dead Space: Extraction


• Dragon Age Origins


• Fight Night Round 4


• G.I.Joe The Rise of Cobra


• Grand Slam Tennis


• Harry Potter and the Hal-Blood Prince


• Littlest Pet Shop Online


• Madden NFL 10


• Mass Effect 2


• MySims Agents


• NCAA FB 10


• Need for Speed NITRO


• Need for Speed SHIFT


• Spore Hero


• Spore Hero Arena


• The Saboteur


• The Sims 3


• Tiger Woods 10

..And now the show starts...

MS Press: Rock Band: Beatles First Look

After a bit of a technical snafu, we're back with a not-so-live but still fresh enough that it is still consumable look at Microsoft's E3 Press Conference.

"Here comes the sun..." and the first look at Rock Band: The Beatles.  Intro kicks off with an animated feature similar to Guitar Hero, but with a few 3D elements thrown in. We see the guys running from fans, on stage and finally taking part in a large, psychedelic parade.

After the trailer we get our first look at the game in action. Live on-stage demo of "Day Tripper". Looks like there's a new guitar that comes with the game and a new feature: 3-part harmony. Time to pick up some more microphones. Game runs like traditional Rock Band, but with The Beatles instead of the normal cast. During the performance the singers nail a harmony, unlocking a "Unison Bonus".

Release date is 09/09/09 and EA is revealing the first ten songs on the track list:

"I Saw Her Standing There"

"I Wanna Hold Your Hand"

"I Feel Fine"

"Day Tripper"

"Taxman"

"Back in the USSR"

"I am the Eggman/ Walrus"

"Octupus’ Garden"

"Here Comes the Sun"

"Get Back"

The tracklist will be expanded in the future with downloadable full albums. First is "Abbey Road" in March. "All You Need is Love" is Xbox Live exclusive. Proceeds from the download will go to "Doctors Without Borders".

Yoko Ono and Olivia Harrison on stage. Helped with game’s vision. Once they leave, Paul McCartney and Ringo enter to a standing ovation.

Ringo: “Game is good. Graphics are good. We were great.”

Paul: “Never thought we would be androids,…”

Ringo: “… but I like the way I walk”

EA Press Conference - Live Blog

One down, three to go. It's EA's turn to show what they have in store. Will we see a little more from Rock Band: Beatles? More news on Brutal Legend or Dead Space Extraction? We'll find out at 2 pm Pacific/ 4 Central.

Microsoft Press Conference - Live Blog

E3 2009 kicks off tomorrow with Microsoft's E3 Press Conference. Will we see the long-rumored "Xbox Handheld" or information on the next Halo? Check back at 10:30 Pacific/ 12:30 Central for live, up-to-the-minute (well, not every minute) updates.

Also, make sure to check Game Vortex for hands-on coverage from the show floor. 

Twittering... Tweet! Tweet! Tweet!

GameVortex now has a Twitter account. I've hooked it up to the websites RSS feed, so that recently released content is tweeted to @GameVortex. If you're a Twitter user, Follow us. We follow back, so we can better stay in touch with our reading audience.

Also, if you're interested in keeping up with some of the staff, specfifically, here's some links to our Twitter pages:

Geck0: @GameVortexGeck0
Fridtjof: @mapdock
Wumpusjagger: @Wumpusjagger
J.R.Nip: @JRNipmuc
Starscream: @StarscreamGV
Cyn: @LSUEarl

New Design on the Horizon

In celebration of GameVortex's 10th Anniversary, we've been making changes here and there. The thing we're currently working on is a redesign.

We're focusing on making the site more functional, not just different looking. That mean that we're going to be really addressing the way you navigate the site quite a bit. There are some things that are a bit clunky, currently, and we're going to be making the navigation of the website(s) a bit more straight-forward. Also, we are going to make some of the little known sections of our sites, such as our predefined search pages (such as this Tomb Raider page), our Features Index and our Company Index easier to locate.

The vast majority of our readers seem to find us via Google and then only stay for the specific review they were looking for. We don't mind, but we would love for those same readers to check out other content that we have that might interest them. To this end, we will be working on making new links to related content, as well as making it more obvious that the old links are actually there. Hopefully, readers will take the time to check out some of the other content we have that appeals to them.

Also, if you noticed above that I keep saying "sites," instead of "site," that's because GameVortex, while our flagship website, is not the only website we have. We also run PSillustrated (PlayStation Illustrated), which is actually in its 11th year, as that was our first website. Additionally, we are currently trying to come up with good names for a DVD/Blu-ray website, so our readers can still get that information, without the movie reviews taking up as much space on the game sites. All of our websites share a common reviewer pool and common management, so, in order to help stress this relationship, our new site designs will share a good bit of commonality between them - similar navigation, yes, but also elements that give them a unified look.

If you have any suggestions for the design, please leave them as comments to this entry, or email me at Robert [at] GameVortex [dot] com.

The Geck0 is... finally... OFF THE WALL

So, I've been answering some questions on Yahoo Answers... specifically videogame related questions that I feel I am qualified to answer - or that I know where to find the information.

On a couple of occasions, I have found that there is some problem or another with posting my answers... Sometimes, Yahoo Answers will have some issue on their side that keep me from posting... some error of some sort. Other times, The question will be resolved before I get a chance to post my answer. Recently, I tried to post an answer only to find that I had exceeded the allowed length, causing some of my answer to be truncated.

I'm not complaining, mind you, just learning the system a bit. Actually, it's quite to the contrary; I'm using these problems to my advantage. I've wanted, for some time now, to write editorials for GameVortex... sort of a periodic column. Well, I'm using my answers to these questions as sort of a jumping off point for my new editorial column, aptly entitled, "Off the Wall." (Seemed to make sense, me being the "Geck0" and all.)

My first "OFF THE WALL" article to be published was "The Proper Care and Feeding for Guitar Controllers." It was written in response to a question on Yahoo Answers, where the asker was worried about breaking their guitar controller.

It's not the best thing I've ever written (well, I hope it's not the best I've ever written), but it's a start. When I see a question on Yahoo Answers that looks like it would be of interest to several people... and I feel the need to expound on the subject, I will pen an "Off the Wall" article anew to address it. So, for now, the period of my periodic column will be "from time to time." If it generates some sort of interest or I get a good number of backlogged articles that are, shall we say, timeless, then I may look at assigning a specific frequency to the column's updates.

I would rather apply any spent effort in sticking to a regular release schedule towards the culmination and ultimate production of a web comic that I've been kicking an idea around for... as for the comic strip, I'm working on it...

2009 Things to Do...

So, how did YOU read the above title? As things to do this year? ...or as the number of things to be done? Either way, you're pretty close.

Starscream is working on a new layout for GameVortex.com and PSillustrated.com... something fresh and much more easy to navigate around, while helping to reinforce the fact that PlayStation Illustrated is a part of the GameVortex Network. We will be going for much better integration between the two in this redesign.

J.R.Nip is starting to look at the redesign from a 'features' perspective... We don't intend for this to be merely a new paint job, so functionality will be improved, along with the look and feel of the websites as they are now.

As for me, I'm going to be involved in both sides, of course, but I'm also working on a few projects of my own, updating our RSS feeds so that they are more useful, seeking partnerships on various levels with other websites and companies and trying to become more active in my "community"... both in Baton Rouge and internet-based.

That's not quite 2009 things, but I'm not done with the list... just ran out of time to blog... gotta run and work on some of those aforementioned things...

...till next time.