We demoed EA’s top titles at Gamescom and have all the latest details.
EA’s booth is crammed with several high-profile titles this year and we saw all the big guns. Of course, Army of Two: The Devil’s Cartel is here, but you should already know everything about that from our latest cover story and month of online features. I offer impressions of Dead Space 3, Crysis 3, Need For Speed: Most Wanted, and Medal of Honor Warfighter, and Adam Biessener throws in his two cents on SimCity and Battlefield 3’s upcoming Armored Kill DLC.
Dead Space 3
The first segment of Dead Space 3’s hands-on gameplay consisted of basically the same content as what was shown live during EA’s press conference and in the latest trailer. Things go bad on Issac’s ship and he has to pull on a space suit and escape before it’s destroyed. He and a team of soldiers then investigate another ship called the Roanoke since they received a distress call from Issac’s pal from the last game, Ellie. Once onboard, it’s not long before necromorphs crop up and start causing trouble. Combat feels like it should and the creepy mood remains despite concerns that the tone would be lighter this time. A lot more random objects appeared after stomping the creatures’ corpses, which came in handy for weapon crafting.
This totally revamped feature was unveiled for the first time here at Gamescom and looks to add plenty of variety to Issac’s arsenal. You start by choosing a compact or heavy stock depending on what kind of weapon you’re trying to make. Next comes the core, which determines if you’re making a plasma cutter, ripper, flamethrower, or any other weapon type. You can pick a top and bottom core in the same gun to combine two different guns into one. Adaptors modify elements like making the plasma show wider or enabling rapid fire. Then attachments add on scopes, ammo efficiency, additional explosion radius, and more. Finally, upgrade circuits can beef up your reload speed, damage, rate of fire, etc. If you’re particularly pleased with you creation, you can create blueprints and share them with friends (though EA wouldn’t go into specifics just yet).
Related Story: New Dead Space 3 Trailer and Screens
Crysis 3
I got my hands on the new Hunter multiplayer mode and it definitely turned around my initial skepticism. As was revealed at EA’s press conference yesterday, Hunter mode gives two players cloaked nanosuits and bows and pits them against a squad of normal human soldiers (16 total players on PC and 12 on console). As the cloaked players make kills, the soldier players respawn on the other side until the last one falls or time runs out. The two-minute time limit means the cloaked players can’t slowly stalk their prey if they want to succeed and the five total rounds mean most everyone gets a chance to hunt. Even though it seems like the cloaked players hold all the cards, the soldiers can make it if they run in groups and watch each other’s backs. After all, it takes longer to charge up an arrow than it does to pull a trigger and the cloaks don’t render their wearers totally invisible.
Related Story: Crysis 3 Hunter Mode Multiplayer Trailer
Need For Speed: Most Wanted
Up to 12 players can compete in and sometimes work together in the mixtape-styled multiplayer. We all drove over to a starting line and first competed in a speed trap event. Here we blazed down a straightaway to build up the highest speed while passing a tracking camera. You get 90 seconds for the event so you can use it to best your score or try to wreck others. Step two was a team race in which the whole group had to forge temporary alliances to make sure their team beats the other. Step three was a drift challenge to see who can keep a drift going the longest. I just did a crazy long donut in a circular paved area. As long as you keep above 40mph it counts. Step four was a jump competition where we went back and forth over two ramps facing each other. It feels great to get some air, but there’s the constant threat of smashing into an oncoming competitor. Step five was an every man for himself race. Once it was finished an overall winner was declared (not me)and everyone loaded up on multiplayer experience to put towards new cars, mods, and paint jobs.