Results tagged “EA” from Birmingham Mail - Technobabble

Lord of the Rings: Conquest
XBox 360
Electronic Arts
£39.99

THE LATEST offering in the Lord of the Rings game series is by far the best I've played to date.

Having been a fan of the games since the first one I played on the Playstation 2 I was worried that I was just in for more of the same with Lord of the Rings: Conquest.

To an extent that's true, but the polished graphics, enhanced gameplay and the chance to take part in evil storylines instead just good ones meant that it didn't matter.

In this latest version you get to play as either a warrior slashing his way through hoardes of orcs, an archer who can fire explosive or poison arrows, a scout who can turn invisible and sneak up on enemies or a mage who can wreak havoc on enemy lines while defending your own soldiers.

Each have their own pros and cons but in true LOTR style whichever you choose there'll be no shortage of gore. Probably the best tribute I can give to this game is that my flatmate - who could best be described as a gaming Philistine - sat playing it for about an hour with obvious enthusiasm when I brought it home.

There are plot points in the game which will annoy some Rings fans and it is admittedly a bit on the short side - you could finish it in a day easily - but it more than surpassed expectations.

91 per cent.

By Will Oliphant

Need for Speed Undercover
EA
XBox 360
£39.99

IS NEED for Speed a franchise desperate for some kind of makeover?

It's certainly been going for some time now, with the same old high speed cop dodging and racing against rivals.

And there's a whole host of rival titles too including Project Gotham, Grid, Midnight Club and even the Grand Theft Auto series at a stretch.

The story, such as it is, and illustrated with some fairly poor cut scenes, is some nonsense about racing other drivers and avoiding police while going undercover to bring down some international crime syndicate.

Tri-City where the game is based, features 80-miles of roads, including a large motorway section.

The city is all very generic, albeit nicely realised, although it suffers from the unrealistic looking problem of skyscrapers popping into view from nowhere in the distance.

Undercover is an excellent racing game, make no mistake. It's fast, furious, competently put together, and has licensed a good many of the hottest cars around. It just doesn't get the excitement levels up as much as it should - possibly because it doesn't really do an awful lot that's new, in what is a crowded marketplace.

***

The excellent new game from EA has run into controversy over the use of a copy protection device called SecuROM, which I blogged about on a previous occasion.

Basically PC buyers are only being allowed to install Spore three times.

So what, you might ask? Well for one thing when you normally buy a software title, you buy it in perpetuity, so you can install it as many times as you want.

You can also sell it second hand if you so wish. Clearly this issue has implications for sales so software manufacturers might want to find ways of halting it (and so, I would say, rob their customers of legitimately selling on their property).

But the issue of installations is also important - many people install and uninstall games frequently to free up hard drive space, just keeping the save games.

Why should a software company prevent this perfectly legitimate practice - I often wipe something I haven't played in a while, and hang on to the saves, only to fancy another bash later and put it back on again.

Perhaps these software restrictions are a step too far, and taking the capitalist ideal of trying to squeeze every last penny out of something to the point where they are annoying their own customers.

As to if this stops piracy - well, presumably hacked copies (which apparently were available before Spore was even released) get round this three installation rule anyway, rendering it somewhat pointless.

I see Electronic Arts has come under fire today for a stunt to promote their new game Mercenaries 2.

£20,000-worth of fuel was being given away free of charge at the Last Stop garage in Finsbury Park, north London, to promote the game Mercenaries 2: World in Flames.

But by 7.30am a huge queue of 150 cars was causing traffic chaos in the area with security staff brought in to tackle unruly motorists annoyed at the delays.

People could fill up with up to £40 worth of fuel - Louise Marchant, from Electronic Arts, said the scenes of queuing mimicked aspects of the game.

She explained: "It's set in Venezuela, you play a mercenary and fuel is used as a currency." She denied the promotion was irresponsible, saying: "We've got security on hand."

Below - the scenes today in London:

Well it certainly had the desired effect in terms of publicity didn't it?

Below: petrol pump attendant Lizzie Jay-Hughes *must resist making the obvious sexist joke*.

I got a press release through the other day from IGA Worldwide "the leading independent in-game advertising network".

They've just signed a deal with EA, or Electronic Arts, to provide all their plugging for the Playstation 3.

According to the bumph the contract means the 13 million PS3 owners will now be bombarded with in-game advertising.

The release says: "Sony recently opened its PS3(TM) platform to allow brands to advertise dynamically within games played on the popular video game console."

Well that was nice of Sony wasn't it? (I particularly like the TM thrown in like a breeze block emphasizing the product).

I enjoyed the explanation of why gamers would actually benefit from the experience: "The advertisements are integrated within the gaming environment in order to deliver a seamless and more authentic game environment."

Well, I suppose they're right - being bombarded with product placement is certainly part of normal everyday life.

I remember when the only ads in games were spoof ones - often in something like Duke Nukem there'd be pics of naked women advertising something - god knows what - it wasn't big, it wasn't clever, but at least it was (slightly) funny (if you were an adolescent male that is).

Will this 'advance' keep prices down for PS3 gamers (normal release price £49.99) - errr, no.

And EA, for god's sake. They are hardly famous for insisting on finished products being released.

Who can forget Battlefield 2 on PC - still getting massive bug fix patches YEARS after its release.

Elizabeth Harz, EA's Senior Vice President said: "EA is committed to providing both great entertainment experiences for consumers and effective advertising solutions for marketers."

It's come to something when a games publisher says it's 'committed' to a concept like 'creating effective advertising solutions'.

I await the first in-game ad break.

Adverts - coming to a game near you!

Big developers Bioware and EA have backed down after a huge online outcry over plans to dramatically ramp up their copywrite protection on two new releases.

Both Mass Effect and Spore were set to use SecuROM's software which forces the user to authenticate their copy of the game every ten days online.

The plans had caused something of a sensation on the internet, with fans complaining it was a step too far.

First Bioware decided to drop the plans in favour of the normal authenticate on installation, then EA followed suit.

The spectacular reverse ferret left both publishers with egg on their faces - but were they really in the wrong?

There's no doubt that software piracy is a big problem on the PC - more so than other platforms. Games these days have development periods running to years and cost millions of pounds to create.

Is it really so unreasonable for companies to protect their intellectual property?

I think on balance this one probably went a bit far - and ran the risk of the consumer being treated like a criminal - something which seems to be happening more and more.

I, for one, find it quite annoying when a program tells me on installation "your authentication code 'appears' to be correct". APPEARS!!! Thanks guys, after I've lashed out on your new product.

Plus with the SecuROM system there's the issue of needing to be online to authenticate - many people have a computer for games which they don't use for the internet for performance reasons.

Also, what happens if you decide you fancy a game two years after release? Will the authentication servers still be working?

And there's the issue of servers being overwhelmed, leading to waits to get on an play.

All in all I don't think it was a good idea - but let's face it - we're only going to get more and more of this kind of thing as developers perfectly reasonably try to beat the pirates.