Now, Bandicoot12 Studios has been no stranger to frequent criticism of EA, whether it be the power-hungry, monopolous fashion in which the company devours smaller studios, the continued lack of innovation in their franchises, or the ever astounding lack of polish in their games which causes one to speculate if they indeed have QA testers on staff. However, I'd like the readers to know that this coverage of EA's booth will actually be...more of the same.
Haha, oh wow. Just look at the cute little bugger! Hovering near Capcom like a rabid hyena, waiting to scavenge some of their traffic. To my (absolute lack of) surprise, EA was showing off a rehash and a feature that should have been included in the initial package: both the new Burnout Paradise: Ultimate Box and the new Mirror's Edge DLC.
This isn't to rip on Burnout Paradise, though. Many may recall me blabbering on about "best racing game in years" last year, so rest assured I consider Paradise, along with its substantial amount of free DLC to be a phenomenal effort by EA. This isn't to rip on Mirror's Edge, either...I did quite enough of that in December, what with phrases like "biggest disappointment of 2008" being thrown around. Truly, Mirror's Edge had the potential to be something truly special, one of those games whose names conjure goosebumps when uttered, something to be said in the same sentence as The Sands of Time or Katamari Damashi. Unfortunately, inconsistent design philosophy and pacing, coupled with some astoundingly bad hit detection and peppered with a shamefully shallow story and equally shallow characters left me wanting and hopeful for a sequel with vast improvements.
This is the part where I would talk about the fresh new DLC that focus only on pure parkour paradise...but instead this is the part where I get to say that I only spent a few frustrating minutes with the game. This would be because everything playable was only on a few laptops, which habitually crashed every ten minutes.
Oh, EA. Thank you for matching your incompetent software quality with hardware failures as well. Oh, EA. Thank you for having a bitter booth staff who became extremely irritated when I mentioned Mirror's Edge's technical problems.
Though, honestly, all past hatred aside...thank you, EA, for trying. Last year you put out Burnout Paradise, Dead Space, Boom Blox, Mirror's Edge and others that do not spring to mind right now. After years of churning out assembly line, Triple-A shovelware, you took the time to make an effort and ended up with a couple stellar games for your troubles...and massive layoffs.
The nature of the industry is such right now to make me tremble with rage or simply sigh in bewildered exasperation. You, EA, are damned if you do and damned if you don't: a catch-22 between making money and making good games. Anyone with their fingers on the pulse of the gaming world knows what I speak of: the death of innovation, the rise of fierce and ugly competition, the overall Hollywood transformation of our industry. Truly, I think many of us suffer for its success.
To quote Tycho Brahe: "We are being digested by an amoral universe."
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