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E3 2008: Did Someone Say Portal on XBLA?

Jul. 14 10:51 PM by Terry Terrones

...yes, someone did! - Greetings from sunny Los Angeles, which I believe is spanish for whale's va...never mind, that's San Diego. I have no clue what its spanish for, I think it means The Angles or something. Maybe LA was named by a mathematician.

Either way I'm in sunny SoCal. E3 doesn't "officially" start until tomorrow but some companies decided they wanted a head start. Microsoft, Square Enix and EA all got the jump on the competition, and on yours truly. Even though GamePro is based in California, I live in Colorado. My flight came in this morning so I only made it to the EA presser and the E3 reception, bummer. On a happier note I got to drive my rental car, a convertible Ford Mustang, about 90mph with the top down on I-10. And no, its not a company rental, I paid for it myself.

I may have missed out on the Microsoft and Square Enix pressers but I heard what I needed to - Portal is coming to XBLA. I'm sure some other stuff was announced, but once I heard about Portal I forgot the rest.

After getting into town I ran over to the convention center to get my press credentials and headed over to the Orpheum Theatre. The Orpheum, or Orf as I like to call it, is stunning. It was built in 1926 and greats like Judy Garland, Lena Horne, Ella Fitzgerald, Aretha Franklin and Duke Ellington performed there - at least that's what it says on their website. It doesn't look like much from the outside, but inside its beautiful.

Appropriately enough EA had a rock and roll show set up. On the stage was a huge screen and the music was loud and thumping. EA CEO John Ricitiello got things started. Here are the highlights.

EA Press Conference

Dead Space - Executive Produce Glen Schofield introduced Dead Space, a game he said focuses on "strategic dismemberment". The HUD was pretty unique and the game has a Bioshock/Resident Evil-in-space kind of feel but the over the right shoulder view seemed clunky in the live gameplay demo.

Mirror's Edge - This game has a ton of potential. Its a first person action adventure game that looks like parkour with combat. Some hands on time in the EA booth will determine if this will really work.

Spore - Will Wright came out and talked Spore, the evolutionary game where players create a species and help it evolve. He threw out some impressive stats (100K creatures created in 22 hours, 1million in 1 week) and I've heard raves about the game but I'm still wondering how it'll play after the excitement of creating weird looking creatures wears off.

SimAnimals - John Talbot introduced SimAnimals. Now instead of torturing people you can use your God-like powers to torture wild animals. Its coming out for the Wii and DS in January of 09...Mr. Talbot also talked about the Sims 2 Store, where you can microtransact to your hearts content...he also said The Sims 3 will be out in 09

NBA Live 09 - Liverpudlian Peter Moore came out with NBA legend Bill Walton to talk about the Dynamic DNA system, a way to monitor the behavior of players and teams in three areas (player tendencies, player DNA, team DNA). Its something that EA will update daily online so players and teams act how they do during the season instead of how they did the previous season. Interesting idea and if it works it could really improve the AI in sports titles. Moore and Walton were hilarious by the way, I see a series of Owen Wilson/Ben Stiller type movies in their future.

EA Sports All Play - After Bill Walton left the stage pro golfer Natalie Gulbis came out to talk with Peter Moore about...something. I think it has to do with EA Sports games on the Wii, and I think she played a hole on Wolf Creek in Vegas versus Moore but to be honest once she came out I was too busy picking up my jaw off the ground to hear anything anyone said about games.

Other stuff - Greg Zeschuk of Bioware showed a trailer for Dragon Age Origins (looks very Lord of the Ringsy)...Gabe Newell of Valve showed some vids of Left 4 Dead...John Carmack of id announced a partnership with EA and debuted the trailer for their new FPS Rage.

Overall it was a fairly subdued presser. The id announcement was a bit of a surprise but there was really nothing that caught anyone off guard. Except for Natalie Gulbis.

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