E3 2019 - EA

The E3 conference seems to be a dying art as Sony joins Nintendo in dropping out of the idea entirely and EA adapts their show into a friendly, bro sofa livestream. Unfortunately "dying art" is basically the entire premise of my channel, blog and whatever I'm still doing here so we're going to cover this shitshow regardless.

As insufferably chummy as the host is, with knee-jerk laughter-counters to rival Jimmy Fallon, no one at EA's "sesh" seems any more human than the robotic suits of marketing we normally get. They do manage to drain my life-force twice as quickly however. Perhaps the lack of joy in taking the piss out of them is due in part to them not even attempting to be presentable.

Spot the human.

Speaking of presentable, we're presented with an "Alpha gameplay demo" of the new Star Wars game and starting off with a blatant lie is at least in-keeping with EA's standards. A very graphically polished sequence of traversal, sneaking and lightsaber combat follows, looking entirely as generic and underwhelming as the trailer did.

The Stormtroopers appear to be as much of a threat as an eroded Lego play-set of the old battle droids. You occasionally encounter some twirly double-sided stick guys whose ability to resist force push and pull by stabbing their weapon into the ground was the closest to anything inventive I saw in the entire demo.

The gameplay, the plot, the Forest Whitaker and everything else in between was nauseatingly fine but I honestly just wish after the Battlefront debacle that the licence had been passed to someone other than EA...If there's anyone left that is.

Our screamlord host sets himself up for humiliating audio manipulation with the phrase "that's what I want! Is a little boy!" after coaxing an applause from the audience. He goes on to quote a single positive sounding member of the twitch chat to try and prove what the gameplay demo couldn't before again pleading with the audience "you guys liked it right?"

They then bring out a twitching, beeping replica of the game's new droid and without missing a beat our host claims "I immediately want him as a backpack." We see the red targeting dot of the Disney Merch Snipers move away from his forehead and the crew discuss in fairly vague and bland terms, the vague and bland gameplay we just saw. It is also worth noting the 60-80% of the audience with identical EA-branded backpacks...

"It's Star Wars, it doesn't get any bigger than this!" And I contractually can't open my eyes or mouth lest all the money fall out.

The next feature is about an event or some new weapons or something for Apex Legends. I admittedly haven't followed this game but I genuinely think the entire piece was in another language. "Battle Pass, R301, meta wraith, memeable weapon stack, untamed care package, Battle Pass, double XP, Hopped up on Battle pass, elite queue, Battle Pass" Fuck's sake I feel old.

When I finally did understand something again in the reveal of a new character, I still didn't really understand it. Much like Overwatch, this trend of hyping up characters and their backstories only for them to be practically invisible and unexplored in a purely online multiplayer FPS is bafflingly pointless to me. These games have no story mode and yet a weird amount of time is wasted on their supposed story.

At this point we've had about three different identical hosts giving this forced hype-man, excessively-American, cheer everything, applaud everything, don't think, just consume, chode-faced wankery and my will to live is basically flat-lining. So moving on to Battlefield V where it seems after Battlefield 1 being based on World War One, Battlefield Five is based on...World War Two...This is not helping my headache.

Maybe it's the amount of separate parts the game is being released in.

To give you a summary of the kind of in-depth and enlightening conversation happening during these interviews I will quote Dice's Ryan McArthur "I think fruit's important when you're doing game design." To his credit it is more so the interviewer's constant, desperate need to try and be funny that is forcing these kinds of brain-liquefying answers. That said though, FUCK.

Skinny Swedish George Lucas appears to talk about some spectacularly inane tweaks to multiplayer then new maps in Greece, a subway and Iwo Jima are revealed. Due to BV's episodic nature it's actually quite unclear if they're single or multiplayer features but I guess they look like cool backdrops to do the same old Nazi shooting against.

The hosts finally stop making war PTSD jokes and we move onto Star Wars Bafflefront, relegated to a spot in the intermission where we're assured "Our community is really happy" and "our subreddit is full of love."

Even brand-loyal, climate-confused hoodie man couldn't keep a straight face.

Next up is EA Sports Now That's What I Call FIFA 2020 where Rio Ferdinand describes street football and how "You are forced to almost have a personality in there."

Quietly corralled into another intermission was Anthem's lead producer who insists they've "learned a lot of lessons over the last four months" and are "listening to player feedback better." Judging by the immediate player feedback from the crowd I have to say the excitement and goodwill surrounding the game was "palpable."

The show continues with half an hour on Madden NFL. The Sims 4 is EA's big finish with their tropical island expansion. How you're supposed to trap them in the water when it's an entire ocean and there's no ladders remains to be seen.

The devs tried to explain features like water-sports, volcanoes and conservation careers but the host kept interrupting with her shit jokes. All in all, it looks like a Sims game and probably the least tedious part of EA's entire couchference. Even if the devs did insinuate Dolphin-Mermaid intercourse at one point.

More stranger-danger hosts, disingenuous charity guff and vacuous small talk top off three hours of my life I'll sadly never get back but more tragically had nothing better to do with.

In conclusion, if EA keeps trying to backpedal their constant corporate insidiousness with this insincere, over-friendly, buddy-casual chat-show crock they're going to end up as cringey as Ubisoft and I'm going to end up having a fucking aneurysm.

Perhaps The Sims is the only honest seeming franchise EA has left because it too involves unconvincing facsimiles of human life.