EA is known for long running franchises. Most of their games are beyond the trilogy phase. This includes all their sports titles, and other popular games like Need for Speed or Burnout. They have pledged to grow their original IPs (intellectual properties). We have seen some evidence in games like Army of Two, and I can also vouch for the fact that they are working on a few other unannounced games. Of course, unannounced means I can’t tell you about them.

Whether you want to admit it or not, EA is also known for innovation. Need some examples? How about making a boxing game a popular and profitable franchise? A game that even though it’s 6 months old, still holds the crown for the best detail you’ll find in a character. I’m of course speaking of Fight Night Round 3. Are the realistic boxers the innovation? No, the dual analog controls and the lack of heads up display are the innovations. Need more examples? How about Need for Speed? Yes, there are tons of racing games out there, but if you look back at the history of EA’s longest running racing series, you’ll find the first game to include cop chases. Fast forward to today, where the soon to be released Need for Speed: Carbon, you’ll find Autosculpting™. The most fun I’ve ever had creating my own vehicle. Picture the complexity of character creation in games like Oblivion and Tiger Woods. Now apply the same principles to modding your own ride. It sounds simple, but it’s so much fun it makes you wonder why nobody has done it before. There are many more examples, but I’ll let the next game speak for itself.

The flagship title that was being shown at the EA Chicago Open House was Def Jam Icon. It has now reached trilogy status. Why is everything a trilogy? What do you call a series that has 4 chapters? Anyway, I had a chance to spend some time with this game. It’s not scheduled to be released until next spring, but it was already very polished. The studio responsible for Fight Night is growing and has taken the reigns for the 3rd Def Jam title. They had it running on both an Xbox 360, and a Playstation 3 dev kit. The new concept that is being incorporated into the game is how the environment for each stage has interactive elements that happen with the beat of the music. Check out the full Def Jam Icon Preview.

Other playable titles on hand included Tiger Woods PGA Tour 07 for the PS3. Playing the demo was only slightly more exciting than playing the demo that anyone can download on the 360. Why? Because I was playing it on a Playstation 3 with a SIXAXIS controller. While I was playing, a nice young lady reached in to wipe off the PS3, and I joked that she was going to have a busy night. It is amazing, if not somewhat of a drawback how much dust and fingerprints show up on the shiny new system. I guess it’s not any different than a PSP.

Madden 07 was also looking good on the PS3. It has come a long way since E3, and once again looks very similar to the 360 version. One of the original developers taught me a lesson or two in a couple rounds of Fight Night on the 360. The PS3 version wasn’t being built out of the Chicago studio, but I was told by the developer that it’s looking every bit as good as the Xbox 360 version of Fight Night. Last but not least was the expansion game The Sims 2 Pets. I have played some of the early versions of the Sims, but got a bit frustrated with the amount of work involved just to keep your kitchen from starting on fire. After creating my pet yorky, and adding it to an existing Sims 2 family, I was surprised at how much easier it was to play, even though I was managing a family with 3 people, and 4 pets.

Another cool item on hand at the EA Chicago office was a laser face scanning machine. In about 1 minute, they made a full scan of my head, and were showing off and rotating a 10,000 polygon 3D model. It was simply amazing. EA has a couple other cool technologies that I was told about. One was a full body laser scanning technology, similar to the face scan. Another was their new emotion capture technology that was used to model Tiger Woods emotions for the PGA golf game. Just like regular motion capture, they place dots on Tiger's face to capture his exact expressions.

EA Chicago has an impressive 6 story office in the heart of Chicago. Their specialty seems to be next generation fighting games like Fight Night and Def Jam. We should find out soon about another fighting game, and an original IP that is being developed in Chicago. EA is the worlds biggest video game publisher, and they are often given a hard time because of that. However, nobody can argue that most gamers have played a fair number of EA games and enjoyed them. EA has had no less than 27 hit games that have sold more than 1 million copies each. I’m betting that the few games I played will have them reaching 30 hit titles very soon.

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