EA Done With Shitfest Licensed Games

At last, EA released how their slaughtered licensed games were a waste of everyone’s time. EA’s CEO himself has admitted that EA will now stop with their perpetual line-up of “crappy” licensed titles.

John Riccitiello, CEO of Electronic Arts: I think what redeems our industry is quality, and I think we take a step back every time we take a license and exploit it with a crappy game. That’s not what we’re about.

About damn time.

Ben Cousins on Battlefield: Heroes

Ben Cousins was at the recent EA games showcase in london. Bit-tech.net had a chance to chat up with him regarding their TF2-esque “casual” multiplayer shooter; Battlefield: Heroes. Here’s a snip:

BT: But the game is multiplayer only? No singleplayer?

BC: There’s an offline training and tutorial bit where you can go in where you can shoot targets, try the vehicles and get used to the controls, but there’s no actual singleplayer gameplay. We’ve found that a lot of people play singleplayer Battlefield games like 1942 because they can’t find a server or they’re scared they’ll be killed by people who are a lot more skilled than they are.

A BETA of Battlefield: Heroes is scheduled to arrive in few days.

Valve’s Doug Lombardi talks Portal 2, Left 4 Dead and future plans

At the recent EA games showcase in london, CVG sat down with Valve’s Dough Lombardi to discuss Valve’s upcoming game Left 4 Dead. Lombardi also talked about Portal 2, Source engine and Valve’s expansion into new genres. Here’s a snip:

How much has the Source engine been updated for L4D since Half-Life 2?

Lombardi: I would say that almost half the code has been developed since Half-Life 2 was released. We introduced new lighting effects, we did a lot of character animation work for HL2: Episode 2, added support for multi-core PCs, we worked on the physics for Portal and new AI added for L4D.

We look at Source as a set of tools, not necessarily as an engine that we’ve built that we’ll use until it expires and throw away. We see it as this organic thing that we’re constantly tweaking and building. It’s more of a toolkit than a set engine.