EA reaffirmed their position as a powerful force in the industry during their presentation, which was busting at the seams with big titles, as well as the announcement that EA has a new partnership with id Software, the team that brought us Doom and Quake. Oddly, Rock Band 2, Madden ‘09, and Mercenaries 2 were not represented (of course, I’m no less interested in those titles because of it!). But let’s look at some of the games they DID cover.

Possibly the most innovative, unique, and exciting game I’ve seen represented at E3 is Mirror’s Edge, and it is the single most exciting game due out this holiday in my opinion. You play as a courier, a runner, who must deliver important messages in person to avoid the messages’ detection from the “big brother” government that is in place. The art and environments are breathtaking, with a bright, crisp, clean world where you move around on rooftops and inside buildings, using your “runner’s vision” that highlights possible ways to progress in a bright red, as if it was painted bright red in a realistic manner (not highlighted red in a fake looking away). The contrast is compelling to look at. You progress with a first person view using your speed and agility to get from place to place and try to avoid detection. If you are detected, you can use different martial arts moves to take down the enemy, or steal their gun and use it (and then toss it, so you can get back to the business of getting around most efficiently). I can’t stress enough just how beautiful the game looks, how different movement and gameplay looks from anything I’ve seen before, and how much I’m looking forward to this title. The game is due out in November for Xbox360 and PS3.

Just in time for Halloween, survival horror game Dead Space will be released. In it, you investigate a ship out in deep space where all inhabitants were infected and the place is swarming with gruesome and frightening enemies.  Some have unique abilities such as emitting a poisonous gas that will kill you if you don’t kill it first, and others who you need to eliminate limb by limb, because they will keep coming after you until every limb is severed. The game looks very intense, very M rated, and very creepy. For Xbox360 and PS3.

Will Wright came out to introduce Spore, a PC game that will also have scaled down versions available for the DS and iPhone/iPod Touch. He announced that a creature creator is available on EA’s website, a free demo version and a $9.99 full version, which people around the world have been using to form a humungous, user created database of creatures for the game. You can download it here:

http://www.spore.com/trial

Will announced that a National Geographic special will be coming out around the time of the games release highlighting the scientific and creative intersection that exists in the game, and the dvd for said show will also be available in the Gallactic Edition of the game. The response has been so great with the user created content that the database already exceeds the number of known creatures on earth, after 18 days availability of the download! This game seems like a must for PC owners who enjoy unleashing their creativity. Will showed off some really cool looking critters other users created, and it really whet my appetite to try my own. You get to “play God” in Spore, building a universe from the first critter to civilized existence. Spore is due out in September.

NBA Live ‘09 will have a very innovative feature this year called “dynamic dna”. Every time you play the game, it will be updated with live stats that will not only include any team changes but team dynamics (how a team is getting along and playing together) and individual player tendancies, based on what’s really going on in the NBA at that time. Due out this fall for multiple systems.

There was also a presentation about EA’s lineup of iPhone and iPod Touch games. iTunes now offers an applications download that will allow you to add games as well as other content to your iPhone or iPod Touch (it’s about time, Apple!). I’ll blog more about that later, but I just wanted to mention that EA is offering a few games currently including Scrabble and Suduku and is working on a Need For Speed game, Tiger Woods game, and more to be released soon. (FYI: Ubisoft’s Gameloft also has games available.)

Some of the other interesting games presented were Dragon Age Origins, an RPG from Bioware (who gave us Mass Effect) coming for PC and then later on for consoles, and Left 4 Dead, a zombie action game from Valve (who gave us The Orange Box).

I really wanted to see more of Rock Band 2, Madden ‘09, and Mercenaries 2, but I cannot say I was disappointed with what EA did have to show. EA is going to be a force to be reckoned with this holiday.