E3 Week: The EA Press Conference

Did EA bring their top game to E3 2012?
Once Microsoft were out of the way, Electronic Arts took to the E3 stage on Monday to debut their growing 2012/2013 line-up. My personal stance on their conference was that the publishers really should have held back some of their previous announcements for now as nothing really felt new, and thus there was a bit of a dull sense to the whole showing despite some exciting reveals. Let's round up all of the big announcements from EA, then...

• DEAD SPACE 3 ANNOUNCED- As previously suggested by a 'graphic novel' trailer, Dead Space 3 is most definitely on its way to consoles in February 2013. We got the first demo for co-op play here, and as always this is definitely looking like visceral, terrifying stuff.
• MADDEN NFL 13 DEBUTED- There was another trailer for Madden NFL 13 from EA Sports, although any impact was lessened somewhat by Microsoft's earlier Kinect reveal for the title.
• SIMCITY SOCIAL ANNOUNCED- On top of a cool new demo for the mainstream SimCity PC sequel, a Facebook version of the series was announced at the conference too.
• BATTLEFIELD PREMIUM ANNOUNCED- Again, as rumoured a Premium service for the Battlefield franchise was announced as a parallel to the COD Elite service, essentially readying us for the inevitable Battlefield: Bad Company 3 or Battlefield 4 for 720 and PS4 next Autumn.
• STAR WARS: THE OLD REPUBLIC UPDATES REVEALED- BioWare didn't go into any details on the future of Mass Effect at this conference, but they did at least confirm that new characters and modes are on their way to Star Wars: The Old Republic. The game will also go free-to-play for a limited period this Autumn.
• MEDAL OF HONOR: WARFIGHTER DEBUTED- Danger Close's much-anticipated sequel to their 2010 Medal Of Honor reboot was shown off in style at the conference. It seemed a bit of a damp squib compared to Black Ops II, yet I have no doubt it'll sell pretty well.
• UFC CONTROL TAKEOVER ANNOUNCED- One of EA's bigger announcements was that they're stealing the UFC franchise away from THQ as the latter publisher is in its hardest times, so we'll see new entries from EA for UFC from 2013 onwards.
• NEED FOR SPEED: MOST WANTED ANNOUNCED- As leaked the week before and confirmed, EA revealed that Burnout's Criterion Games are back for a new Need For Speed, this time a modern sequel to the hit game Most Wanted. Get ready for epic free-roaming action courtersy of some of the best racing developers around.
• CRYSIS 3 DEBUTED- Finally, there was a new demo for Crysis 3. EA really should have given more time to this, but sufficed to say it may well make the sci-fi FPS one of your most anticipated games of 2013.

Here's a video of the full conference in case you missed it- enjoy!