This week we have been at the GamesCom Show in Germany.  So much to discuss and show you.  Lets start with a blog from our Sister site EA Underground, with an overview of the EA press conference by Black Pixel.

Enjoy.  Over to you BlackPixel……

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I have a short time to reflect on all the things we saw at the press conference and I thought I’d flesh out the sentiments behind some of my earlier tweets.

It’s difficult not to sound too gushing or overly positive in 140 characters, but I genuinely thought that some of the stuff that was shown looked amazing. Some of it changed my opinion, some of it baffled me and some of it just hyped me up even more for stuff that I’m already really looking forward to.

So we started with “FIFA 10″. Difficult for me this one – I’ve never been a big fan of real-life football and have certainly never been able to master the intricacies of previous versions of FIFA, so I’m not the best person to judge. However, it’s obvious that the FIFA team have really taken the game to the next level (again!) this year, letting players control every detail of the beautiful game. And it really does look beautiful, the graphics are great. Like I said in my tweet, it makes football look really complicated – I guess the true fans already knew that there’s more to it than meets the eye.

Next up Peter Moore and special guest, sports star Katerina Witt, showcased “EA Sports Active: More Workouts”. Adding new exercises and thousands of customisable routines, new stretches and fun tasks, the expansion pack is released in November. Kudos to Peter for (literally!) running us through a routine in his gym outfit!

With 3 million plus copies sold and a community of over 2 million registered users worldwide “The Sims 3″ is quite simply, a phenomena. “Sims 3: World Adventures” is the first Expansion Pack, and it allows the Sims to travel outside of their hometown for the first time and head overseas to locations such as Egypt, France and China. We were shown some game footage and then some behind the scenes “blooper” videos of some of the featured music artists trying to sing in Simlish – not easy to do, try it some time!

Anybody hearing claims that a new game (ok, it’s a sequel!) was seriously considering taking on Modern Warfare 2 would be forgiven for thinking “not a chance”. But when the people making those claims are the brains behind the DICE studio,and the massively successful Battlefield  franchise, you have to take notice. Introducing “Battlefield: Bad Company 2″ the producers told us that the vehicle warfare, squad play and “destruction 2.0″ really set this game apart from the competition. Although we didn’t see any actual gameplay footage, the trailer, which was made using the Frostbite Engine, gives a great impression of the kind of strategies that can be applied to win on the battlefield. It showcases a devastating surgical strike employing snipers, homing rockets and overwhelming force. And it looks awesome. March 2010 suddenly seems like a long way off!

“Brutal Legend” is a game that I really wasn’t sure about for a number of reasons (number one being: thou shalt not take THE ROCK anything less than 100% seriously) but after seeing Tim Schafer talk about the game and introduce the, frankly hilarious, “Mosh Pit” and the Axe Combat footage, I’m realy warming to this game. I’ll defintely give the demo a spin when it’s released on the 17th September.

Basing a game on a poem may seem like a strange idea, but when the poem is the classic “Divine Comedy” by Dante Alighieri, it all seems to make sense. “Dante’s Inferno” is a dark tale in which Dante battles through the 9 Circles Of Hell to try and rescue the soul of his lover from the clutches of Hell and the Devil himself. The “Righteousness System”, where you are rewarded for righteous decisions and punished for unholy ones is a novel idea in a novel game. It’s out next February so I’ve already set a date go to hell!

Dr Ray Muzyka from Bioware introduced 3 massive games – “Star Wars: The Old Republic”, “Mass Effect 2″ and “Dragon Age: Origins”.

Mass Effect 2 kicks off where the first one finished. I was always really impressed by the visual side of the first game and part two looks just as good, if not better. Your new AI partner-in-crime, Grunt, seems like he may become a liability eventually and it’s tricky to tell how he might effect the gameplay overall, but I really like the idea of a sidekick who is “irrationally violent”!

Some 25+ years ago the young me would also have loved Dragon Age: Origins. I was obsessed with Dungeons & Dragons and spent hours creating my own characters and their complex mythologiges. DA:O reminds me of all the things that used to thrash around in my teenage mind, but brought bang up-to-date and in blood-spattered technicolor. Looks like it might be fun to revisit those stories.

The breadth of detail in SWTOR is going to be amazing. Apparently in terms of “narrative, there are upwards of 40 novels worth of storyline in the game.The big news about “Star Wars The Old Republic” being released in 100% localised versions for France and Germany was illustrated by a version of the awesome trailer voiced totally in German. Having previously only seen it online, watching it on the big screen was a spine-tingling experience.

And then finally – and the one I’d really been waiting for – “Need For Speed Shift”. Now, I love racing games and I’ve seen a little of this game already so I knew I was going to be impressed. Watching the developers demo the game – driving a Pagani Zonda in cockpit view around the Spa Francorchamps circuit – totally reaffirmed that this is a must have game for me.

And that was it. A quick introduction to 11 of EA’s hottest forthcoming titles, whetting the appetite for the next few days.  There’s loads more titles to see at the show, so looks like I really will have loads to talk about.

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