Gadgets and Video Games

It’s rare to get excited for a Need for Speed project. Sure, it’s a reliable franchise that’s spawned a number of good, and sometimes great titles as of late, but innovation is hardly its strong suit. Considering the series’ track record, I was surprised to find that one of EA’s most ambitious and innovative upcoming titles is Need for Speed World , a free-to-play massively multiplayer online racer for the PC. It’s the largest Need for Speed title yet, offering a potential platform for limitless updates, and it could easily become the last Need for Speed game EA will ever need to make. Imagine a world not unlike the one found in Burnout Paradise and Test Drive Unlimited

Read more: 
Impressions: Need for Speed World

We couldn’t care less about our email, videos and music, all we wanted to know is if the newly announced iPad could play games. The answer? If you’ve been spending a fortune in $0.99 chunks on iPhone games, you’ve already got a big iPad library. The device, as just announced by Apple, plays all your iPhone apps unmodified, out of the box.

See the rest here: 
iPad plays all iPhone games and apps

During EA’s half-hour investor callstravaganza yesterday, CEO John Riccitiello unleashed a flurry of game titles set to be released in the company’s “FIscal 2011.” For EA, that falls anywhere between April 1, 2010 and March 30, 2011 — a window that now holds the release of “a great new version of Medal of Honor , a revitalized Need for Speed , Sims on console, FIFA in a World Cup year, an innovative and new take on Madden , Dead Space 2 , Crysis at full margins, a new MMA game , and many others.” Considering this laundry list of games is getting little more than a 12-month window for release, we’re taking the logical next step and throwing darts at images of the games on our cork-board calendar. According to our impeccable aim… everything is coming out in November. Not helpful! [Via Eurogamer ] EA: Medal of Honor, Dead Space 2, Crysis 2 before March 2011 originally appeared on Joystiq on Tue, 12 Jan 2010 12:45:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds

The rest is here:
EA: Medal of Honor, Dead Space 2, Crysis 2 before March 2011

“In recent years, we failed to put adequate resources behind the franchise and, as a result, quality suffered ,” EA Games label president Frank Gibeau said of the Need for Speed franchise, currently in the midst of a reboot with the well received Need for Speed: Shift , the recently released Need for Speed: Nitro , and the we’re-not-sure-that’s-going-to-work Need for Speed: World Online . But there’s a fourth post-reboot Need for Speed title in development at Criterion Games , the devs behind the excellent Burnout series. Removing any doubt that the series will miss an opportunity for annual exploitation (again, the massively multilpayer online racing of World Online doesn’t count!) Gibeau said “Next year’s Need for Speed has been under development now for some time at our award-winning Criterion Studio.” We’re not sure what type of Need for Speed Criterion is creating, but we wouldn’t be surprised if it was heavy on the crashing. Criterion-developed Need for Speed coming ‘next year’ originally appeared on Joystiq on Mon, 09 Nov 2009 20:10:00 EST.

Go here to see the original: 
Criterion-developed Need for Speed coming ‘next year’

The folks at EA dropped a teaser video on us today (seen above) for Need for Speed: Shift ’s tie-in video series, “The Driver’s Experience.” Premiering this Friday evening/Saturday morning on YouTube — and likely here, dearest readers — the show is said to profile various race car drivers associated with the game. More specifically, it will focus on the experience of speeding around places like the N

During a William Blair Growth Stock Conference presentation, EA’s COO (John Pleasants, FYI) noted the existence of two unannounced titles — neither of them particularly surprising if you’ve been keeping up on your spurious internet rumors . The first, Battlefield 3 , is said to be in good shape and, even better, in good hands over at developer DICE . Unfortunately, it appears fans of frenzied first-person shootery will have to wait until the next fiscal year before returning to the field. According to G4TV ’s Patrick Klepek, the second title is yet another Need for Speed game , this one developed by the team behind Burnout .

Read more here:
Report: Battlefield 3, Criterion-developed Need for Speed underway

I’ve always been a big fan of the Need For Speed series of video games, so when I was in New York a couple of weeks ago I jumped at the opportunity to interview Mike Mann, Senior Producer for Need For Speed ProStreet. Now, unfortunately there were a couple of questions that weren’t answered, but it seems Mike did a good job at clearing up most of my concerns. Read the full NFS ProStreet interview at Xbox Solution.