Well this was an experience that I never was able to experience, and only knew what deacon had told me to expect. Overall the trip and game surpass what I was expected and I can't thank Deacon enough for sending me.
As with any trip that involves airline travel you can expect delays. My original flight out was cancelled, and my rescheduled flight was delayed. After landing in Canada and going the 5 security checkpoints I was finally allowed entrance into Montreal. So I headed out the airport exit and grabbed myself a cab to the hotel.
About an hour after I checked in we were supposed to meet everyone in the lobby, but without knowing who was who for a while we all just sat on the couches looking at each other going "I wonder if hes some random guy, or a gamer for this event. Its not really that hard to tell another gamer, so it didnt talk long for us to realize this was the group for the next few days together.
Then Rita and Paul from EA showed up, made sure we were all there and we started the walk to our dinner destination "The Keg". During dinner quite a few designers, developers, and production people from the game stopped in to welcome us to Montreal, and to simply talk about the game and what they had planned for us.
After dinner we headed outside to the bar to watch some hockey (you are in canada its required from what I hear), and have a few drinks. Where we all continued to talk about our various sites, gaming in general, and what a little about the game we were all about to experience the next night. Many of the group headed to get some rest but a few of us kept the party going for a bit.
The next morning came a bit quicker than I expected, perhaps I should have got rest like the other (perhaps smarter) attendees. We met in a conference room in the hotel for breakfast, the very first item in our full schedule for the day.
After breakfast we took a walk from the hotel down to the EA Montreal studio. We were warned it was on the smaller side - but being my first community event I didn't really have much to compare it to.
Once inside we were told for the most part we could take pictures, but not pictures of the computer screens directly. We were also told that it would be a bit empty because it was so early in the morning (9am). Normally I wouldn't consider 9am that early for an office, but when you have guys leaving dinner at 10pm saying they had to go back to the office, I can understand.
During the tour we saw some framed art of magazines in which Army of Two made the cover, people playing the game at their desk, a kick ass 'break room', and even part of the boogie's team area. There was a room in the middle completely sealed off, and the only information we were given was it was a new project that couldn't be mentioned at this time.
After the studio tour we got to meet a real PMC which was used as a consultant when creating this game. His name was Woody, and he was a pretty intense, but really down to earth guy. He told us some pretty crazy things that directly relate to the game, for example if your teammate is down - you use tampoons to stop the bleeding, which is apparently common for those in the PMC line of work. As one of the developers said, its a pretty unique experience talking to a guy that you know has killed probably thousands of people.
After our chat with Woody, lunch, and some technical difficulties we finally got to play the game. We were grouped up on teams of two (its a co-op game remember?) and we were able to play the campaign mode of the game for quite a while. My team mate and I made it further into the game than any other team, and I got to experience 3 of the 6 levels in the game.
The game starts out with a tutorial to get you familar with the controls, and how you interact with your team mate, which is helpful because it does take a few minutes to get used to the way you switch weapons, and how you interact with your teammate.
One new interesting thing that is added to the game is an agro system - get to know it and love it. The concept is, the more you shoot or the bigger your gun, the more likely it is the enemy is going to want to take you out - giving your teammate the abilty to try and advance and flank them - just like a real war situation usually ends up being. As your agro meter maxes, you can enable an 'overkill' mode, which seems to slow down time and double your damage.
You can buy a large amount of different guns, and various customizations to those guns - one of which they simply call "pimped" which is a gold plated, sometimes diamond studded version of the gun, for those of you that like the bling.
There are ledges that you can't climb up alone so you must work together to get past them, usually there are guys waiting for you, so as you are standing on your teammates hands and he lifts you up, you have to clear the area before you can both get up on the ledge.
By completing objectives you can use your money to buy weapons and upgrades - some weapons obviously cost alot more money than others - and depending on what weapons you own, will determine the experience you have. One of the designers mentioned you would have to complete the game aproximately 3 times to have the money to buy every weapon and upgrade in the game (which was listed as an achievement when i checked the list). The cut scenes are just amazing, I loved just sitting back and watching them between missions, they really did a great job on the cinematics.
Finally after a bit of playing campaign we then moved over to multiplayer, but I cannot discuss mulitplayer until further notice. We were the first people in the world to see, and experience the multiplayer experience. There are some interesting discussion points there, when I am able to discuss it.
After I was completely obliterated during the mulitplayer tournament we had a short break and went to "Baton Rouge" for dinner. Which was once again an amazing restaraunt.
I would like to thank EA for throwing this event, but also Deacon once again for having me go and represent U360 at the event.
I uploaded
more pictures here (the message board limits pictures to 4 on a post)
Army of Two Community Day Recap -
10-06-2007, 10:21 AM
Linear Mode
