Alright everyone, the EA conference is over and it’s time to bring you our overall impressions on what they brought to the show. We were expecting a big showing from SWTOR, ME3, BF3, and Reckoning. Did it happen?

They started off right away with ME3 but within five minutes it was over and all we had was a clip of a lot of cinematic gameplay and further reason to believe a lot more of the RPG elements are gone from Mass Effect to be replaced by action shooting. Need for Speed: The Runs (as Graev calls it) looked stupid.

Then, as the fanfare began, SWTOR took the stage. For 30 seconds. One of the Bioware Doctor’s got on stage and said something to the tune of: “We love this game, there’s so much we put into it, we can’t show you anything, so here’s a trailer of old footage”. It was really, really disappointing to show so little of such a huge title during their official conference. We know they’re showing more during the week, but seriously this is their chance to shine and they missed it.

Reckoning’s showing was nice. Unlike the rest of the games it looked like Reckoning showed mostly all in-game stuff. However, it lasted something like 30 seconds. We hop the guys at 38 Studios have more planned for the week as well because EA didn’t do you guys any justice.

EA fumbled big time by devoting half of their entire conference to EA Sports and Soccer. Whether or not it makes money, it sucked that it dominated the conference.

They ended with a huge sendoff by Battlefield 3 with a very, very long singleplayer Tank level. It was the wrong level to show because it was so boring. A lot of driving, a lot of tank battling at ranged, and not enough to get people excited. Then again, it was singleplayer and Multiplayer is where it’s at. They took every opportunity to slam Activision by announcing a FREE version of Activision’s “CoD Elite” (as predicted by us earlier this week) and announcing an Open Beta in September.

Our individual final thoughts:

Keen: I liked what I saw from Reckoning. The style catches my eye. Graev actually said he think it looks cool which is high praise. I like the Battlefield announcements. SWTOR needed more than 30 seconds of old footage, especially when a new trailer became available. The overall “Hi, this is our game’s name, here’s a CGI trailer, come to our booth” feel made this conference a let down.

Graev: Nothing to say other than it was really boring. Reckoning looked cool from what was shown. The BF3 tank level was super boring.

Original: EA’s E3 2011 Conference starts soon. We’re most excited to see what 38 Studios is bringing from Reckoning, Bioware’s SWTOR, and hopefully what EA has to show for Battlefield 3. Click ‘more’ to follow the live blogging where we will give you our honest first impressions, then refresh the page after the event to read up on our written thoughts.

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