Those projections were moved up despite the shuffling of two big-name titles out of the company's release calendar through March. In the conference call, EA confirmed that the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 action game Army of Two and the PC sci-fi first-person shooter Crysis have both been delayed until the next fiscal year, meaning they won't be released before April, 2007.
The company also mentioned a number of projects beyond the current fiscal year that are sure to boost revenues as well. In addition to a Sims game being developed specifically for the Wii, the publisher has a new Road Rash underway, a game to accompany the movie version of The Simpsons, a new SimCity game, and a next-gen version of Black.
On the upside, the demo level did give us a good look at the visual style EA is using, which looks like it will very faithfully recreate the appearance of the hit TV series. The characters are using cel shading, of course, but EA is also implementing a technique that will essentially flatten the character models from whichever angle the camera is viewing them from, to attempt to recreate the 2D, hand-drawn look seen in the show. Speaking of capturing the show's essence, a number of the series' writers penned the script for the game--which will amount to nearly an hour of original cutscenes and dialogue, all voiced by the show's original actors. This will naturally be a family-rated game, but the Simpsons were said to be spouting a bit fouler dialogue in the game than you'd expect from the show. The Simpsons' creative authority also supervised the creation of plenty of new characters and locations for the game, which will clearly range far beyond the nebulous confines of Springfield itself.
EA is referring to the 16 levels in the game as "episodes," and each one will take place in a new environment with a unique title and storyline. Each of these episodes will feature two Simpsons family members, and you'll be able to switch between the two at any time. What's more, a second player can grab a controller at any time, hit the start button, and commandeer Simpson number two for some split-screen action. We'll hope to get some hands-on time with this one in the coming weeks to find out how well EA is living up to its obviously serious commitment to this hallowed franchise. The Simpsons' newest game is due out in late Fall of this year