Taking a cue from the designs of Pacific Rim, The Art of Titanfall shows the titans as less than beautiful pieces of hardware that feel like lumbering hulks meant to take a beating as well as delivering them. With only three basic units, there is a great balance in diversity and design of each titan. During the fast paced battles of the Titanfall game, it’s incredibly challenging to try and notice these details but the art book allows you to really appreciate it from the pulled back perspective.

The Art of Titanfall does an awesome exploration of the maps as well. Though not giving a full breakdown as if it was a strategy guide, The Art of Titanfall allows a player to again appreciate the care put into each map that they’d never get to during the heat of battle.

As we all know, things at E3 can be a tad hectic and unfortunately since the Flickcast isn’t a massive team of contributors, sometimes things do slip through the cracks but if it is important enough, we’ll make sure to circle back and cover it. And one of those trailers we are happy to revisit is Titanfall. In addition to the fantastic trailer below there are a ton of reasons to actually care about Titanfall.

The first is the game’s pedigree. Titanfall is the first game from Respawn Entertainment. And while most people would hesitate to jump to a studio’s first game, others remember that Respawn Entertainment was founded from those who left Infinity Ward, the studio behind Call of Duty: Modern Warfare, after disagreements with Activision.

That means that this multiplayer only shooter is being created by the team that perfected modern online FPS gameplay. While the Call of Duty games always tried to push for a single player story, it was the online multiplayer that kept the games amongst the top played games online at all times. Even though there will be some single player style elements such as NPCs, the goal is still multiplayer.

It broke late in the day yesterday that Electronic Arts would be losing their CEO John Riccitiello at the end of the month. In his stead, Larry Probst will be acting as Executive Chairman until a new CEO is named. (Think of Larry as Sean Bean in Game of Thrones after King Robert was killed by the wild boar… but of course without the whole beheading nastiness.)

For those that don’t know, Riccitiello has been CEO of EA since 2007 and has undergone lots of scrutiny during his time in the role. Early in his time as CEO, he divided up Electronic Arts into four separate parts: EA Games, EA Sports, EA Casual, and The Sims. He was also there when EA purchased the parent company behind Pandemic Studios and BioWare.

Unfortunately for Riccitiello, he was in power as CEO during the economic downtown in the nation which resulted in a huge drop in EA’s stock price as well as the failure to acquire TakeTwo, the owners of the Grand Theft Auto franchise. Though some may try and point at the recent missteps in the SimCity reboot launch, it has been a series of events that likely lead to Riccitiello’s decision to step down.

Here is what EA had to say in a press release yesterday:

Everyone seems to be an expert when it comes to talking about sports but if they knew as much as they claim to, they’d be cleaning up in Vegas. Well at least that’s what my plan would be. But like everyone else, I’m no expert. In fact, most of the reason I am going to watch the big game is because I am waiting to see the latest Iron Man 3 trailer. But for those interested in the Super Bowl’s actual outcome, look no further than EA Sports. If you’re looking for a good track record, EA has successfully predicted 7 of the last 9 Super Bowls including coming within two points of the actual score for Super Bowl XLIII between the Pittsburgh Steelers and Arizona Cardinals.

Since we started covering games, we have always had an eye on THQ and its franchises. From the WWE and UFC fighting games to fantasy adventures like Darksiders and sci-fi worlds of Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine to even the modern day gone wrong Saints Row, THQ has been a huge part of gaming for the better part of the past twenty years. Unfortunately, this past week THQ was forced to declare bankruptcy in hopes of somehow finding a way to save the jobs of as many employees as possible and keep their games in progress still alive.

There are a few options to what could happen to THQ. First, it could be bought out by another company and have its portfolio absorbed into the new company including licenses. Another option would be the company dissolves and its assets including studios are auctioned off. If either were to happen, it is possible that we would see some of the THQ franchises picked up by other studios and studios picked up by other publishers. But the question then begins, what would the good combinations be for publishers and studios as well as studios and franchises.

Battlefield 4 being announced was only a matter of time. Billed by EA as the franchise that will take down Call of Duty, Battlefield 3 was an intense and awesome multiplayer experience, though it suffered from a lackluster single player campaign. In both a technical sense and as it was regarded by the most hardcore of shooter fans, the multiplayer of Battlefield 3 was the superior game compared to Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3.

On EA’s Origin service on Tuesday, an advertisement popped up urging players to Preorder Medal of Honor: Warfighter. The incentive, access to Battlefield 4. This is the first time that EA has officially and publicly talked about Battlefield 4. Though everyone knew it would be coming, no one knew when.

“Though Battlefield and Medal of Honor Warfighter each offer players a completely unique experience, they are united by their underlying technology base – Frostbite. These are two of the hottest shooters, coming together to deliver a one-two punch of action, intensity and shooter entertainment,” said Frank Gibeau, President of EA Labels

The Beta access will take place during the fall of 2013, which may determine whether or not the game is going to be current or next-gen as well depending on the timing, though EA is tight-lipped about those details.

Medal of Honor: Warfighter is set for an October 23, 2012 on Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and PC. Battlefield 4 has no set release date or official announcements for what systems it will be on. Stick to The Flickcast for more info as it becomes available.

To say when gamers find something they really care about, they take it to extremes can sadly sometimes be an understatement. Back in 2007, Mass Effect was released for the XBox 360 and PC to much critical acclaim and commercial success. The game’s follow up, Mass Effect 2, would release in January 2010 for the XBox 360 and PC and almost a full year later on the PlayStation 3. The final part of the Commander Shepard trilogy was released on March 6th of this year with, as you guessed it, Mass Effect 3.

One of the biggest draws for Mass Effect was the promise of an epic storyline that not only spanned three full games, but contained choices that would affect the rest of the player’s story throughout the remainder of the story. Destroy a race in Mass Effect and they would not appear in Mass Effect 2. Let a character die in Mass Effect 2 and don’t expect to see them in Mass Effect 3.

So in a series all about choice, many players were floored to learn that upon completion of Mass Effect 3 and whichever choices they ultimately made, the game presented them with one of six different endings. The “perfect” ending would feature an additional five seconds of footage. The six “different” endings however were merely palette swaps. No matter what choices were made through the entire story or even in the ultimate decision of the player, they just received a different color explosion, particle effect and small changes in animation, but essentially the same ending.

Look at the side by side comparisons in the video from Crosscade (obviously, spoiler warning).

Take a bunch of women in their late forties to mid-fifties and show them graphic images of violence and mutilation from the upcoming Dead Space 2 (which comes out tomorrow, January 25th) and record their reactions ranging from utter terror to complete revulsion. Then make sure to tell people just how violent your game is over some not so violent in game videos. Slap a “M for Mature” tag on it and there you have your ad campaign with the tag line, “Your Mom Hates This.”

Give me a break. There are so many problems with this campaign that is insulting to the gaming community as well as general consumers. Let’s break this down in a logical manner, even though obviously the advertising agency didn’t.

Dead Space 2 is a rated M game, meaning it should only be targeting players over the age of 18. But, the message of “Your mom hates this” is something that marketers would gear towards a younger self righteous and rebellious person in their early teens. By the age of 18, most people have evolved in to at least somewhat freethinking individuals who make decisions based more on personal preference than just trying to do something to tick their mom off.

Back at Comic-Con, we got the chance to play some hands on with the 2010 reboot of Medal of Honor multiplayer Beta which went live for those who had signed up for it on July 20th. The Beta is exclusive to the PC and PlayStation 3. The multiplayer for Medal of Honor is being developed by EA Digital Illusions CE while the single player campaign is coming to us from Danger Close. The single player campaign will follow a group of Tier One Operators (the top .01% most elite in the US Armed Forces) in the early parts of the war with Afghanistan.

The first thing that stood out to us during the demo was the use of the AMD technology Ifinity which allows players to use a three monitor setup to play the game in super wide screen. The game looks so great that this is definitely the way the game was meant to be experienced. To its credit because this will be the game it is most likely compared to, Medal of Honor is a more visually impressive experience than the latest iteration of the Call of Duty franchise. The levels look more realistic with an insane level of detail in them. The lighting also makes everything pop out to you just a little more as well.

The control of Medal of Honor is top notch. In the first person genre, control is everything and Medal of Honor hits it perfectly. As expected from a veteran franchise that has had time to refine its control and move with the trends without being forced to put out a yearly iteration, Medal of Honor feels like a fresh game when playing it even though most of what is seen in the multiplayer has been done before. After our hands on time with it, it is a game we know we want to spend some more time with in the near future.

Geeks don’t watch football. It’s a fact of life. But this may change for at least one night in the near future as fans of the upcoming title Dante’s Inferno will be tuning in Sunday for the big game when EA puts out its most expensive television ad ever.

Expected to be viewed by roughly 100 million fans, the Super Bowl has developed a reputation for some of the best, and worst, commercial debuts of the year. With the ever climbing price tag for commercial time during the Super Bowl, it is estimated that EA will be paying close to three million dollars for Dante’s Inferno to be shown amongst the center of the marketing universe for a mere thirty seconds.

Dante’s Inferno’s Super Bowl commercial, entitled “Hell Awaits…” will appear during the fourth quarter of Super Bowl XLIV as a final push in the game’s already extensive marketing campaign. In preparation for the game’s February 9th release date, just two days after the Super Bowl, “Hell Awaits…” concludes a campaign that included Facebook apps, action figures, comic books and an animated DVD feature.