The Electronic Arts press conference that was held at the Orpheum in Los Angeles turned out to be a bit of a let down overall, according to those that attended. It seems that Electronic Arts didn’t really have all that much new to talk about beyond the announcement that developer RealTime Worlds will join the EA partners program and EA Sports is developing an MMA title.

Beyond these two that we feel are of note, Need for Speed Shift looks to be pretty darn impressive and could be a real contender to fight with Blur and Split Second. The in-car view is highly detailed and is sure to catch the attention of racing fans. Some of the new directions that NFS Shift are going are unique and could make the game much more playable; and it has a jaw dropping look that we have not seen in previous racing titles.

The new title from RealTime Worlds is called APB. The best way to describe APB is that it is an online city that intersects with life, vehicles, people and 100 online players who undertake the mission to achieve game and fortune. Some in the world will be the forces of good, while others will be the forces of evil depending on the customization of your player. The game offers a little real depth with different kinds of interaction with a lot of different things to do and achieve. It is far beyond anything we have seen in the past, with a sort of GTA IV meets Burnout Paradise kind of feel.

One of the more surprising news of note came with the news that Star Wars: The Old Republic will be the first ever fully voiced MMORG game ever produced, and it could well be the largest voice acting project in gaming history.

There is not much else to talk about at the Electronic Arts press conference beyond the normal announcements of this year’s crop of EA Sports titles and a new Sims 3 title that will finally be released. EA is putting a lot of effort behind the marketing for Brutal Legend, Grand Slam Tennis and the new EA Sports Active. Sports Active is a bit interesting for the Wii in the fact that EA says that they have already sold 600K units so far, which has exceeded their initial projections. They will be doing an expansion for EA Sports Active that will include 30 new exercises and include a tropical island theme.

The news was pretty much what we expected from EA. No real surprises, but the announcement of an MMA game could be a very smart move, with the recent success of the UFC title that was recently released.