E3 '12: Ubisoft Conference

Ubisoft Conference for e3 2012

With the show starting by people having the moves like jagger in the wicky wicky wicky wild wild west, we see that Ubisoft isn't afraid to throw a little concert themselves. Lo and behold … Flo Ridah hits the stage alongside the already established hot, dancing chicks to sing a song of his people!

This, ladies and gentlemen, is how Ubisoft's chose to start off its showcase. With boobs and a rapper. Does this bode well for the rest of the show? As far as the hosts go … no. Definitely, most certainly NO. Seeing as our main host is Aisha Tyler, after we've gotten to learn that the mini-concert was to promote Just Dance 4 for the Wii U. Then we meet our secondary host, Tobuscus.

Yeah, I know.

I knoooooooooooooooow.

I don't know him either.

Anyways, I won't be mentioning either of them again. They made me want Mister Caffeine back. Oh, god, they made me want Mister Caffeine back.

First up is Far Cry 3, its segment hosted by a rep called Jamie. He was there to showcase a brand, spanking new demo. Alright, let's see this classy game in actio- So, we start off the demo with a naked, tribal lady's boobs in our face.

The rest of the segment shows that the game is aiming for a more realistic design with a touch of stylization. We go from a beautifully rendered underwater sequence to a rich and very detailed jungle. All the while, we actually get to see all the colors mother nature provides for us. Honestly, this alone makes this the best FPS of E3.

Also, tigers. Tony Montana gonna be maaaaad.

The demo ends with a rather trippy segment, where the designers show that they have imagination going on over there. A very positive thing to have when developing a game. They definitely showed they could think outside the box. I just wish that “adding color” wasn't considered thinking outside the box.

One small negative, though. At one point, our main character stabs downwards and straight in to an enemy knee. That immediately launches the guy backwards. Tiny error, but I'm sure it'll get fixed.

Following this we have Splinter Cell: Blacklist, the definite highlight of the Microsoft conference. A rep from the Splinter Cell team mentions that Blacklist will feature Co-Op play, much like it did in Conviction. This is followed by the introduction of the release trailer called “Welcome to Fourth Echelon”.

The design shown, for a game like this, is just absolutely perfect. It has just the right mix between game-like design and realistic design. It's just too bad that Michael Ironside isn't there to flavor the sound.

Gameplay-wise, we also saw Sam use a Spiderbot camera. That, and we also saw him hanging inverted, shooting bad guys through a window a la Batman. Sam Fisher … is Batman. That's right.

Now we have a little CGI trailer for a new Motion controlled game called The Avengers: Battle for Earth. Whilst the trailer is en par with DCU Online's trailer qua awesomeness, it still has a very plastic-y design. It looked cool, but … It's a motion game, come on.

Up next we have the Wii U. Michael Micholik comes on with Rayman Legends for the Wii U. A video shows that the game is on par with the previous game released in forms of design. Very cartoony, very colorful and very lively. Whilst the gameplay segment afterwards shows that it is looking to be just as tight as before, using rather cool 2.5D effects to get our main characters from one platform to a further one.

Now we have some news for this game. It's going to be up to 5 player co-op, also possible just from at home. The game also introduces a brand new character named Murphy, who is controlled on the Wii U controller's touchscreen.

Best use of that controller we've seen so far, ever.

Following this great presentation, we get to see a trailer that rips off Dead Island. It's a zombie apocalypse game set in London. Still a great trailer with some awesome CGI, but nothing we haven't seen before. Also, the game is called ZombiU.

Just, no.

No.

Onwards to Assassin's Creed III. First we see a trailer of a Civil War era battlefield, very bloody and intense. This is all overlooked by a stunningly designed eagle. Following this we have our main character, Connor, coming in a flipping his shit Ezio style on some Redcoats. Quite cool, but again nothing new.

A producer of the game comes on stage to tell us more about the game. Real life people gamified include George Washington, Benjamin Franklin and Lafayette.

This is segwayed in to an in-game video for once. Promising for sure. Okay, we see our boy Connor (sadly, not McLeod of the clan McLeod) in the woods, chasing some wildlife. Fluently jumping from tree to tree, he goes and shoots down a deer with his bow. Nicely done, and can't wait to try this out myself.

After taking meat from said deer, Connor gets ambushed by a couple of wolves. Now he's fighting a pack of wolves, using several weapons. Awesooooome. The entire thing is very reminiscent of Red Dead Redemption, where you also had to track down animals and kill them for stuff. Not like an RPG, where you reach in to a squirrel and take out a plate mail armor.

Connor takes the meat to a small encampment, sizzling with life and activity. He takes it to a butcher nearby, trading the meat for coin. Fuck, no. RPG fetchquest. Noooo, why did I have to bring up RPG's.

After a quick talk with a blue coated guard, Connor climbs on to a horse. It still controls like a tank. Yay. Getting off the horse, Connor finds himself knee deep in a layer of snow. Now THIS I like. Moving through the snow, he actually looked like he IS knee deep in a layer of snow.

Coming up to a few guards, we're sadly reminded that fighting is still pretty much the same. Save for being able to use a guard as a shield for incoming musket fire. At least some more strategy is involved this time around. After some very impressive and fluent wallclimbing, the segment is over and a trailer is sho- FORGET I SAID ANYTHING.

The produces comes back on stage to finish the segment and then segways in to a trailer that was shown too soon. Like a boss.

Okay, E-Sports time. Wait, what?

At this point, I was certain the show was over. And it finished strongly! But, then this happened. Ten minutes of diddly-fucking-squat.

Okay, so the E-sports game in question is Shootmania. It's a free to play FPS where one Attacker is pitted against three Defenders. The Attacker has a health bar, but the Defenders get shot down with a single hit. The game itself looks well designed, but has a rather floaty control to it.

All of this is presented by a group “professional” Counter Strike players that were only picked because they looked pretty. A.K.A. Boobs.

Welp, we started with boobs. We might as well end with boobs.

Well, actually we end on a video showing off some more F2P online games like Trials Online, The Settlers Online and Ghost Recon Online.

Very pleasant show, just wish it ended on a more possitive no- What's this? Oh, hi Yves Guillemot. What are you doing here? A new game? Okay, let's see what you've got.

Ladies and Gentlemen, we have Watch Dogs. Its presentation started off with a long and weak video, basically plotdumping on us that everything is connection in the digital world. Phones, computers, everything. It can all be hacked. An entire country can be put down with a single laptop. And that one entity has all this controlling power at its fingertips. All that jazz.

Then Yves comes back on and tell us this: You're not the victim. You actually HAVE all that power at YOUR fingertips. Color me intrigued.

We actually have a demo on our hands! Imagine that one GTA IV trailer where Niko simply walks through the city, to show off the design and the engine. Well, that's how it starts. And it's basically GTA IV but ten times better looking. Okay, I can dig it.

Our Player Character (PC from now on) arrives at a club. He can't get in. What does he do? He cripples all communications, distracting everyone so that he can get inside. Whilst inside, we also see he is capable of hacking people on the fly, as we see a prompt appear when we are near people having tech on them like a phone. He even has to tap in to woman's phone and listen in on her conversation.

After this, we get a quick action demonstration that looks a lot like Max Payne, with its white dot crosshair and cover system, do it is a lot more fluent and well programmed. One explosion was huge, and it sounded and felt quite bombastic.

Here's an accurate description of the game: It's GTA IV meets Deus Ex: Human Revolution meets Hitman only with Skynet at your fingertips.

What E-Sports segment?

THAT was the ending to the show, and it was quite glorious. Besides the teeth-grindingly annoying hosts and the awful Shootmania section, we had the best show of E3 to that point. Nicely done, Ubisoft!