Wednesday, June 11, 2014

Another conference, another set of corny jokes


Kicking off Day 2 of Zero Second Cooldown’s week of E3 coverage is a look at Ubisoft: What they showed at their conference, my thoughts and opinions on it, and ultimately, how I’d score their conference. 

Ubisoft’s conference was… pretty strange. As usual, they had Aisha Tyler as their presenter. Now, I think Aisha Tyler, aside from a choice few lines in past conferences (I’m looking at you, girlwood), but overall I think she’s a great presenter. She’s very professional, a great speaker, and has great stage presence. However, this year the banter between games was a bit… much. Between random cursing that seemed to be there for the sake of being edgy, weed jokes, and just… overall, it felt kind of weird, awkward, and out of place. I’m not exactly wanting press conferences to be a bunch of stiff, stodgy old white men in suits rattling off game trailers and sales numbers, but I definitely think there’s a line between that and going “WHOA FOUR TWENTY BRO YEAH!”. There’s a good medium in between, and Ubisoft just went too insane, and it fell flat on its face. Simple as that.
Oh, and Ubisoft showed some games at their conference too! They started off with Far Cry 4, which ended up with a lot of shooting and some really bizarre selfies with who I can only assume is the antagonist. Honestly, I think, at the least, Far Cry 4 looked nice, and it had a bit of interesting (though gruesome) humor in the brief bit that they showed, but Far Cry isn’t a series I’m entirely invested it. It’s something I’ll probably check out at some point, but not anytime soon.
I find it hilarious how Ubisoft said that they “Start big, and then go bigger”, but ended up leading into Just Dance 2015. That whole segment went on too long, and the fact that Ubisoft managed to get “Happy” stuck in my head makes me really resent them (the amount of times that that song gets stuck in my head on a weekly basis is astronomical, I tell you).
Oh, and they showed The Division, which featured a bunch of cheesy voice chat during some mission to take over a train station, or something like that. I’m also convinced that, after the graphical showcase we saw last year, and even this year, that we’ll see a Watch_Dogs-esque graphical downgrade. Call me skeptical all you want, but I just feel like that won’t be what we’ll see in the final console (or even final PC) release come 2015. Also, I kind of feel the same about The Crew, but considering that game was shown to be always online so far, I don’t even know if I’ll get that. The concept of being able to drive across the entire United States (more or less) is cool, but… it’s not something that I’m rushing out to play, and then including the whole always online stuff, yeah, I won’t be getting it anytime soon.
Next up was Assassin’s Creed Unity. I’m probably going to get some amount of flak for it, but I really don’t like the Assassin’s Creed series that much. It just doesn’t interest me. I think what they showed is kind of cool, and it looks quite nice, but it’s something I will not be trying out. What I’ve seen already doesn’t really interest me, and that’s just how it is really.
Shape Up seems pretty cool to be honest. It seems like it’s taking an interesting, game-y approach to fitness games similar to Wii Fit, though in a more game-y sense. It seems interesting. Probably not something I’d get, but it looks cool. I feel like the concept with what they showed could really prove to be something interesting, in all honesty.
Next up was Valiant Hearts: The Great War, which is a new 2D game set during World War I, in the UbiArt engine, and featuring a dog. I really didn’t understand what the game was, aside from being about the trenches, and this dog going around throughout the war. I don’t get what this game is, but it looks really nice, and from the somber tone of the trailer, it will probably (hopefully) be heartwrenchingly sad. I’m not sure if this is even some big retail release in the vein of Rayman Origins/Legends, or something small like Child of Light. This was probably the most interesting game shown at their conference just due to what it was and how little was said.
Oh, and they’re bringing back Rainbow Six! It looks kind of neat from the gameplay they showed, but I’m still not sure it’s something I’m interested in. I think it could probably prove to be an interesting team-based multiplayer shooter off of what they had, but it just depends on if they keep it similar, and also give some good reasons to buy it asides from nice graphics. The destructibility was really awesome though, and if they have other cool stuff in the game, I might get it. Right now, I need to be convinced. It was probably one of the more interesting games shown though, but that’s just me.
Overall, Ubisoft didn’t have a lot that I was too interested in, similar to EA. At least compared to EA, they had more interesting stuff to show, but not stuff I’m immediately leaping for. Overall, I’d give their score a 5/10. Solid, but nothing super special to me. Next I’ll be taking a look at Microsoft’s E3 Conference, so I’ll see you all then!


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