BitSnark

And now it’s time for the house that Yves Guillermot built.

And here is the guy himself, starting things off on stage.

He talks about the history of the company and his great likeness to work with talented people with vision.

After a bit of waffle, he brings out the original creator of Rayman, Michel Ancel, to talk about Rayman: Origins.

They do a dreadfully unfunny Shakespeare skit using ‘Ubi or not Ubi’. Yeah. *sigh*

Anyway, it looks like we’ll be getting an on-stage demonstration of the title.

The game starts of showing us traditional platforming across a 2D plane, with 3D models and everything looks so vivid, smooth and full of character. Big, iron wheels chunder across the landscapes with comically angry faces on, while the next section is set in a fire world and again, just has some of the most gleefully colourful and imaginative visuals you seen.

Next we get Rayman and his friend, diving into an underwater kingdom (complete with singing fish) to only then be chased by a massive angry fish/crab thing. It’s just bursting with imagination and really shows that there is still room for quality 2D platforming.

After this, we have Aaron on stage. Who seems completely hyper. Totally hyper in fact. He is talking about gaming innovation and is showing the history of gaming hardware.

He talks about demographics of games expanding, with ‘89% of all women that play games being ‘hot”. What a tool.

Anyway, he talks about gaming being adventure, sharing and playing. He talks about the adventure part now.

Looks like we’re getting something on Driver: San Francisco. It’s trailer time.

We get a nice view of the Bay Area in San Fran, showing a hectic chase which appears to be pre-rendered.

No gameplay was shown.

Right the next game is up in video form.

We see a jungle being traversed in the first person. The guy puts on some binoculars and looks at a site where some villagers are being executed by some bandit folk before he gets ambushed and knocked out. This looks like Far Cry 3 to me.

He awakens to mohican haired guy talking all kinds of philosophical shit at him. The guy then gets angry and smashes his chair while the player glances down at his bonds before being kicked off of a cliff and into the water (still tied up).

Underwater now, the guy frees himself and swims to the surface and emerges under a waterfall inside a cavern. This all appears to be in-game and the glowing weapons on downed bodies reminds me a LOT of FC2. So yeah, i’m going with FC3 here. I would guess that it’s running on a modified version of the engine that powers that game too, since everything looks remarkably solid and detailed.

Cool moment: He creeps up on a guy, knifes him in the chest and then throws the knife at another guy a little further away. It all looks very solid I have to say.

The demo ends with the player getting shot down whilst in a helicopter and waking up all groggy as the crazy bastard we saw at the start of the demo finds him again.

Then big title – ‘Far Cry 3’. Looked very solid indeed.

Randy Pitchford is out now and talking about Brothers in Arms.

We get a video of what appears to be Brothers in Arms: The Furious Four. From the CG trailer alone they seem to be going down an Inglorious Basterds route, which i’m not entirely sure suits the historically accurate, po-faced aesthetic that the series has embodied.

After a brief Tintin demo, we get a Ghost Recon: Future Soldier presentation.

Yeah, we get another game where you can be the ‘most badass special forces soldier on the planet’. Yay, we really needed another one of those.

Anyway, the in-game demo starts in a swamp and already looks hugely different from the hi-tech ‘Predator’ goings on in last years demo. Lots of chatter ensues whilst they are assigning targets, which are eventually taken down as the Ghosts enter a hut and use some funky thermal imaging to see the enemies hiding behind walls inside the hut.

Visually, the game looks as impressive as it did last year.

Anyway, we get a big firefight in the midst of a group of civilians which looks pretty amazing with the civvies dispersing every which way all the while unleashing ear-piercing screams as they attempt rush to safety.

We then segue to another scene involving a tense firefight in a refinery in which the effective use of cover looks essential to say the least. No big surprises here; jumping between cover points, blind firing and the usual of various optics are all usual fare here, but it does look remarkably solid.

The demo ends with the Ghosts taking a rescued hostage to safety all the while firing back at pursuing assailants and then a bomb explodes in mid-air taking out all of their pursuers.

We’re then told about the synchronized kills, the gunsmith utility which allows you to modify weapons and the UI which augments the intel you can receive. Talk inevitably goes to Ghost Recon Online, the recently announced free-to-play title for the PC. We get a nice little in-game trailer showing various game modes, shoot outs and maps. For a freemium title it certainly looks pretty good on initial impressions at least.

Next up is Trackmania 2.0. Holy crap – Tall women presenter is tall.

She begins talking about creating, racing and sharing tracks with friends.

We then get a vid showing a track being created and cars racing on it before they jump off of a bridge and crash into the camera. All CG of course. Trackmania 2.0 is due out in September.

Hmmm, not a whole lot of show and tell there.

Next on the menu, is Rabbids: Alive & Kicking for Kinect. Oh, the presenter has the best beard ever.

We get an on-stage demonstration of some frantic Kinect full body gestures with some whack-a-mole action, using the rabbids as moles, followed by a twister-esque game where multiple people have to strike a pose to create the shape shown on screen. It looks like it could be some fun from a party game perspective, but will likely not provide too much to keep the core gamer occupied.

Right, they’re done.

Next up is Just Dance 3 for Wii, Move and Kinect platforms. A quick montage video is shown showing people playing with the game.

Just Dance 3 releases on October 11th.

We then get shown RockSmith; they’re Guitar Hero wannabe it seems. Crucially, you are able to plug in your Guitar and jam away. Interesting…

Rocksmith is due out in October 2011.

YourShape Fitness Evolved 2012 is now being shown for Kinect.

The announcement video shows the usual mix of tremendously fit people jogging about, throwing punches and jumping about in various crazy fashions.

And that’s it. Ooook. The game is out on November 2011. It would have been nice to see what extra they have done to it other the previous iteration.

Now it’s time for Assassin’s Creed: Revelations. We get a little background on the story of the new game just before a pre-rendered trailer starts up. The trailer shows what appears to be Ezio pursuing the history left behind by Altair through various countries before he finally gets beaten and captured. The video finishes and an actual in-game demo begins.

We see a busy marketplace as the camera settles behind Ezio who begins to make his way around the place. He comes across a friendly contact who supplies him with some bombs so that he may sabotage the blockade that the Ottoman empire has put up around the marketplace.

Like in previous installments, the combat appears pleasingly free-flowing and smooth with Ezio swaying, dodging and counter-striking effectively to create some stylish looking moments of combat indeed. We then get our hero using a ship’s mounted to cannon to bombard other ships which are docked around the port. Assassins Creed: Revelations certainly doesn’t look like it’ll disappoint fans of the series at all.

The demo ends with Ezio doing his back Jack Sparrow impression and using a rope to fly up to the top of a ship’s mast before swinging across to an adjacent ship as the camera pans back to show the level of destruction that Ezio has inflicted on the Ottoman docked ships.

Good stuff.

The title is due out this November.

The Ubisoft conference is done. Hmmm, no new Rainbow Six, no Beyond Good & Evil 2, no I Am Alive and an underwhelming Brothers In Arms, means that the presser was certainly not one of better ones i’ve seen. Still, Far Cry 3 and Assassins Creed: Revelations remained impressive.