You may recall that my laptop has “shit the bed” or whatever Chad said the other night. In fact, at this point I think it has murdered the bed. So we don’t have a live blog, but we do have the highlights! What does Ubisoft think about girl gamers? Who was the celebrity guest? What’s the new mystery IP? The jump tells all.

Laurent Detoc took the stage to say hello and demo Rayman Raving Rabids TV Party, which uses the balance board. We’ve seen the game before, but we haven’t seen the President of Ubisoft North America using his butt to steer the mountain goat (?) cum snowboard through slaloms and following No More Heroes wrestling-move-esque Wiimote cues to pull off tricks such as “Da Vinci Air” and “Inverse Hairy Beast.” It was amusing. Other events also seem to involve the balance board, like defensive motorbiking and surfing through space, while a pile of Wiimotes and nunchucks can be used to perform in a cute four player squad dance game. Available on Wii and DS this November.

Next they showed a trailer for Brothers in Arms: Hells Highway. I’m not familiar with the series, but it looks like some intense wartime drama. We’ll have a hands on preview coming up, so I’ll just note that the game will be available this September on PS3, 360, and PC.

This year marks the 10th anniversary of the Tom Clancy videogame franchise. They’ve sold 55 million units worldwide and Detoc cites it as Ubisoft’s biggest franchise, which they are looking to expand into “multimedia.” Strikes me as a little odd, considering how incredibly multimedia the whole Tom Clancy thing already is, but I guess the point is that now these other media projects (Movies? Comics? Books? Internet something or other?) will also carry the Ubisoft brand. The latest game in the franchise, End War, features voice control. It’s on the show floor, so that will definitely be something to get our…vocal chords…on…sometime this week. The trailer says, “Your voice is the ultimate weapon,” but I can’t help but be a bit skeptical. People have enough trouble with automated telephone operators, so I’m curious what they will do to circumvent the common challenges, like accents, and whether it somehow recognizes a player’s voice. We’ll check it out! The game is for 360 and PS3.

Next, Far Cry 2. Clint Hocking talks about how they aim to reinvent the shooter with this FPS 2.0. The game takes place in Africa, in a 50 square kilometer open world. They want the game to be completely open, but not so open that you get bogged down deciding what to do.

Live play demo, which means unrehearsed, since it’s pretty much non-linear and anything could happen at any time. They wanted to show us a more stealthy play style, so they took a nap (which saves the game on consoles) to fast forward to night time. With an MP5, a dart rifle, and some remote detonation devices, the sneaking began. Bringing up the map basically just has your character grab something like a clip board out of his pocket. You can look at different zooms (1 square km, 5 square km) but no matter how much you are viewing, it will never completely obstruct the screen. In fact, since your character is holding the map, he’ll tilt it while he’s walking, so he can see where he’s going.

They demonstrated an interesting feature where you can do reconnaissance that automatically registers on your map. Zooming in on a sniper, for instance, will mark his location. Same thing with medical supplies or ammo. By being stealthy and using your binoculars, it seems like you can get a pretty good idea of some areas before heading in. Whether you want to be that meticulous or not is, of course, up to you. The demonstrator ended up getting flanked, chucking some grenades, and setting an explosive before escaping in some kind of boat, sort of like a canoe. We’ll be seeing more of this game soon, since it ships this fall for 360, PS3, and PC.

Then the presentation changed focus significantly–to tweeny girls. Tony Key, the Senior Vice President of Sales and Marketing told us that the market for tween girl-oriented games on the DS is growing faster than the overall DS market. In fact, six of the top ten 3rd party DS brands (of which #1, imagine, and #3, Petz, are Ubisoft brands) are for girl gamers. “You might call them new gamers, you might call them non-traditional, but you can’t call them casual.”

Petz is coming back with new games that let you cross breeds to make a family of pets with shared characteristics. Dogz Pack, Catz Clan, Monkeyz House, and Horseshoe Ranch are all coming to DS, with Monkeyz also going to Wii. There will also be a Dogz Sports (or maybe z?) on the Wii. By far the most awesome Petz announcement, though, was the plushie animals available this holiday season that come with a code for a playable character in your game.

The Imagine brand has been doing well for Ubisoft so far, with 4 million units shipped since October. They announced a bunch of new titles in the series– Imagine: New York Fashion Designer, Rock Star, Movie Star, Teacher, Interior Designer, Wedding Designer, Fashion Party (Wii), and Fashion Babies (also Wii.) Apparently some of these are on the floor. I can’t even IMAGINE what Fashion Babies could even be, but…uh…maybe I’ll find out.

And here’s something sort of interesting: usually when you think of sports games it’s about the furthest thing from girls you can even think of, but apparently this isn’t true. “Girls want their sports!” Ubisoft has apparently been focusing a lot of energy and survey power on this demographic and has discovered that girls will be super into their new brand Ener-G. They announced Adventure Riders, Dance Squad, and Gym Rockets. Horseback riding, pompoms, gymnastics! The brand intro video also featured swimming, soccer, and basketball–as well as an inspirational speech about team work and doing your best. When I was a kid, I was told that real girls played field hockey. Hopefully they make a game based on that!

Going along with the sports theme, the next game demoed was Shaun White Snowboarding, and who better to comment than Shaun White himself, who showed up with his curly golden mane to praise the game’s realistic terrain. Louis Larmarch, the producer on the project, explained how sixteen friends can basically just freestyle all over a mountain together. Awesomely, there is no loading screen, and your character (who is customized to look unique via money and reputation) instead is dropped into a halfpipe for you trick off of while you wait for the level to show up. By setting a check point, you can warp easily back to a location you’d like to explore further. There are plenty of races and trick events in the game already, but you can create your own to test your friends. If you invite them to an event with you, you can just screw around until they accept, and then you’ll both be teleported to the appropriate location. Snowball fights! Yes! They really wanted to emphasize that the true spirit of snowboarding is being on that mountain with your friends and the thrill of discovering new jumps and cliffs.

OH HEY, this is what everyone was waiting for–Prince of Persia. We all perk up. Apparently the game is built using the next generation of the Assassin’s Creed engine. People are already putting it on GotY watch. Ben Mattes, the young and charismatic producer, appears to tell us all about the game. First, they were given a really nice assignment: take the premise of a young action adventure hero plus a princess sidekick and the Persian fantasy setting, and then…throw out the rest to do whatever the hell you want. That sounds awesome! Of course, another huge part of the franchise is the acrobatic climbing, jumping, wall-running, and fancy fighting system. This new game keeps the elegant movement, but makes it easier for everyone to look badass. That may sound awful to hardcore gamers who like to die a thousand times to earn their badassness, but I am on the enthusiastic side of things, since there will still be  short cuts and other incentives to  be hardcore.

Elika, your sidekick, is introduced as an agent of your coolness. She is there to save your life, give directions, and generally just look awesome. She’ll never get in the way or fall behind, Mattes said, and she didn’t seem to while they were playing. The “safety” is particular cool. The philosophy is that gamers don’t need artificial reinforcement when they die. You know when you screw it up, so why button mash your way through the “You’re dead, continue?” screens. In the new Prince of Persia, Elika will just catch you if you fall, keeping you immersed in the action even when you mess up.

The worlds are non-linear, and, in fact, branching! After running along some walls, the Prince and Elika came upon a big open hub-like area where your choice on how to proceed affects the game. Before they can get on their way, a Hunter drops in and starts a fight. Combat is all new, but they didn’t really explain much about it, except to say that they want each battle to feel as tough and engrossing as a boss fight. Seems like there could be a couple different stands with the sword. There are definitely some cool combos to pull off, some with Elika. They chased him up a level or two, sometimes using glowing pinky-orangey-reddish spots to launch across huge gaps. Elika IS kind of magical, so maybe it has to do with that. She’s actually sort of Okami, too, since she can purify a dead area and grow the grass and flowers once you kill the Hunter.

Mattes explained the “illustrative” art style (You should really just see, it if you haven’t…) as fitting for this unique game in a unique franchise. He also wants to show that they aren’t afraid to take risks and try something new. Good news! I like when risks equals unconventionally beautiful games. Coming for 360, PS3, and PC this holiday season.

As the conference wound down, they played us a trailer for one more game: I Am Alive. I have no idea what this is, or whether it wound the conference back up or not. The trailer shows a post-apocalyptic city, kinda dusty deserty, which is confirmed by the implication that water is scarce. When the main character, Adam, gets cornered, he tosses a water bottle on some fragile glass so that when the goons ready to pound him pounce on it, they fall through. Flashing back to six days previously, we see Adam drinking some kind of brand name…coffee? Dehydration! Gah! The in-game equivalent of Starbucks, no doubt. He’s headed into an office building when suddenly a huge earthquake starts, although it has to be something more exciting than an earthquake–like maybe a parasite growing in the belly of the planet for a thousand years has just woken up. I made that up. The character models are interesting in that they aren’t necessarily super realistic, but they aren’t cartoony or cheap-looking either. More on the realism side, but still sort of game-y, somehow.

So that’s Ubisoft, the not-live blog! A little something for everybody, but mostly we just think Prince of Persia is very pretty.

Tags: E3 08, Ubisoft

• E3 “Min-E3″ Conference Schedule Released
• Ripten TV: Top 5 Microsoft E308 Press Conference Crowd-Pleasers
• Acclaim Chief Creative Officer Has Some Harsh Words for E3 “Media & Business Summit”
• Lost Planet Movie Confirmed
• Grand Theft Auto Coming to the DS
• Ripten TV: The Top 5 Crowd Pleasing Moments of the EA Press Conference
• Thou Shalt Play Haze, Eventually
• Ubisoft Launches $10 Milion Ad Campaign with Help From South Park, Family Guy, and the NFL

1 Comment »