E3 2015: Ubisoft Press Conference Impressions

2014 was a less than stellar year for Ubisoft's reputation as Watch Dogs fell far short of its hype and Assassin's Creed: Unity was shipped as a broken mess.  Despite Ubisoft's best efforts to fix the situation, many felt betrayed by Ubisoft's transgressions.  So the French publisher had something to prove coming into E3 2015.  The question was: could they deliver?

For how many games Ubisoft crammed into a 60 minutes, the conference moved at an incredible pace.  The hour flew by before you knew it as Ubisoft. much like Bethesda, let the games do the talking for them.  For every minute spent talking, three or more was spent showing live gameplay or pre-rendered trailers.  While I do prefer gameplay over trailers any day, the trailers that Ubisoft showed at their conference were short, sweet and incredibly produced.  My personal favourite was Trials Fusion Awesome Level Max's trailer, which saw a gun-toting cat riding a fire-breathing unicorn.  No, I'm not on crack!  It really happened!

The biggest plus from Ubisoft's conference was most certainly the live demos.  Seeing all those titles played live, including the newly announced For Honor, The Division, Rainbow Six: Siege and TrackMania Turbo, gave me a much better impression on all of them.  I'm actually excited to play all of them.  From a medieval melee combat to a tactical shooter to an arcade racer, there was incredible amount of diversity between the titles demoed and on the show as a whole.

Also, I have to praise Ubisoft for being the only publisher in the video game industry that can actually keep a secret.  There were no leaks or rumours about South Park: The Fractured But Whole, Ghost Recon Wildlands or a new IP in For Honor being set for Ubisoft's press conference.  Not having any prior knowledge on those games made all the surprises feel special, something that rarely happens nowadays.

It wasn't all sunshine and rainbows at Ubisoft's press conference.  There were some problems when it came to presentation.  It has become par for the course that Ubisoft brings in some celebrities to host, make appearances or even sing, but it never usually ends well.  The same can be said for this year's show.  Aisha Tyler tirelessly tried to inject some humour into the conference, but seemed to make things awkward ever single time.  Angela Bassett talking about her role as Six in Rainbow Six: Siege was completely worthless.  And to top it all off, Jason Derulo showed the world that he cannot sing—or he might of just hit puberty—in a moment that was so gloriously awful that it came off as being incredibly funny.  Like watching a train wreck, you couldn't turn your attention away from it.

Despite the problems with the conference's presentation, Ubisoft's press conference was a highly entertaining show.  It let the games stand as the sole focus and kept Aisha Tyler's on-stage shenanigans to a minimum.  You know it's going to be a good show from Ubisoft when the only reference to Tyler's girlwood is her necklace.

Grade:  A-

Off the Newsstand: Electronic Gaming Monthly Issue 255

One issue removed from EGM's huge red-design, it is time to see if the magazine still feels fresh or fun to read like the first issue of the re-design was.  Mostly, it feels very fresh and very easy to read.  For a while when EGM first came back, it took me a while to read through the 82 pages that made up the new EGM.  It was not an easy magazine to read back then.  Over the past year, it got a little better until now I can breeze through it in a week like I do with Nintendo Power and Game Informer.

Sometimes you can read a good cover story about a game and it does nothing to change your opinion on said game.  The cover story for Medal of Honor: Warfighter was well-done and very informative, but I still do not care for the game itself.  While it is based entirely around the personal stories of these Tier 1 soldiers instead of a globe-trotting Michael Bay style campaign found in most military shooter, Danger Close has to do a little more to get this gamer's attention.  In line with the cover story, the rest of the issue had a few articles about military shooters.  The EGM Interview picked the brain of Tommy Jacob, a lead designer on the Ghost Recon games.  It was a very interesting interview that gives you an inside look at how Red Storm approaches the Ghost Recon series and their style of shooter.  Easily one of the best articles in this issue alongside the EGM Roundtable discussion on Violence in Video Games, another great read.  Issue 255 of EGM serves up the same quality Top 10s, Previews, Reviews and Commentary pieces that you have come to know and love.  All around a solid issue of EGM.

It did not blow me away like the issue before it, but Issue 255 of EGM was a solid read.  Unless you are a huge fan of military shooters, you can easily skip this issue and not miss much.  I do say that gamers should go out of their way to at least read the EGM Interview with Tommy Jacob and the EGM Roundtable on Video Game Violence.  Two excellent articles that deserved to be read by all.

Launch Station: Sorcery

It has been a good two years since Sony showed off Sorcery as one of the big games for their PlayStation Move motion controller.  After that Sorcery nearly fell off the face of the Earth until a few months ago when Sony announced that it was coming this May.  Out today along with Dragon's Dogma and Ghost Recon: Future Soldier, Sorcery might just be the game that gets gamers to pick up their Move in months or be too little too late to save a product that has been dead in the water for over a year now.

Sorcery follows the story of young sorcerer's apprentice by the name of Finn.  The Nightmare Queen has broken an ancient pact with mankind and sends out here foul minions to cover the world in eternal darkness.  Along with Erline, a magical cat, Finn must journey through the dark Faerie Kingdoms and master the arcane arts in order to dispel darkness from his home world.  Sorcery is built from the ground up to use the PlayStation Move to the best of its abilities.  With the Move controller, Sorcery puts Finn's wand in the palm of your hands letting you perform numerous different spells.  As no two people are the same, every action you do with the wand from a flick of the wrist to a unique gesture with the wand adds to your own personalized style. Complete quests, rescue kidnapped children, recover ancient artifacts and aiding the local townsfolk are some of the things you are able to do as you travel across the Faerie Kingdoms.

Honestly when Sony showed off Sorcery way back at E3 2010, I was impressed with how the game played.  I have no doubt that Sorcery will be a solid game for the PlayStation Move.  I believe that it is far too late for Sony to catch up to the success of the Wii and even the Kinect due to their lack of actual support and promotion of the product.  While Sorcery will most likely get lost in the shuffle with the bigger releases of Dragon's Dogma and Ghost Recon: Future Soldier, it looks like a great game for the casual PS3 gamer who already owns a PS Move controller.

Launch Station: Ghost Recon: Future Soldier

The Tom Clancy name has graced many games over the years.  Some have been great successes (see the Splinter Cell and Rainbow 6 series) and some did not really get off the ground (see EndWar and H.A.W.X).  Among the successful Tom Clancy gaming franchises is Ghost Recon, which has lied dormant for sometime now.  After many delays, the long awaited new entry in Ghost Recon: Future Solider finally hits store shelves tomorrow.

Story has not been a key part of the Ghost Recon franchise.  All you need to know is you are a soldier in the special Ghosts unit.  You are tasked with tracking down the source of a nuclear weapon that was used on another Ghost unit.  Ghost Recon: Future Soldier is a third-person cover-based shooter that uses a first-person camera when you switch into scope view.  Unlike some other cover-based shooters, your cover in Future Soldier is complete destructible so you cannot just camp in one spot for an entire firefight.  Being a futuristic war game, Future Soldier has a lot of gadgets and other technology that players can use throughout campaign and multi-player.  You are able to control different drones to could possibly be used to scout out the surrounding area or as portable cover.  One of the most talked about futuristic gadget you can use in the game is the optical camouflage.  Optical camouflage is a form of active camouflage that allows Ghosts to blend in with any environment and become nearly invisible.  As it is only a prototype gadget in the game, the optical camo does not work when the player is moving very fast, firing a weapon or extremely close to an enemy.  The biggest new feature in Future Soldier is improved squad AI so players do not have to micromanage complete idiotic computer controlled partners.  Like in Splinter Cell: Conviction, you can mark foes, which squad mates will focus their fire on or take out if you are sneaking behind them.  Like most shooters, Ghost Recon: Future Soldier has many different multi-player modes, which can be cooperatively and competitively.  There is also a fully co-op campaign along with the Horde-like co-op mode called Guerilla.

Personally I have never been a huge fan of the Ghost Recon series.  I am a much bigger fan of Splinter Cell and highly anticipating Rainbow 6 Patriots than any Ghost Recon.  I will say that Future Soldier looks like a great tactical shooter.  I do not see me picking this game up anytime soon, but gamers looking for a shooter that is more about tactics and skill based gameplay rather than twitch shooting they will most likely enjoy the newest entry in the longest running military shooter series in gaming, Ghost Recon: Future Soldier.