Tiny Diggers – An iPad Construction Truck Game for Kids Age 2-5

The biggest question that could be had about the Ubisoft event was how quickly would it put the media to sleep.  I mean last year was a tough year for Ubisoft and their press briefing, as James Cameron put everyone into snooze control with his “technical wonder” speech, and it only got worse with the Petz and Imagine Babies line of products they showed us.    Joel McHale tried to get us out of our slumber, but the audience was too far down the rabbit-hole at that point to be saved.

Well, I can say with absolute certainty that the Ubisoft press event at E3 2010 was not a snooze fest.  It was a bit confusing at times, but it never put me to sleep and there was enough cool stuff spread evenly through the show to keep people pumped up.  So follow the jump for a ton of photos and news from the Ubisoft briefing after the jump.

Children of Eden:

So the show started not with Joel McHale, but with a live game demo of Children of Eden, a game I had heard little of before the show, but was immediately interested in after the presentation.  The game is made by Tetsuya Mizuguchi, who had previous fame with a little game called Rez.  This game follows the same pattern as Rez, fusing colors, music, and shapes together into a visual feast for the eyes.  The game is scheduled to come out on Xbox 360, and will use Xbox 360 Kinect.

Assassins Creed: Brotherhood

First we got a trailer that showed Ezio, returning from the second game, as he slowly walked up to take out an assassination target.  He is recognized by the guards, but as they go to attack them, they are killed off one by one.  Ezio continues foward, without pulling his sword, and yet targets continue to fall.  He finally walks up to his target, who says that he will be killed.  But more of the target’s guards are taken out, and we finally see what is happening, as several other people join Ezio’s side, and then the trailer fades to the Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood logo.

We also got to see some actual gameplay footage where Ezio’s villa is attacked by a prince that is looking to kill Ezio and his family.  As the villa is attacked, we now find out you can ride horses anywhere, and you can perform combat from them.  Another new feature is the ability to use fixed weapons, like cannons against incoming enemies.  The other feature that they showed off was the new combat system, which allows for throwing axes, instant kills with stabs to the face and kills from the back.  The play ended with Ezio being shot by a rifle and falling into a fade out screen of white.  The game looks fantastic and the combat looked refreshing for a series that was getting a bit stale in the combat department.  One more thing – did I mention you will get a crossbow?

Shaun White Skateboarding:

Shaun White came out to do a little presentation for his skateboarding title, and started off talking about how skateboarders see the environment differently from the way a normal person would.  While we see a walkway, skateboarders see grind, aerial and other possibilities.  Shaun White Skateboarding is based in a world where an agency by the name of The Ministry has stripped the world of all color, music and art.  Your job in Shaun White Skateboarding is to bring back life to the world through skateboarding.  Yeah, it sounds a little generic, but the gameplay actually looked fun, and brings something new to the genre.  It is not going for super realism like Skate 3, and will not be using any crazy peripherals like the Tony Hawk titles.  When you find grind and aerial opportunities, you use them to branch to different parts of the level, in a sense creating your own color and designs for the newly liberated part of town.  It will give players a chance to create something that they can call their own.  I have some video, and there are a few screens in the many below that show off Shaun White Skateboarding.

Battletag:

This is where things started to get a bit weird.  We were sitting in the audience when all of the sudden, people started running everywhere around the theater, playing a form of Lazer Tag.  Basically, Battletag is a game you play with Lazer Tag type weapons in your house, and then the gear connects to the console keeping score.  It went over with a thud from everyone, and really the game makes no sense to me.  I have no room to play something like this in my house, and it will only be able to connect so far away from the console, so I am not sure who will buy this.  Fourhman made a good point that maybe it will come out for the DS (no platforms were announced) and use ad-hoc to keep score.

Innergy:

Now this was a neat little presentation from Ubisoft, that is not necessarily a game.  You attach a sensor to your arm and then you perform breathing exercises that are suppose to relax and put you in a good frame of mind.  I actually kind of liked it, but it did not go over with the rest of the audience.  I think it would have gone over better at a hollistic healing presentation or even a medical convention, but not at a gaming convention.

Your Shape: Fitness Evolved for Kinect

This game features fitness celebrity Michael George (his words, not mine.  I had no clue who he was) and it has many different routines for the player to workout with.  It starts by scanning your body, and taking several measurements.  It then recommends excersies based on its database against your measurements to get the best results.  The game actually seemed very responsive to the Kinect, and could become a great workout tool on the Xbox 360.  I cannot wait to get that achievement for putting on 10 pounds of muscle!

Rabbids: Travel in Time

We got a short trailer for this one, and it really only showed the Rabbids going through time, and changing history by interfering with historical events.  I was rather uninterested by the whole thing, as I have never found an interest in the Rabbids series of games.  But for those that like them, I am sure this will bring more of the same into a new setting.

Ghost Recon: Future Soldier

In the demo, we got to see a team of four Ghosts working to suppress a threat, while keeping the main target alive for extraction.  Ubisoft stressed that they worked with a number of military consultants to show off theoretical advances in military technology for the game.  However the trailer started off stating that the game is “Not Endorsed by the US Military”.  Using the invisible cammo was easy enough, and it does not seem to have a timer attached to it that I was aware of.  Most of the demo was spent sneaking up on bad guys and ceremoniously executing them quietly.  The game looked absolutely fantastic, and the squad AI seemed fairly intellegent, and never pulled a braindead move.  Ghost Recon: Future Soldier will also support 4 player co-op and 3D tech.

Driver: San Francisco

Ubisoft retained the rights to the Driver franchise not too long ago, and they are taking the series back to its roots with a return of the original protagonist and foe in Tanner and Jericho.  The driving was very fluid, and the game was using some special camera moves during the driving to make it look like a high speed chase from a movie.  We also found out that you can jump from car to car on the fly which makes for some interesting car chases.  But backstep for a minute.  How do you just jump from car to car?  Well, we did find out that our main hero is in a coma, and the racing segment we saw was from a dream Tanner was having while in the coma.  We did not find out if the whole game would be played out like this, or if it is only for parts of the game.  Driver: San Francisco will use licensed cars for the first time in the series, and supports single player and multiplayer.  Multiplayer will allow for the same car switching mechanic that is available in the single player story.

We also got a few glimses of a new Rayman: Origins game, as well as a game called Project Dust, which did not really mention anything about.  There was also the new Maniaworld initiative which will connect one existing franchise and two new ones – TrackMania, QuestMania and ShootMania.  The presentation then closed out on a big note, sort of, with the announcement of Michael Jackson: The Game.  We were presented with a dance show from a set of Michael Jackson dancers.  They performed a recreation of the Beat It dance sequence.  However, we had no platform announcement, and beyond the splashscreen below, we saw nothing from the game.  I wondered if it was a Wii or a Kinect game, but my son game the game a big thumbs up just for it being about Michael Jackson alone.

So, we had some good, some bad, and some confusing, but there were a few standout titles in the midst of the entire presentation.  I feel more sure about Assassins Creed Bloodlines and Ghost Warrior: Future Solider, down on Rabbids, and confused by Lazer Tag.  Check below for a host of images, some good and a few blurry, but all from the show.  Let us know what you think below in the comments or in the forums.