Ubisoft's E3 2008 press conference liveblogging
We're sitting in the filled-to-capacity room 403 of the L.A Convention Center, ready to blog all the announcements from Ubisoft as they happen. Keep it here.
5:35 PM EST They're carting in extra chairs to handle the overflowing line of people still trying to get in. There have to be over 400 people here.
5:40 Still packing 'em in like sardines. Some nondescript soft rock plays in the background.
5:43 Please welcome the president of Ubisoft America, Laurent Detoc. He introduces Rayman Raving Rabbids TV Party. "It is my favorite in the Rayman Raving Rabbids series," he says with his heavy French accent. A rabbid is sledding down a snowy hill on the back of what looks like a bull.
President Detoc is sitting on the balance board and looking generally childish leaning side to side. The Wii Remote and nunchuk get flicked violently from side to side used to do mid-air tricks.
5:45 In multiplayer mode, your friends will throw snoballs at you. The audience gets quiet as we see even more tricks. We get it... time to move on...
5:49 Up next is Gearbox' Brothers in Arms, Hells Highway, coming in September. "They really go so far in authenticity and storytelling," Detoc gushes. In the trailer: "I see the blood and dirt of their faces. I've seen young boys turned into soldiers. I've seen men ripped apart by bullets. ... and so I ask myself, how much more can one man take?" Cheery!
5:50 Soldiers fly like ragdolls in super-slow-mo after being fragged. The character faces look a little unreal somehow, but not disturbingly so. "It makes me shiver every time," says Detoc.
5:52 2008 is the tenth anniversary of Tom Clancy video games, Man, we feel old. The series has sold 55 million copies so far.
5:53 Detoc pronounces EndWar like "Anwar." Mr. Sadat? What does he have to do with Tom Clancy?
5:54 "Until you try, you really don't know what it is to talk to your TV," Detoc says. The trailer shows people talking and... onscreen troops doing what they say, surprisingly enough. Will it be so simple in real life? We can only hope...
5:55 The commands seem relatively natural to speak: "Withdraw the men, send the fighters," "Launch command strike." We're glad we won't have to remember a bunch of cryptic commands.
5:56 Far Cry 2 is "First Person Shooter 2.0" Argh! The buzzwords! Draining... strength! Must... continue... blogging!
5:57 "This is Africa, and in this place of beauty, there's an ugliness that infect the land." The jackal has turned borther against brother. "How can such a man be stopped." Indian (as in Asia) music plays as a pre-rendered town goes up in flames. Beautiful explosions as a bazooka takes out a car. Fire, fire everywhere. "Coming Fall 2008." WIll your computer be ready to run it? You'd better upgrade! It looks nice.
6:00 Two designers from Far Cry 2 come on to talk about their design philosophy. There are 50 sq. km of Africa that you can explore however you want, "without fear of being overwhelmed by having too much choice." Sounds good to us!
6:01 A live demo shows how the game can be played more stealthily than balls-out actiony. Our character takes out a map and compass, held in front of the first-person view to navigate. Once he finds a sniper, that location gets marked on the map. X marks the sniper!
6:02 Every blade of grass and individual leaf looks like it's rustling independently as he passes. So pretty...
6:04 Not everything goes as planned as a jungle patrol spots Jon. He has to improvise, going to a defensive position behind some sheet metal and laying some dynamite to cover his escape. Nice smoke effects on the explosion.
6:05 Senior VP of sales and MArketing Tony Key comes out to talk about the "tween girl market." You mean Far Cry 2 isn't for them? On DS, the tween girl market grew 63%, faster than the general DS market. Six of the top ten DS brand in 2008 are tween girl targeted. "Imagine" tops the list, and Ubisoft is very proud. "Imagine" that. HA!
6:07 These gamers are new and non-traditional, but "definitely not casual," says Key. They play seriously and often. A video for a new Petz game features dogs and cats talking about heredity. "My ears and eyes are just like dad's!" etc. Oh, and there's monkeys. No, we're not kidding.
6:08 You can cross breeds and create unique petz families. Their research told them that "everyone" wants this. Really? Everyone? Does that include us. Monkeyz is coming to the Wii, along with Dogz Sports. Hoo, doggy.
6:09 Petz plush toys are coming to your local toy store, complete with codes that unlock virtual versions in the games. Webkins, anyone?
6:10 On screen, two tween girls are having a lot of fun pretending to be fashion designers, film stars and rock stars... with their DSes of course. Because today's youth need complicated electronics to unlock their imagination. The series is coming to the Wii with Fashion Party and Party Babies. "YOu can see it here at the show. I'm not kidding," says Key, somewhat apologetically.
6:12 Petz and Imagine are being joined by ... girls doing cheerleading, balance beam, soccer, basketball, track, bance, horseback riding ... and platitudes! "It's about being the best you can be. It's about being there for each other. And most of all, it's about Ener-G." That's Ener-G: The first brand based on sports aimed at girls. Adventure Riders, Dance Squad and Gym Rockets are coming to the DS this holiday. Girls want to play sports games, Key says, just not the same ones as their brothers.
6:15 Louie LaMarche, Producer, comes out with Phillippe Morin and Scott Mitchell to show off the Xbox 360 version of Shaun White Snowboarding. You can play around in a halfpipe as the game loads. LaMarche details a generic-sounding career mode where you can buy gear and such. Your friends can jump in to your mountain via Xbox Live and ... throw snowballs at each other. Heh.
6:18 The snow and mountain itself look pretty good, but the animation on the boarders is a little choppy right now. Up to 16 friends can join you on the mountain, online.
6:21 Shaun White comes out from back stage to "give a few pointers" to the struggling devs. "You guys are terrible" he tells the developers. He rambles on a bit about the realism of the cliffs and for stoked he and his friends are about the game. And just like that,
6:22 And just like that, Shaun is off again, possibly to shred some wicked pipe or something else suitably extreme.
6:23 "Critics are already saying that Prince of Persia will again contend for game of the year." A little early for that, don'tcha think? In an extremely elegant trailer (complete with Sigur Ros music) the Prince appears with a stark, black outline against the dusty desolation. Ethereal blue glowing... stuff flies everywhere as he and a female companion battle a minotaur. It's almost like ballet.
6:26 Ben Mattes, PoP prodcuer comes out to talk about how they want to keep the Prince of Persia feel on the next-gen systems. "An all new prince in an all new adventure" with his companion, Elka (sic?). She's there to "help the Prince look cool." The prince slides down dusty ramps and jumps and runs effortlessly along walls and cliffs.
6:29 The ethereal Elka helps the Prince do some double jumps and some extremely long wall jumps that would obviously not be possible otherwise. On to combat. "It's going to take everything you've got to win this fight, and every other fight in the game." The camera zooms and pans about without every losing sight of the protagonists and enemy, but that”s not too hard when there's only one enemy at a time...
6:31 We're getting a strong Ico vibe here from the black goo oozing out of the walls. The guy and girl in Ico was never able to jump like this, though.
6:32 Mattes is stresing a sense of flow, without the constant deaths that interrupted the other PoP games. Elka can save you when you make a mistake. You feel a little frustration when you die, but you go right back to the last stable platform and right back into the action, Mattes says. We're in favor of anything that meanswe never have to see a "Game Over! Continue?" screen ever again.
6:35 Another enemy dispatched, Elka can restore the greenery to the land. The dusty landscape is suddenly vibrant with grass and bushes. Thenewly-verdant vistas are pretty incredible.
6:36 Before we leave today, we've got one more announcement we want to make. It's a new brand ... the trailer shows a guy with torn pants running through an abandoned attic. Explosions rock in the distance. Three guys catch up with the man and he reluctantly gives them a bottle of water, which seems to be as precious as gold. He escapes, and outside the city is in ruins. But six days earlier, he was walking down the streets liek a normal shlub in a sweater-vest ... Hmm.
6:38 A massive, far off explosion sends a cloud of dust at least 50 feet high traveling down a busy avenue (shade of 9/11 here. Creepy! "I Am Alive" is the name. of the game. The house lights are up and we're out of here. Pictures of everything coming soon.
Gallery: I Am Alive