Ubisoft E3 2011 keynote, live from the Los Angeles Theater
Can anything top the announcement of a game that's basically just Laser Tag?
Find out right here at 2:30 p.m. PDT/5:30 EDT when Ubisoft kicks of its E3 keynote. Set your bookmarks now, we'll see you then!
3:46PM And we're out! Thanks for reading, see you at Sony!
3:46PM Man, is it November yet? Because we need that in our lives right now.
3:45PM Another wire escape and we wrap the demo. Just great, super exciting stuff. The last visual after the thing is seemingly over is a glowing gate, odd.
3:43PM Oh, now he's escaping across burning boats. Could this get any worse for him but better for us?
3:43PM Ezio grabs a flamethrowing turret and levels basically a fleet of boats. Awesome.
3:42PM Ezio blows up a tower and goes to escapes, sliding across a wire in what appears to be a new mechanic.
3:41PM We see Ezio get a targeting reticle and toss a grenade into it before he leaps into the newly created smoke and starts stabbing some guards in Eagle Vision.
3:40PM Ezio walks the streets, it seems like a more colorful palette than we saw in AC2 and Brotherhood.
3:39PM Ooh, we're gonna see some gameplay. It's Constantinople, 1511.
3:38PM Old, but he's still got it as he murders about a dozen enemy soldiers. Meanwhile, he sees the ghost of Altair, which leads him away from the combat. Back to imprisoned Ezio, He's walked to a cliff, a noose tied around his neck. He turns to his attacker and the trailer ends.
3:36PM Oh man, it's time to see Revelations. Ezio's on the hunt for secrets left behind by Altair. We see a beaten Ezio taken captive, followed by him sailing the seas. He's definitely aged.
3:34PM Assassin's Creed retro looks a heck of a lot like Prince of Persia, and we'd TOTALLY play it.
3:33PM No real gameplay in the trailer, just a series of ridiculously fit actors and actresses pretending to play. Hey fit people: You already have real sports, can't you leave something for the rest of us? Coming in November.
3:32PM Your Shape is back with Your Shape: Fitness Evolved.
3:31PM We see a series of testimonials on Rocksmith from real rockers like Dave Navarro and the editor-in-chief of OPM.
3:29PM Tony Key is here to tell us why we should care about Just Dance, which is almost noble in its futility, when it releases on Oct. 13.
3:28PM Coming to "all motion platforms," we see video of lots of different people playing the game. We want to judge them, but they seem really happy, and they're dancing with really attractive people. We look around us and realize they've got a considerable advantage over us already.
3:26PM Taking guy is back. He's going to talk about dancing now. Oh goodie, another retro remake. It looks vaguely like porn programmed in Q-basic. Back to the modern era, we're seeing Just Dance 3.
3:24PM The four demonstrators are tasked with collectively making shapes out of their bodies like a sumo wrestler and a vampire. The funny results are, unsuprisingly, shown in covertly captured pictures after the round ends.
3:23PM It can support up to four players, time to move to an airplane hangar.
3:22PM Well, it wouldn't be a year without a Rabbids game, but this looks neat. It's a Kinect title and we see the demonstrator play a sort of whack-a-mole with augmented reality.
3:21PM Raving Rabbids are coming back in Raving Rabbids: Alive and Kicking!
3:20PM Trackmania is due in September, but we'll CRASH the booth to check it out before then (we're back!)
3:19PM What we're going to see is all in-game and has all been made by players. If you're familiar with the first Trackmania at all, the difference in fidelity is pretty stunning.
3:17PM Sorry, we'll pump the brakes.
3:17PM Start your engines!
3:17PM Vroom, vroom, time to see Trackmania 2!
3:16PM While we have a moment, we wanted to say that we miss Joel McHale.
3:15PM The pitch has shifted to Ghost Recon Onine, the free PC service. It's graphically a step down from what we just saw, but not as much as you might think. The beta's open, you should try to get in!
3:13PM The demo closes with a massive airstrike on the team's target, it's bombastic but still nothing we haven't seen before.
3:10PM The action looks frenetic, aided by some cool shaky cam and motion blur, but there's a definite stiffness to it.
3:10PM Here's the split screen effect again, believe we're seeing a simulation of the four-player co-op rather than something that would be presented in game.
3:08PM Back to third person action. Nothing too spectacular, though some of the HUD stuff is so integrated that it's giving off an almost AR vibe. Very cool.
3:07PM The team interrogates a bad guy. There's a neat effect as he grills him where the screen splits into four and we see the team cover the lead.
3:04PM Tommy Jacob and Roman Campos Oriola take the stage to talk Ghost Recon: Future Soldier.
3:04PM Another retro version, this time of Ghost Recon. Our pants are charmed clean off.
3:02PM We're just looking at concept art. Spielberg said he got to "put on the glasses" and play a level, so there's def some 3D happening. Finally seeing some gameplay, some brawling, airplane, platforming, kind of a little bit of everything.
3:00PM Peter Jackson and Spielberg are talking about Tintin. Well, on video. Not here. Obviously.
2:58PM Stitch, Crockett, Chok and Montana are the team mowing down a bar of Nazi soldiers in the footage we see. Brothers in Arms Furious 4 is the title.
2:58PM Pitchford says this is a new take on warfare and on wargames in general. It's the story of "the furious four."
2:56PM Randy Pitchford is taking the stage to "announce a new game" sounds like a new Brothers in Arms title.
2:55PM It's coming in 2012!
2:54PM We just peeked at the telepromter, it's totally FarCry 3.
2:54PM Jason looks down on some enemies, leaping down on one and killing him with a brutal stab to the chest that looks scripted. Jason tries to turn the battle in his favor.
2:52PM The merc pushes Jason into a river where he fights to free himself from his rope bondage. He breaks free, swims to the surface and starts swimming towards a gorgeously-rendered waterfall. Jason grabs a merc through the water, snapping his neck and stealing his gun.
2:50PM Jason's taken captive by a mercenary-looking dude who gives him a lecture about insanity. It's really well acted, a real sense of danger is coming from this guy.
2:49PM You're Jason Brody, and trapped on a mysterious island trying to track down your girlfriend in an Ubisoft Montreal developed adventure. We're in a jungle setting, it looks like FarCry 3?
2:45PM They're showing off an early-80s version of Driver, for reasons that are clear to absolutely no person that has ever lived on the Earth.
4:44PM They're showing off Driver, but leading into it with an odd Commodore-esque version of it.
2:43PM Ubisoft's Aaron Priceman takes the stage, and does his best pitchman. "Today, 97% of young people play video games." Wow. Now he's making a bunch of dick jokes. "I'm not afraid of a few dick jokes," he says. Seriously, he made a Wii joke ... in 2011.
2:43PM Dick jokes, ahoy!
2:40PM Lots of variety in the gameplay, here. Platforming, chase sequences with giant bosses, a Super Mario Land-esque shoot-em-up segment.
2:39PM "Sometimes it's cool to have friends, especially when you're dead." When a player dies, they float around in a balloon and friends can save them.
4:39PM Side-scrolling shooting now, as Rayman and pal hunt an airship.
2:39PM Apparently, Origins takes a unique approach to co-op. An "it's totally okay if you beat the crap out of your partner" approach.
2:38PM It is as wacky as you might assume. Which is to say, extremely wacky.
2:37PM "This one is difficult," Ancel warns before starting the next stage.
2:37PM Don't believe us? Rayman and his partner are climbing over Tetris blocks as they avoid falling in a pit of super-hot lava.
2:34PM Alright, we're off! Yves took the stage and introduced Michel Ancel, the creator of Rayman to show off his latest, the now-retail Rayman Origins.
