There is music….. and clowns. I don’t know what to make of this exactly. Ubisoft, the presentation for the company now going on 30 years old with a host for the event having done so for the last 5 years. Aisha Tyler, a mainstay in pop culture from Who’s Line to Archer. She lets us know that the crazy live action performance is their presentation for Just Dance 2017. Just Dance unlimited, their streaming service is also name dropped. All of this is within the Orpheum Theater. Everyone is wearing the rainbow pins, as most of he presenters this convention has. She extends her condolences to all of those who have been affected or lost their lives a in the tragedy in Orlando Florida over the weekend.
So, she leaves the stage after dropping an F Bomb, and we move on to Ghost Recon Wildlands. It looks and is shown to be incredibly open. Bolivia they tell us has been overrun by a Drug Cartel that has seized complete power over the entire country and has made it the premier source of cocaine in the world. As a member(well, switching between several of them) of the Ghosts team you are inserted into the country to erode the Cartel’s control. We start with a mission to hunt down and extract a ranking member of the Cartel alive. The Soup Maker, or El Pozolero, is known for getting rid of the bodies. They actually take you from the very beginning. You are inserted by helicopter, and deploy a drone to scope out the area from above. They actually discuss how they caught sight of the target dumping someone into an acid barrel. The humor is certainly there. They actually chide the player for not being particularly stealthy. Of course, when the target is reached he runs and escapes in a truck. You steel a motorcycle around the corner and chase after him. 2 other members of the team grab a truck as well and the last member escapes by motorcycle as well right before a portion of the compound explodes. An interesting car chase ensues with the fourth team member racing a train to reach the helicopter. The other three unload on the vehicle eventually stopping him to drag him from the truck. The helicopter arrives and everyone flies off. The flow of the action, the switching between characters and the explosions fit very well. They give us a date of March 27th, 2017.
We see the start of a trailer. The United States being consumed with crime, deaths, and lots of fire. Who can save us? Apparently Eric Cartman, the Coon…. And friends. Trey Parker and Matt Stone come out. Amazing, after I believe they said they were never going to do another game again. We are introduced to Southpark, the Fractured Butthole. They tell us this picks up where the Stick of Truth ended. You are still the new kid and the king…. but everyone else decided to play Superheros instead. Of course, a new group called the Freedom Pals have broken off from the Coon and Friends. You go to Cartman’s house and he berates you for not having a costume. So you go on Coonstagram and Cartman gives you a tragic back story. They play it all off in the same way they did the first game. Matt and Trey apparently had the developers over to play board games and tabletop ones to get ideas. They said the gameplay was now the 4.0 version. This disheartened me a little bit, but then they showed the actual gameplay. First, there is a new “Space” consideration. We have the ability to move, push others, and be knocked back. Being knocked into other characters will also have effects. Then there is “Time”. You have become the god of farts is pretty much what they say and they explain it by saying you can now rearrange the turd order. Preordering the game nets you the original. They have a date of December 6th. The story they show in the last trailer is that they play superheroes to build a Franchise they can make a billion dollars on. So, since no one agreed with the Coon’s plans for movie phases since he gets more movies, we get Civil War. It’s hillarious how nerdy this is. I love it. Of course, they end the trailer with the big reveal. PC Principal.
We return with discussion of the Division. Their is DLC planned out for the future. Expansion 1 the Underground us set to drop June 28th for Xbox One and PC, with an August 2nd PS4 release. They have a good free stuff moment. They have 3 free costumes based on their other franchises and will give them away when the first expansion is released. All of this will be through the Ubisoft Club. They also tell us more about Expansion 2, Survival. They give us a trailer and say coming soon but don’t really nail much down. It’s powered by the Snowdrop Engine as they like to say.
We are treated to something for VR I didn’t expect. There is a new title called Eagle Flight. It’s a two team capture the flag game. The thing is, it’s a world reclaimed by nature and you are playing as a bird. So, as a bird of prey hunting down a dead rabbit on the board. We are shown Paris, with the Eiffel Tower overgrown by grass, Trees and vines. It isn’t something I’ve really seen before. It isn’t super realistic, but the visuals are made to stand out. It’s full of soft lighting and fairly bright colors. I enjoy the visuals, and I have to wonder if they went with this because it works so well in VR without overwhelming you. Oculus Rift is said to be a named platform, but they say that this will be playable on all VR platforms.
That leads into what I wanted to see. Last week we had leaks showing another VR game. This one is close to my heart and is a major win for VR in my opinion. This is Star Trek, Bridge Crew. They actually have Levar Burton, Jeri Ryan, and Karl Urban playing together with a developer. There are 4 players. The helmsmen, the engineer, the tactical officer and the Captain. Each has unique roles in allowing the team to function, and fully control a Starfleet bridge. Levar mentions that it was hard to go from taking orders to making them. He does say he wouldn’t shave his head if that was required to be the captain. From the visuals, it appears to be a prototype ship in the new movie universe with no real connection to any established characters. Everything should be fully interactive so every system could be controlled. I really want to try this hands on as it is a dream come true. I have been to the Star Trek Experience. That was a tour. This is finally where you can live Star Trek.
The next game the show is For Honor. It is a world of Knights, Vikings and Samurai. A dark force has thrown the world into chaos and has been working to keep it that way where there is not trust, so most certainly no peace. This leads to a millennium of conflict. We see the Vikings seize a Samurai castle. The siege action seems like a weird mix of a Souls title, with some God of War action thrown in. Blocking, dodging and well timed strikes seem to be very important. The lesser enemies seemed easily batted away with a heavier axe that the main character was wielding, but the heavier enemies seemed as though they could easily overwhelm you with the proper numbers so strategy would be a must. The game is set to release 2/14/2017 for Valentines day. Serve up a fresh heart to your loved one after a blood bender.
Grow Up is shown with a robot named Bud. It comes out in August, and it is said to be an open world. It’s a quick segment, but the premise is interesting. Developing a Robot through it’s life.
Now, this is strait up late 80s/Early 90s toy commercial. It’s Trials of the Blood Dragon. A Trials game made to fit that sort of aesthetic. You have bright colors, outlandish characters and the same Trials gameplay with added guns. It looked like a greater variety of vehicles in this as well.
We have the Director of the Assassin’s Creed movie come out and give us a rough rundown of the factors going into the Movie. With the Warcraft Movie disappointing many, I really pray this will turn out well. The pedigree involved in Warcraft was good, but Assassins has a crew that border on excellence. That, and I love Michael Fassbender.
Now we are shown Watchdogs 2. I know some information had been leaking, but I avoided it to be unspoiled for this press conference. We see a group called RedSec. This group of hackers are setting out to take down corruption, as we see they set out to gather incriminating evidence of corrupt political officials to fight against them. The opening shows us our new main character, and delves into the fact that there are others we will be collaborating with in game. It\’s good to see small hacks on all the people surrounding us, and that we seem to be able to make cars go out of control. It also seems they hint at drop in multiplayer as well. The best part I enjoy, much like ghost recon, is that we again have a drone. It\’s great to be able to scope out the surroundings and such an important emergent technology is getting good representation. We see creative use of devices to distract enemies, coupled with some simple choke outs and classic gun fights. I actually feel this has been fleshed out with full features much better then the first. I will admit, Ubisoft is often good at taking the flaws of their games and rapidly improving them. After the end, they say Watchdogs is a property they wish to push as a movie next. If they can get a good production studio, it would be a great concept to work with. They do say Sony gets a 30 day exclusivity for Watchdogs.
We end with a brand new IP. Called Steep, it’s an open world game completely about what they call “Enjoying the mountains”. I can’t fault them. They have recreated the Alps and have made it a true experience. It isn’t a snowboarding game. That doesn’t do this justice. You start with Dropzones, where you can be dropped into the game. You have full freedom to do whatever you choose. There is skiing yes, but you have paragliding and some of what looked like the glider suits at the end. There was Mountain View mode, where you can actually zoom out and see the mountains in there entirety and also go to other points as well. There is a very cool freezeframe mode, where you can then play with the camera and create interesting shots. This looks to be one of the better new IPs I’ve seen this year.
Besides the movie, we do not hear about a new Assassins game. I like that they are giving us some time, as the yearly release made me fall behind. I think a breather is what they need to catch up and keep things fresh.
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