I HEART CHAOS

So today wasn’t all that eventful of a day; I got up nice and early this morning to head out and pick up my press pass. Once I had my pass, which was the preceded by me absent mindedly getting lost a couple of times, I took a little look around the main convention halls, the West and the South, to see what I will be in for tomorrow.

The first thing that caught my eye was the Skyrim booth, which is massive and adorned with a giant dragon. Another one that had me interested was the Capcom booth, which appeared to have playable demos of Dragon’s Dogma, the new Resident Evil and Dead Rising 2: Off the Record. A few others included the big fancy Sony booth, with Uncharted 3 and the new Ratchet and Clank, and some surprises, such as the advent of a Tin Tin game. I didn’t get pictures of any of this, as they had a sign saying no pictures during the move-in, but I will verify that the next three days should be spectacular.

After I snooped around the convention center for a bit, I headed to the Los Angeles theatre for the Ubisoft Media Brief (I didn’t get invites to EA, Sony, MS or Nintendo, unfortunately), which consisted of a number of models who looked severely out of their element, cupcakes, and a lot of new trailers. I have to say, Ubisoft impressed me greatly.

They demo’d the new Rayman game, which looks like it will be a blast to play (although it seems a chip off the New Super Mario Bros for Wii block). The demo looked wonderful, the colors and animations were excellent, and the variety of levels and challenges made the new game, Rayman Origins, look like something that will be worth checking out.

Also making an appearance was Ghost Recon: Future Soldier, which touted impressive graphics and a very finely tuned co-operative system. The people playing functioned like they were a part of some hive mind, and they claim the system is just as easy to use in single player. The new technologies are interesting, and it was said that the game will include the most advanced weapon customization system out there, known as ‘weapon smith’.

A surprise visit was made by Far Cry 3, which had some very cinematic combat elements, but didn’t actually include a lot of gunplay. The guy playing stabbed a guy, stabbed another guy, threw a knife at a guy, shot a few guys and then ran to a helicopter and it was over as soon as it began. It looks wonderful, and it could definitely have some potential to be a heck of a lot of fun to play, but the demo they had was all cinematics and not a lot of substance.

Driver: San Franciso was also shown, and while I wasn’t a huge fan of Driv3r, I don’t know if anyone was, this one looks to be a big improvement. It didn’t have anybody actually play, however, so the fancy driving and whatnot is more than likely just going to happen in the trailer and in cutscenes. Also in the driving genre was a game called TrackMania, which is the latest in a series of games, and promises to be a creation-driven experience that should be worth checking out, providing the production values are put into more than just the creation mode.

There was also another game in the vein of Rise of the Six String, which they say will let you play songs using a real guitar, and a new game in the Just Dance series. They didn’t seem to be anything extraordinary, to be totally honest.

The big title shown was Assassin’s Creed Revelations, or Assassin’s Creed II III, which is supposed to be the last of the Assassin’s Creed II line of games. A trailer was shown which shows an older Ezio fighting a number of enemies before being captured and brought to a tower to be hanged. I won’t ruin the trailer for those who haven’t seen it; it’s very good, and definitely worth looking up.

This was followed by a short gameplay demo, in which Ezio has to escape Constantinople by destroyed a chain holding ships in harbor and destroying a blockade of ships trying to keep everybody in the city until Ezio is captured. A few new weapons and elements were showcased, including a frenetic segment of Ezio running from flaming ship to flaming ship, explosions everywhere, to get to his ride out of the dock. The combat mechanics themselves seem to be largely unchanged, but that’s not really a bad thing.

Overall, Ubisoft impressed me with their lineup and it looks like they have soom very good games coming up. A video will be coming tonight of their whole press thing, once I charge my computer and rest some.

Tomorrow, I have appointments with IndieCade and Avenger. After E3, I will be attending the Sony Xperia Play party, followed by the Konami VIP event. Stay tuned, and follow me on Twitter for real-time updates! ( @TinyPenguininja )