E3 2015 - Ubisoft

Starting with a sequel to South Park: The Stick Of Truth, the non-gameplay trailer for South Park: The Fractured But Whole, (no, none of that is a typo) appears to be parodying super heroes this time with its (in?)famous style of cartoon comedy.

Rather than put a standard employee of Ubisoft on stage and risk them getting shot, Aisha Tyler (who has other credits to defend herself)  steps up in her pyjamas to introduce Matt Stone and Trey Parker, creators of South Park, who chew the fat and refreshingly near-enough admit that they didn't know what they were doing with the first game and that they might regret trying again.

Despite all this, the crowd goes nuts for them and assuming Fractured But Whole is at least as solid and well written comedy-wise as the first game, it will likely do very well.

Aisha does the mandatory welcome jabber before surprisingly drawing attention to the elephant in the room, describing "an intense year for Ubisoft" with "no shortage of constructive criticism". She goes on to modestly whisper Ubi's praises and with much trepidation introduces Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot, before sprinting off the stage for fear of her life.

"Aisha please don't run with such animation! You'll double our workload!"

Looking like Picasso flung through Steve Job's wardrobe Yves starts begging for his life with declarations of love for games, game creators and gamers. The subtext is obvious enough but bigwigs in any media shouldn't really have to profess their passion for their chosen industry, it should be evident through their actions, but i suppose therein lies the problem.

Introducing a "new IP in a new genre" a CG trailer shows scenes of Medieval warfare with the polished cinematography and soundtrack of an Assassin's Creed trailer. Seemingly following three different protagonists; a European Knight, a Viking and an Eastern Samurai, "For Honor" whilst having a very nice trailer, doesn't look especially groundbreaking so far.

Creative director and actual Viking Jason Vandenberghe grunts and bellows his way onto stage giving an awkwardly eccentric motivational speech straight out of Braveheart as though the audience were also stuck in the time period of the game.

"When a sword is coming at your head...Do you turn and run?"
If you're holding it then yes Jason, definitely.

He brings on two teams of four gamers to give a live demo of the melee based warfare game. Initially looking like a more grounded Dynasty Warriors it then shows relatively realistic (but still entertainingly stylish in places) one on one sword duelling in authentic-looking medieval locations. This second part looks more like early Assassin's Creed swordplay but with depth seemingly akin to that of a fighting game.

For Honor certainly looks interesting and fun but is it a whole new genre? I fear Ubisoft is following another of EA's bad habits in overstating their work, when it should really speak for itself. The demo is surprisingly short with no release date announced, but I'll admit I'm intrigued and hopeful for this historical warfare action game.

Although that's three different special editions they can make already.

Next comes some bragging about The Crew and a non-gameplay trailer for an expansion called Wild Run. Aisha continues by introducing a game that "there are no words to describe" which is odd because i can think of several such as "Non-gameplay" and "Another fucking expansion". This time for Trials Fusion, a bike riding game trying so hard to spice itself up it's desperately thrown in cats riding fire breathing unicorns straight from a five year old's imagination.

A semi-gameplay trailer for The Divison follows with some idealistic fake multiplayer voice chat and Wilhelm screams. The online open-world third person shooter and RPG seems pretty functional for such an unwieldy and ambitious genre description and the apocalyptic disease ridden New York setting is more interesting than some shooters.

The game seems to be pushing the idea of trust and betrayal both within your team and other teams regarding loot you find or steal around the city. This sounds great in theory and in this clearly rehearsed trailer it's very tense and dramatic but I'm sadly almost certain it will just be a giant clusterfuck online. Regardless this much hyped title releases 8th March 2016 if you're interested.

To be accurate this commentary needed approximately 3000 more expletives
and crudely worded questions regarding player's sexuality..

A CG trailer is followed by an unclear but hopefully at least partially gameplay trailer for Sci-Fi RTS "Anno". We cut back to Aisha chatting up a Jacob Frye cosplayer and cringingly trying to force a meme out involving Rickets.

"One of the pillars of the Ubisoft family" is apparently Just Dance 2016 which is worrying news as they proceed to set demolition charges with an excruciating live demo/performance from Jason Derulo. The obligatory album plug and arse-licking follows this promotional literal song and dance with an awkward question about what Jason Derulo thinks of the franchise. In case you're wondering his niece and his mum apparently enjoy playing it so...that's me fucking sold...

Why are popstars always wearing ill-fitting jackets?

When that ordeal finally ends we get another CG trailer for tactical team-based FPS Rainbow Six Siege, followed by a sycophantic interview with actress Angela Bassett who plays the team's boss and overseer in the game.

Thankfully a live gameplay demo of the single player campaign brings the conference back to something of value and overall this newest title seems very polished with solid gameplay involving both stealthy infiltration and spy gadgets plus door-breaching explosives and hectic gunplay. A beta starts 24th September 2015.

Trackmania Turbo's trailer is apparently entirely gameplay and in-game replay footage. A madcap racer with a fairly realistic art-style but track designs, speeds and physics closer to something like F-Zero. We're given a brief live-demo featuring one of over 200 different tracks and another race on a randomly generated track using an in-game randomise feature.

Arguably an updated remake from the DS version of the game, Trackmania Turbo is at least not another expansion or team-based shooter and with its Evel Knievel level design it looks pretty fun to play.

But then i could probably just get the DS version for cheaper.

Next is Assassin's Creed Syndicate. Starting with a lengthy CG trailer featuring Jacob Frye's cockney gangster brawling and annoyingly finishing with it as well. We're told of a gameplay demo for those attending E3 but presumably there wasn't time to show it on stage, which is a shame when there was time to ask Jason Derulo about his mindblowing opinions on Just Dance's place in pop culture.

Ubisoft's finale comes in the form of a mostly gameplay trailer for Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon: Wildlands. It promises a massive open world and team-based third person shooting which I'm getting a bit sick of writing so you must be oversaturated to numbness of reading it. Until the title appeared i thought Just Cause 3 had taken a grittier, team-based direction which tells you a lot about the game's mechanics and setting.

And that's Ubisoft's conference. Plagued by purely CG trailers and some gum-grindingly awkward speakers. The sycophantic, glitzy Jason Derulo section being a personal lowlight but having said all this, the audience seemed pretty excited by everything shown. There were no noticeable deathly silences and people apparently buy shit like Just Dance enough to make it "the biggest music video game franchise of all time".

So nothing breathtaking from Ubisoft but i suppose no glaringly horrific missteps either. A lot of teasing, guest-pleasing and forced hype cheesing. Hopefully one of these games won't trip over its own hubris on the way out.

Why are you talking to this guy about rickets when
Joseph and his technicolour dreamcoat are sitting right behind you?