Ubisoft Keynote - E3 2011
E3 11: French publisher celebrates their anniversary with new game announcements and a solid presentation
Celebrating an impressive 25th year anniversary, Ubisoft has approached their E3 2011 press conference with some smarts. Compared to last year’s show, which was weird at times and impressive at others, the publisher instead chose to focus on celebrating their anniversary. To boot, attendees were given very slick Assassin’s Creed posters, which make for a great collector’s item.
Things kicked off with Rayman Origins, an upcoming reboot of the franchise that’s being developed under the watchful eye of the original creator of the series. It’s a throwback platformer with some newly built in elements, and it looked quite fun during the demo. The game also setup the trend of mockup “what if” videos, for the rest of the games presented, demonstrating what the game may have looked like 25 years ago.
With a very lengthy and violently impressive gameplay demo, Far Cry 3 was unveiled. Featuring a new setting and protagonist, it’s yet another take on the franchise that has already seen a big change between the original and part two. The setting looks to be tropical, so no more Africa, and the main villain looks to be menacing and very well developed as a character. Players can look for this title in 2012.
Ghost Recon Future Soldier also got a demo, starting out as a stealth encounter, it was later revealed to be a four player coop mission. As the team worked their way to the VIP, they employed a variety of classic Tom Clancy tactics in order to silently, and impressively synchronized, eliminate the targets. Once the target was secured, the team was spotted and the chase was on to make it out of town alive and get the VIP to the transport.
The game became an all-out third person cover shooter at that point, with not much need for tactics. Players didn’t attempt to flank the enemy or otherwise use their number to an advantage, simply taking cover and shooting at the enemy forces. While there is still a trace of the classic Ghost Recon gameplay still in the series, especially in stealth, once all hell breaks loose (and it might do so often, as the game may suggest) it becomes a rather uninspired experience. Future Soldier may be trying to make the franchise more accessible to gamers and general action fans in particular, but hopefully the strategic elements are kept in tact, as the dominant way to play.
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