So, first of all, pardon me for the late upping of part 2 of E3 Abridged. Part 1 went up on Thursday. Then Friday happened and with the release of The Last of Us, I haven't had much time to eat, sleep, breathe, or think, let alone work on another write-up. It's been handed more perfect 10's than any game of note in my lifetime (GTA IV was not a game of note to me), and with the exception of a few mechanical glitches that I've encountered, it's deserved them.
I'll gush about it in a future post. Right now it's time to dissect:
Ubisoft
Rocksmith 2014 - Ubisoft tried to grab our attention by bringing in washed-up grunge guitarist Jerry Cantrell of Alice in Chains on stage to play the solo from Man in the Box (featured in Rock Band 2 for those of you who were under a rock while the Fake Plastic Instruments genre was at its high point), and then introduce us to session mode, where you can jam on your guitar, while the game simulates the rest of the band for you. Unfortunately, this is where having had friends that are drummers fucks with me, because the automated drums on Rocksmith are GOD AWFUL. They wouldn't know how to keep a tempo if you did it for them.
We're then joined by Aisha Tyler wearing the most ridiculous shirt I've ever seen. #girlwood *snrk*
Good for Ubisoft though. They realized that their CEO's and lead developers don't exactly have stage presence and someone that's a professional actor/comedian is significantly better at sounding interesting. With phrases like "Done a lot of dirty deeds to Alice in Chains" and "belly first, ass out". Way to grab my attention. Moving on.
Splinter Cell: Blacklist - Now I'm not really one to judge here because as previously mentioned, I'm not a big fan of stealth games. However, I can comment that we got to see about 10 seconds of actual gameplay mixed in amongst a lot of pretty cutscenes. Some vague concept of story was revealed with talk about a terrorist group called "The Engineers" and their attacks being labeled "The Blacklist", but that's about it.
Rayman Legends - Now I find it rather unfortunate that I still haven't gotten around to playing Rayman Origins, which I'm told is the "happiest most fun-filled game ever made". So, logically, if the first one was good, the second will be better, right? Well that's what we're hoping happens here. Lots of more of the same.
Mighty Quest for Epic Loot - Didn't see much of this game besides it's rather humorous trailer. It looks like a diablo-clone. Just what this world needs. Another diablo-clone. As if I didn't already have Diablo III, Torchlight II and Path of Exile.
South Park: The Stick of Truth - An RPG for people who enjoy South Park. Which isn't me. Though I do have to give them credit for being able to poke fun at game delays and launch dates.
The Crew - I'm going to take a second to gush about this segment. The Crew looks FANTASTIC, and not in the way that Forza Motorsport does. Ubisoft didn't bring a two-of-a-kind McLaren P1 to the stage. They didn't give us Driveatars. What they did show us was a trailer of all kinds of illegal vehicular activity. Street racing, off-roading, running from the cops. To be honest, the debut trailer made the game look like The Fast and The Furious: The (good) Videogame. They talked a little bit about how the whole US was your playground in The Crew. Open-world racing where the end goal is to take down (or more likely usurp) this criminal organization. They've created this online persistent world that blends single and multiplayer together. You and your friends can band together at any time to form a Crew and take on cooperative missions. Singularly, you can engage in all sorts of challenges. One of the ones that interested me the most was where you had to race a single car in a point-to-point challenge. The player was currently driving a high-powered street car, and his computer opponent was in a vehicle more suited to off-roading. There was no "out-of-bounds". Each vehicle applied it's strength in the point to point challenge. The road course was longer, but the player had faster car. However, the off-road was shorter, but required a different set up. Ubisoft bragged about the level of customization you can apply to your car, and being able to completely take apart the engine and rebuild it from the ground up. This is so much a part of the game, that they have designed an app for your tablet or smartphone that allows you to completely customize your car from these devices, and have it available as soon as you return to your console. Overall, this game blew me away and I'm really excited to see it in the next generation.
Watch_Dogs - Watch_Dogs is back this year with absolutely no gameplay footage. Just a fancy trailer. They did unveil to us that Aiden Pierce (the game's protagonist) is effectively a superhacker, whose obsession with surveillance has turned him into a vigilante. And that sounds badass. Who doesn't want to be cyber-punk Batman?
Just Dance 2014 - I had to talk about Rocksmith, so I've gotta talk about this too. Let's see, it's finally coming out as multiplatform. We got to see a list of pop stars likely to be on the soundtrack, including PSY. It will support 6-player dances, which is more than the number of controllers that can be connected to any system at a single time, so I guess that's impressive. There's some weird system where you can supposedly DJ and remix the music by dancing. It's the next generation of "your favorite party game". They might need to re-evaluate that statement, because last time I checked, my favorite party game was Cards Against Humanity.
Rabbids Invasion - This is a kid's show with Kinect support built in. Based on the fact that it is an actual TELEVISION show, with motion-tracking camera interactivity, I'm assuming (and will be pleasantly surprised if) this will remain exclusive to the Xbone. Because honestly, who doesn't enjoy screaming with their kids at the TV? Not me. I'd rather just scream at the kids.
Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag - Ah yes, the pirate simulator that everyone's been talking about. I've tried to involve myself in the Assassin's Creed franchise, but I've never seemed to be able to care. The social stealth made sense when Altair's costume looked incredibly similar to the monks in the first game. However, Ezio didn't blend in with a single goddamn Italian. Being surrounded by 5 or 6 people while wearing an extremely unique outfit does not make you just "disappear". Try again. Sorry, off-topic. AC4 was another game where we saw a lot of shiny trailerness, and not a lot of gameplay. And the trailer didn't even contain a spot of blood. There were people getting shot, stabbed, and bashed over the head with bottles, and yet no one seemed to bleed. This seemed a little out of character for a franchise about ASSASSINATION, but more to the point, isn't that why most people play this game? For the violence? Anyways, Ubisoft brags that it's done it's homework on this one and created a realistic pirate experience. I doubt that being a rapist and spreading untold amounts of venereal disease is part of the core game mechanics.
Trials Fusion/Frontier - The Trials franchise is back with better graphics and a mobile counterpart. So you can eat shit and break your neck while indulging in impossible motocross feats in a whole new generation.
The Division - Yves Guillemot (Ubisoft's CEO) unexpectedly ran out on stage and interrupted Aisha to present this. Yet another franchise with Tom Clancy's name slapped on the front of it. Think of a post-apocalyptic world where a flu epidemic has caused pandemonium across the nation. No, this isn't The Last of Us, it's The Division, an open-world MMORPG cover-based shooter. Now, while I'm getting kind of sick of the chest-high-wall-shooter genre, this game's unique HUD, interactive environment and MMORPG mechanics make me rather curious.
Part III will cover the EA conference. If I can drag myself away from The Last of Us long enough to write the damn thing.
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