Ubisoft@E3: Rabbids, assassins and too much Caffeine

June 6, 2011

It’s always an interesting time at Ubisoft’s E3 media event. Last year was especially iconic: Shaun White rambled off-prompter for minutes, a Vitality Sensor-like pulse game had a presenter taking silent deep breaths on stage, Michael Jackson’s backup dancers did their thing with no actual gameplay details and everything was topped by random laser tag mid-show.

This year was a bit more traditional (despite the insufferably overeager host, “Mr. Caffeine”), but just like last year, there were also some interesting announcements.

They kicked things off by showing Rayman Origins, a return to the series’ 2D roots. The game sports a hand-drawn look, four-player cooperative play and interesting gameplay variations for a platformer.

Ubi’s marquee franchises got a lot of demo time. Assassin’s Creed: Revelations features many generations and ties up storylines. It’s out later this year.

Ghost Recon: Future Soldier (developed largely at Morrisville’s Red Storm) is using its stealth mechanic to create some interesting missions. In addition to the Kinect features revealed earlier today, Ubisoft showed off the four-player cooperative play, in which each has a role to fill.

Megahit Just Dance is getting a third iteration, this time on Wii, PlayStation Move and Kinect. The original games were Wii-exclusive.

Also shown were Driver: San Francisco, Far Cry 3, Brothers in Arms: Furious 4 (an Inglourious Basterds-style take on the WWII game), Kinect titles Your Shape: Fitness Evolved 2012 and Raving Rabbids: Alive and Kicking, and real-guitar game Rocksmith.