Yves Guillemot, C.E.O., takes the stage, for the Ubisoft presser. He
opens up like many of the other press openers, talking smack about how
much money they'll make in the coming years, how the market will be
expanding and grow, etc. It's great they're all making money and
everything but it's getting sort of tedious.

Guillemot is talking about adding more casual games to the product
line, as well as licensed games, including six new brands.

Tony Key, the USA V.P. of Marketing takes the stage, to show off the
new games and—argh!—talk about the expansion of the games
industry. They're new strategy is called "Games for Everyone," with a
"three prong strategy" with three new games.

Petz: The #2 pet simulation band behind Nintendogs. Everyone is
wondering if there are any other pet simulation brands. There are four
games: Horsez, Dogz, Catz, Hamsterz, and more Animalz are expected
later. Of course, they aren't even showing the games, just showing the
covers. Apparently there will be Dolphinz and Tigerz games, which for
some reason causes everyone to titter about playing with wild pets.
Yiff ahoy!

The next line is "Imagine" games, made for six to fourteen year old
girls. "Fashion Designer," "Master Chef," "Animal Doctor" (some call
this a "veterinarian"), and "Figure Skater." They're all lifestyle
simulation games aimed toward young girls. Please leave a stack of
these in the back of my panel van as bait.

The "MyCoach" line is Ubi's shadowing (yet again) of Nintendo for the
DS. Key tripped on his words when he showed "MyWord Coach," but
recovered. "The game's not out yet."

Other titles: MySpanish Coach, MyFrench Coach, MyLife Coach. The
latter: "Your personal Dr. Phil. ... Guilt will get you where you want
to go; so will MyLife Coach." I love how brutal Key is about their
target demographics.

I think Ubi's strategy of building casual gaming brands is really on
point, so hopefully the games will be, you know, good. We haven't
actually seen them.

He's now showing off...the cover of "Jam Sessions," their entry into
the music/rhythm market. I think this was a Japanese release that they
just are distributing in the States, but I'm glad they're promoting.
He's now playing a copy of the game with a DS plugged into a Marshall
stack. We can't actually see the screen. He's loaded up the chords for
Tom Petty's "Free Falling." The chords abbreviate a little to quickly,
making it sound very, I dunno, fake. But it's still a neat toy. I look
forward to buying it on a discount rack.

"I'm not Peter Moore. I know that." I don't get the joke, but
everybody lost it, so I pass it on to you.

Now they're showing the video of the band "Taking Back Sunday" having
a hotel room jam session using, you know, Jam Sessions. It is cute.

Yay, video of new games! Rock soundtrack. Rayman Raving Rabbids: looks
funny, of course. Naruto: Rise of the Ninja, cell-shaded Naruto game.
(I need to watch Naruto someday.) Tom Clancy's Splinet Cell:
Conviction. Tom Clancy's Endwar. (Who would have thought 15 years ago
Tom Clancy would be such a brand in videogames?) CSI: Hard Evidence.
Beowulf: The Game. (Which I think Crecente toldme is a movie tie-in.)
LOST: The game. (But no screenshots, just game footage?)

Now they're giving Brothers In Arms: Hell's Highway a special demo.
Col John Antal from Gearbox Software tromps onto the stage. He's, uh,
creepy? He makes the crowd yell "Everybody fights; nobody quits;
something something attack." Fuck you, buddy. I don't particularly
want to yell. Now the President of Gearbox is up on stage. Thank fuck
I do not work with "the Colonel."

The squad controls are all context sensitive, so you don't really have
to do anything but point at the ground where you want them to go or
the enemies you want them to go. I mean, it looks great and
everything, but it's still another WWII game, and I do not feel a
problem at all whining about that.

One thing I do like is how bright it looks. It must have sucked to
fight a battle on a beautiful, sunny day.

When you shoot a fence it actually breaks at the point where the
bullet enters. That is pretty rad.

The way these guys present their game is interesting. They're really
acting like they're really into the game. "Whoa!" "Crazy!"
"That was awesome!" It's a sort of annoying to see the edges of their
artifice, but I don't know if I'd rather have them be the traditional
blase thing.

New Wii exclusive title: Nitro Bikes. They're showing a gameplay
trailer. The music is all xylophone and then... metal and crazy
destruction etc. Looks a lot like Excite Truck with jet-powered dirt
bikes. Controls with the same sideways Wiimote position as Excite
Truck, too. Available holiday '07. Online play up to six players.

"Haze," a PS3 exclusive for this holiday. David Doak from Free Radical
design takes the stage. He's a Brit and has a sharp shirt and a trim
beard. He looks like a retired wizard. I want to smoke pipes with him.

He's talking about the plot, including "Nectar," a
performance-enhancing drug. I wish someone would do a comparison of
all the future warrior heroes that have existed over the last few
years, with Halo Spartans next to Haze warriors next to Fracture
fighters.

Haze is extremely generic looking, but the Timesplitters franchise got
a lot of love, if not great sales, so it's worth keeping an eye on,
for sure. I just have the gut feeling Haze is going to be another
Resistance: a perfectly decent FPS but nothing particularly
interesting.

Christ, my Macbook Pro battery is about dead already. Time to buy a
new battery, I'm afraid.

Jade Raymond and Patrice Desilets are taking the stage to show off
Assassin's Creed. They're showing a live demo of the game, similar but
slightly longer than the one shown at Microsoft's presser a couple of
nights ago. There's not much to say about this game that you probably
haven't already heard. It looks fantastic.

I really hope they take advantage of the Jerusalem setting and do more
than making a generic Middle Eastern "afendi!" thing.

Huh, one character referred to the protagonist using the term
"hashashim," I believe. If they add an Old Mna of the Mountain theme
into the game that could be pretty interesting. I wonder if they'll
extrapolate that out to the futuristic stuff, where you're somehow
working for the Illuminati—and if the bonus stages will be the
Garden of Delight.

Yeah, they just talked about "Brotherhood," etc. That's totally got to
be part of the plot.

Okay, that's it. Lunch time! –Joel Johnson

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