Speaking with Famitsu, Ubisoft's Alain Corre has revealed that as part of the company's push into the Japanese market, they'd one day like to release a JRPG.

"We have never made any RPGs, a genre Japanese people love," he told the magazine. "We've made shooters, strategy, sports, action, and adventure games, but not any RPGs yet. Still, we're open to all possibilities. If we can get a quality team of RPG-oriented developers, I'd love to release one. If we have a chance to work with Japanese creators, then I'm sure we can make a game that appeals to the Japanese audience."

Sounds ridiculous, but then...imagine some of Ubisoft's franchises turned into RPGs. And I'm not talking Splinter Cell. I'm thinking more...Beyond Good & Evil.

Ubisoft Hints at Japan Marketplace Push [Famitsu, via 1UP]

OK. If you're this far into this post, then I assume you have finished Assassin's Creed II or don't mind having parts of it spoiled for you.

We talked in some general terms about making a game based on history. It's something that Desilets sees as an Assassin's Creed franchise trademark but also "a pain in the ass sometimes." It creates rules that he and the team who conceive the AC storylines are tempted to obey. "Sometimes it gives us ideas. Sometimes it gives us constraints… You want to kill that character, but he didn't die until he was old. So how do we kill him? So we don't kill him." Historical characters will only die in this series when they died in real life.

Consider, then, that the following is an Assassin's Creed franchise rule regarding the death of the fictional characters in the games "that cannot be transgressed," according to Desilets: "You cannot have your ancestor die, because then you couldn't have any memory. You need to move the memory forward." So Ezio or Altair or whoever else might star in the playable historical re-lived memories of true Assassin's Creed protagonists, the modern-day Desmond Miles, cannot be killed in the memories Desmond is experiencing. Otherwise, those memories could not have been passed down. and experienced by Miles via the Animus device But, Desilets noted with a chuckle, there probably is one way around this no-death-during-remembered-moments limitation: "The only way would be to die while fucking."

Some history is bent in the series, of course. Players know this as long as they assume that Rodrigo Borgia may not have really been in a secret society that sought a sci-fi golden apple. And they might know this if they believe that Machiavelli wasn't really in an assassin's guild. These deviations from historical fact are okay, Desilets said. "It's a feeling." He could see, for example, Machiavelli as a fighter. "Is he a fighter really? He was more of an intellectual. But it seems neat to have Machiavelli with a weapon. It's much more cool than to have this guy who is always writing. That's not fun. So we decided he fights, but that's not [the real] Machiavelli." On the other hand, Leonardo Da Vinci cannot be an assassin. Ever. "Imagine Leonardo with a sword and it doesn't fit… There's so many things we can do that sometimes we just have to say, 'I feel it or not.' And it's not really much more scientific than that."

Rules of life, death and sex aside, why did Patrice Desilets go and mix the widely-praised historical parts of Assassin's Creed with the less popular parts of the series that go all sci-fi, with an end of the world, 2012-pending apocalypse, evil corporations and a seemingly alien race meddling with human history? (Remember I said this post would be all-spoiler?)

Desilets describes the series as "A mix of what I really like: history and science fiction. It's a junction between the two." He is aware that the Desmond parts, slow-paced and frequent in the first Assassin's Creed and more sparingly used and action-based in the sequel aren't universally loved. "I know a lot of people are more into the history than the present, but I know that this time around [with the sequel] people understand the present part much more than they did in the first game. In the first game they thought it was useless, but now I'm reading some forums people want to know what's happening with Desmond. Even if some people, like IGN, don't want us to talk about Desmond."

He's aware that some people felt blindsided by the amount of sci-fi in Assassin's Creed II, especially the end-game conversation between Ezio, Desmond and the otherworldly Minerva about a pending modern apocalypse. But that's what players signed up for. "It's been there all along, since the first one, since we developed our thing. If you remember, at the end of AC1, the apple showed this entire world map. No, it's planned. I don't want to talk too much about it, but it's part of our back story… it's a mix of historical accuracy and science fiction and where they meet." He cites Dune and Isaac Asimov as personal sci-fi favorites as well as a love for history and a fascination with assassins.

A few more spoiler topics. That Alatair flashback in Assassin's Creed II? "The flashback was planned as soon as we did our first conception meeting [for the sequel]," he said. These days, it seems natural that Assassin's Creed II would have a different main playable protagonist than the first game. But it was a creative and business risk to chuck the lead character from a popular first game. So Altair had to at least show up. "We said we needed to do something with Altair. Altair needs to be back somehow. He can't be the star of the show, otherwise we missed our point… but somehow he needs to be back. [We came up with] this bleeding effect that would allow Desmond to re-live a memory without an Animus. We said that's great. And we have Acre, the map, so we said let's take a portion of it and make it and we can tell a portion of the story of Altair." Was it wedged in by marketing to promote the Altair-starring Assassin's Creed Bloodlines? Desilets said the marketing team can have good ideas, just like anyone, but it sounds like they're not the ones to credit/blame for ACII's Altair return.

Back to the past. Assassin's Creed II, via some cutscenes and the level unlockable via a Uplay connection, explains some of the Assassin's guild history that bridges the first console game and the second. It mentions Dante and Marco Polo. Even further into the past, ACII shows what appears to be the Biblical Adam and Eve running through a Garden of Eden that is really an alien (or lost) civilization on Earth. I asked Desilets if I could infer from all that that we could get an Assassin's Creed: Adam and Eve: "I don't know. Not any time soon. Is that a good answer?"

Desilets is coy about who would star in future Assassin's Creed games. But he is playful about the possibilities: "You never know… you could also say, 'Oh there's six more games to do with all the assassin's that we showed you. We could do games about them. … We did a graphic novel and in the beginning of the graphic novel there's another assassin from the Roman Empire. We could do a game about that."

So, no hints? No. But he did say that the outline for the Assassin's Creed series is more fleshed out now than ever before. "I have a general idea of where we want to go. The more we go forward the more we know the more we decide this idea goes, let's do this, this and this. It's not like the [storyline] bible is perfect and finished. It's ongoing for us. But we know more and more now."

And now, Assassin's Creed II fans, the floor is yours. Feel free to talk about spoilers, be it what Desilets had to say or your own theories.

Patrice Desilets, creative director of Assassin's Creed II at Ubisoft Montreal, believes that "2009 was my best year ever," he told Kotaku in an interview recently.

Desilets and a team of more than 200 developers made a hit, a critically acclaimed game. That was just part of Desilets' year. He "learned to be dad," he said. He learned to deal with a two-year-old daughter "who could answer me back." He bought a house and renovated it. "It was a big beautiful year for me."

It's the gaming stuff that would probably most interest readers of Kotaku, and it's the gaming part of Desilets' year that was probably out of the mind of many Kotaku readers for much of the year, when Assassin's Creed II was just a whisper of a public relations campaign, when the aftertaste of the top-selling first Creed still lingered a bit sour.

For Desilets, however, 2009 and the making of Assassin's Creed II was a wild ride, one of nervousness and frustration, some far-flung trips, at least one bout of vertigo, the affirmation of one major addition to the game and the painful decision to make a few — possibly temporary — major subtractions.

Before 2009, when the work to make Asssassin's Creed II, a sequel to the 2007 hit, began, things were going well. Approaching the new year, though, that couldn't last. "It went pretty smoothly," he said, "And then six months through, we said, 'We're never going to make it.'" The game had to come out in November. But this second Assassin's Creed, a vast Italian Renaissance expansion of the template established in the geographically smaller and less structurally complex first game, seemed unwieldy. "We were in the middle [of development] and we said, 'How the hell can we finish that? How can we test that and make sure it works all the way through?'"

In the early days, the 2008 days and beginning of 2009, when most of us knew nothing about Assassin's Creed II, the stresses were about scope. They were also about variety, which, Desilets explained, wasn't good enough. When the game was released, reviewers and players would rave about ACII's "secret locations," linear missions requiring puzzle-solving and acrobatics by the game's Renaissance lead character, Ezio. These missions weren't originally in the game plan. "In the middle of production we felt the game may have been lacking some scope, some things to do," Desilets recalled. "We thought: Maybe we could add some new elements that are not in the game world we are building and are on the side." The Montreal Ubisoft team figured out a solution. Those levels got made, Desilets revealed, by a new team added to the project at Ubisoft Singapore. As best Desilets can recall, making a game bigger mid-way through production was new to him. "It was the first time in my career that it happened."

The end of spring 2009 was going to bring Desilets his most crucial moment of the year. The moment would last five minutes in early June, and he prepare for it for over a month. As his team toiled with the creation of the game, he and a developer toiled also with what would be a five minute live gameplay demo of Assassin's Creed II during the Sony press conference at the biggest gaming trade event of the year, E3.

"This little five minutes was almost a live or die thing for us," he said. "Of course it's just a video game, but we're showing you the game for the first time…. We hadn't shown you anything. We're showing you a brand new setting, a brand new character. Do you buy it or not?" Desilets is French-Canadian and to a largely American audience his English accent could seem thick. He worked to suppress it with the help of a presentation specialist. He ran through his pitch twice a week for a month, identifying and speaking key words and phrases, and memorizing the thing. The day he finally did it for real, on a stage for Sony, it went great. The press conference aired in Montreal, and Desilets' girlfriend called him to say that their little girl recognized her dad on the screen.

Past the nervousness of preparing the big presentation in June, one of the main sensations Desilets had was frustration. As the game's creative director he long ago had the game in his mind, months before it would be working on a development system.

"It's part of my job to have the game in my mind before everyone else," he said. The year 2009 would be, by its halfway point, a frustrated wait for what he had envisioned to actually work. "It's more frustration than being nervous. 'How come it doesn't work yet?' Then I see one build and it always happens like that. It happened on [my previous games, Prince of Persia] Sands of Time. It happened on AC1. I take a build home and I play in my environment, in my gaming room, and I can say, yes it is good or not"

This was in August. The build of the game he brought home was rough. You couldn't save in it. But a lot of it was there and Desilets got to have his "first playthrough of a broken game." It was the first time he could experience Assassin's Creed II's interlocking systems of assassination and economy all working together. "I said, 'You know what? It's going to be good, and it's going to work.'" Come September, he said, he was relaxed.

There was a stress, though, in the middle portion of the year. That's when it was clear that some planned parts of the game would have to be cut. In order to meet a November release date, they'd have to go. One thing removed was the ability to replay any mission in the game. The team didn't think they could test it successfully ("Eventually maybe we'll come out with some way to do it somehow," Desilets noted).

The other cut, the one many Assassin's Creed II players have figured out by now, was content for which development would be backburnered and later re-prioritized and issued as the game's forthcoming January and February downloadable content. These would be the game's marked but missing 12th and 13th chapters, more or less. "I felt that, 'Okay, there were too many things to do and to finish.' So we said, 'Ok, let's take a portion of the game that was planned and we'll give it in DLC.' We'll remove some stress to the team while giving more to fans and people who like Assassin's Creed." Desilets liked the idea of giving the game added life and content beyond its initial release, saying it's something that he regrets not offering for Assassin's Creed — "I feel like we left people alone afterwards." —and given how big the game was and how it had gotten bigger during development, he didn't think most players would feel shortchanged. "I think we gave them so much content that they cannot say that we owe them, that we didn't give them a lot for their 60 bucks."

By September, Desilets was giving a much less-rehearsed and fully-accented presentation of Assassin's Creed II at the Penny Arcade Expo in Seattle. The game was nearly done, with some crashes being debugged out of the process. By early October he recalls it being almost clean.

By October he had all his Christmas presents purchased. He'd been traveling the world this year, picking up souvenirs in Australia, France, Italy and Japan to give to relatives later this week. He wasn't going to give away Assassin's Creed II. By Christmas he would have already handed it out.

About that 2009 trip to Italy: It was the second for him during development. "We went at the beginning and then at the end just to acknowledge that we did a good job," he laughed. He went to the real life version of the game's villa and had a strange moment in Venice on the Ponte Vecchio, where virtual reality messed with his sense of the real. He'd played the part of the game on that bridge so many times before stepping on it this year for real. "That bridge seemed like it only existed in 3D," he said. "We went beyond that bridge [in real life] and it was like, 'Whoa the 3D is real.' It really could mess with your mind." He went to San Gimignano and tried to climb one of its towers (from the inside!). What would have taken another person 15 minutes took Desilets 45 because this man whose games feature men who scale and leap from tall buildings suffers from vertigo. "It was fun to go through some fears," he said.

The game came out in November, and Desilets, like any developer who discusses release week, describes checking and re-checking Metacritic to watch that average review score. He had a more unusual tradition in which he also indulged. As he had for previous games he worked on, he went, with some fellow ACII developers, to a local game shop and bought his own game. "I paid myself, which is kind of weird, but I did it," he said. I do it all the time. I receive copies, but I always buy at least one copy." Why? "It's like: Wasn't I a gamer first?"

Past November and on the verge of the birth of his second child, Desilets continued to be on the Assassin's Creed job. He worked on the DLC and he played the finished game at home, recognizes successes and faults. "I play the game on my box now," he said during a part of his interview that covered the game's many ways of making money, from pickpocketing to investing in Ezio's villa. " I see that there's maybe some tools that could be re-used at the end. But we either didn't have time or didn't think about it. At the end we could have asked the player to do some pickpocketing. Maybe that's a lesson learned that [character] progression is cool, but maybe we need to re-use some of the elements throughout the progression."

Desilets now has planned, for December, what may be his last Assassin's Creed II live demo, one that promises to have as tough an audience as a pack of reporters at E3.

He'll be showing the game to his mom and grandmother. "One thing I do at the Christmas of a year a game ships is I will play the game with my family, with my mother and her mother, because they don't play. But they know I do it, and they're proud of their son. So I have to do a gaming session, an hour or two." He predicts he will show them the Tuscany section and will avoid the game's more colorful dialogue about sex. He knows the demo will be tough. "It's going to be a party," he said. "And I'll be like, 'No no, come on it's time to show the game.' And that will last 10 minutes before everyone starts talking again and then they forget that there's a game."

Assassin's Creed II fans won't forget that there's a game. And they'd best not forget Deslets, because he is thinking of the future of Assassin's Creed.

This interview happened earlier this month, and near its conclusion, Desilets described the work he and his team are doing: " We're still thinking all the time about Assassin's Creed and where we want to go next," he said. "We're about to plan the rest. That's about it."

Although a Ghost Recon lunchbox would be kind of badass, now that I think about it. And Ghost Recon cereal? Tasty.

Via Superannuation [and Blue's News]

During a gameplay demo, game director Patrick Redding explained that players might recognize "echoes" of Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory gameplay. However, the experience is more the result of everything Ubisoft learned from the Splinter Cell series — up to and including that little identity crisis the game suffered between 2007 and 2009. Development on the multiplayer began in that time period, approximately two years ago, and what grew out of it is a story-heavy "prologue" meant to be played by two people cooperatively. From there, the rest of the multiplayer just sort of fell into place.

What Is It?
Splinter Cell: Conviction is a stealth action game starring Sam Fisher, a National Security Agency operative who may or may not be on the lam in this installment. Fisher doesn't figure directly into the main multiplayer mode — but two operatives (one from Fisher's agency and one from its Russian counterpart) engage in about six hours' worth of black ops work that sets up the story Fisher follows in the main campaign.

In total, the game has five multiplayer modes, four of which being separate from the main campaign. You can find out more about Prologue mode by reading on below — but here's what we know about the special "deniable ops" multiplayer modes:
—Hunter is for one to two players to go in and stealth kill everybody they find.
—Infiltration is a "pure" stealth mode for one to two players where the second you're spotted, you lose.
—Last Stand is a survival mode where one to two players have to protect a warhead within a level from a group of AI that want to set it off.
—Face Off throws out co-op and pits two players against both each other and a lot of hostile AI within a level.

What We Saw
I teamed up with Jose Sanchez from Electric Playground on a couple of Xbox 360s for my playthrough of the first Prologue level. I think Jose wound up being the Russian while I played the American. On this mission, we were tasked with getting into some facility or another in Siberia (although we were told the campaign isn't set in Siberia because it'd be "weird" for multiplayer participants to encounter Sam Fisher on their mission) — and making this dude open some sort of door. The whole thing went by in about half an hour for me and Jose — but I think we were doing exceptionally well for noobs.

How Far Along Is It?
Still sort of early days. The framework is there, but there are some kinks to work out like this one crazy bug that doesn't let you complete the mission. Also, they apparently were unaware that a placeholder idle animation had been left in the game — so we were treated to a surprise when we came upon idle Russian guards dancing. I hope you'll write in to Ubisoft and plead with them to leave this in on account of it being hilarious.

What Needs Improvement?
Sonar Goggles Aren't Night Vision Goggles: Jose is willing to bet money that Sam Fisher's trademark night vision goggles with make it into the game, yet. But for now, all anybody has seen (and gets to play with) are these sonar goggles that let you see the gameplay environment I guess the way a dolphin would. I'm not a fan because it turns everything gray. This gives me a false sense of security because when you're in cover, the world is sort of gray — and when you're out of cover, everything is in color. So if I'm wearing my goggles, I sometimes forget that that doesn't mean I'm in cover, and then the Russians shoot at me and oy...

Don't Leave Me!: You do not want to play this game with people who can't communicate. Often times, you'll need to coordinate your assassinations or attacks perfectly or else one player will wind up shot to shit while the other player gets stranded in some distant part of the level. For example, there was a choke point on the map where I was supposed to shoot one guard while Jose grabbed the other guard to make him use his keycard to deactivate a security gate. I kind of shot the security guard he was holding and then went through the gate and shot the other guy — which made a bunch of Russians show up to shoot Jose because I was already long gone by the time they got there. I think if Jose had said something ahead of time, none of that would've happened — but it also would have been nice for there to be some kind of non-verbal communication in the game reminding me not to be a jerk.

SPOILER WARNING
Torture Team-Ups: When you get to the guy, you have to beat him up three times to make him cooperate. You can take turns with your partner beating the guy up. This very closely resembles a gang bang and I was pretty uncomfortable — so I let Jose bash the dude's head into a printer and a desk while I watched the door.

END SPOILER WARNING

What Should Stay The Same?
Complex Concepts: Sure, I've played co-op with people before; but always in situations where I knew I could carry them if they turned out to be dead weight. Never have I been in a position where I simply can't do it without my buddy. And I'm not talking about getting a game over screen when they die — I really mean that the level would be too hard to go it alone. In particular, the mark-sharing mechanism really reinforces the buddy system. Jose would run ahead, climb a little half wall (because I guess they can't afford real walls in Russia) and mark a bunch of people walking by. I'd wait in a dark corner down the hall and when the marked men got to me, I could activate the quick assassinate mode and then run down the hallway to join Jose. There is also that revival mechanism, but I consider that standard buddy system gameplay.

Branching Paths: There are points where you have to go a certain way in the mission we were playing on — but every so often there would be open areas that presented options for how to progress. For example, there was one place where we didn't have to shoot anybody at all. Jose could go along the ceiling panels and I could cut right and (using his verbal communication) know when the guard in my area was looking elsewhere so I could book it past him without killing him. I wound up doing it anyway, because I accidentally hit the trigger button instead of the slide-into-cover button, but it's nice to have options.

To The Rescue! There's a cool thing where a bad guy can grab your partner in a choke hold. You've got a limited time to reach him and once you do, you have to make the difficult decision about whether or not to shoot the baddie and risk hitting your partner. Or get your partner to throw an elbow and then shoot the baddie as he's doubled over in pain. Decisions, decisions!

Final Thoughts
I wish I could've followed the plot more assiduously, but I spent way too much time trying not to die.

New Footage of Splinter Cell: Conviction Co-Op Emerges [1UP]

Given the nature of No More Heroes, I'm not sure whether my altered perspective detracted from my experience or enhanced it. I'm going to go with enhanced because as I read over my notes from that meeting all I see are good things written around giant smiling cats I don't remember drawing. It must've stuck some kind of chord.

The thing I feel bad about, though, is not knowing how to say "stress fracture" in Japanese. Suda 51 was kind enough to inquire why I was limping at the end of the appointment and the best I could do was "It's a little broken." Which I think freaked him out because either something is broken or it isn't right?

What Is It?
No More Heroes 2 is the sequel to Wii game No More Heroes in which players take the role of Travis Touchdown and go about laser-swording various enemies to death for cash and stuff. The third person action adventure game is broken up quite nicely with some motorcycle segments and 2D mini-games. The major appeal comes from the game's insane brand of mature humor, which targets a very niche and dedicated audience of Wii owners.

In NMH2, Travis is dragged back into a tournament-style chain of fights once again as part of a revenge quest. Many character favorites from the first game return and you actually get to play as other characters besides Travis, like the sexy Shinobu.

What We Saw
I shared a playthrough appointment with some journos from 1UP where we passed the controller around for a series of mini games, a section in Travis's apartment, part of a Shinobu level and the first level of the game where Travis fights Skelter, brother to some dude you killed in the first game (which I confess I never beat).

How Far Along Is It?
Near final. The game is due out January 27th.

What Needs Improvement?
If You Can't Stand The Crazy, Get Out Of The Game: No More Heroes 2, like its predecessor, is weird, violent and totally proud of both. The narrative is bizarre, the action is gory and the mix of gameplay types between story missions and side missions can leave you reeling. Do not ride this ride if you have a heart condition, a poor sense of humor or a weak grasp of Suda 51's brand of insanity.

Camera Is A Little Bit Too Crazy: I noticed during Shinobu's level that the camera would sometimes have trouble keeping up with her during sharp turns in narrow corridors. Shinobu seems to move a lot faster than Travis, so I could see this becoming a real problem if you're racing through the level, slicing up a storm.

It's No Longer "Open" World: If you liked the open world of the previous game (although some people found it small), you're going to be disappointed to hear that NMH2 sticks to a map system instead. The map system marks where story and side missions are in town and when you select one, you teleport there. To me, it didn't make the world feel small or anything (and given my drugged state, I actually really appreciate the hand-holding with regards to knowing where the next story mission is), but I can think of a few people who wanted more open world, not less.

Shinobu's High Heels: Just watching her sprint in those thigh-high puppies made me want to cry, imagining my poor ankle going through the same motions.

What Should Stay The Same?

Still Endearingly Crass (And Violent): "Tone it down" is not in Suda 51's vocabulary — not even in its Japanese equivalent meaning. From the fourth-wall-breaking narration where Sophie dismisses the need to catch the audience up on the plot of the first game to chopping off people's heads in slow motion with buckets of blood flecking the screen, NMH2 is every bit as inappropriate and violent as the first game. And I don't think the fans would want it any other way.

Still Pretty Easy To Pick Up: There are some updates to gameplay that make bosses more complicated to beat and the training gym mini-games are notoriously difficult. But other than that, it's not hard to master the sword fighting moves or the procedure for charging up your weapon. Newcomers won't be lost.

Fashion Statements Are An Option: You can take Tavis clothes shopping and customize a great deal about his outfit — right down to some shades straight out of the 80s. But what I found really cool is how developer Grasshopper Manufacture gave a nod to Japanese fans by holding a shirt design contest. You can find the winning entries on the racks at the clothing store.

OMG Kitty~! My favorite thing next to the anime video game you can play in Travis's apartment is Travis's cat, Jean. At the end of the first game, she appears to have let herself go and is now a big ball of cat blubber. A mini-game lets you train her with "cat exercises" and arrange her diet so that she loses weight over time. The cat exercises were pretty hilarious — one of them involves Travis hoisting her up over his head, which probably benefits his weight loss more than hers. So adorable! And probably the reason I drew giant smiling cats all over my notes.

Final Thoughts
Now that my ankle is mostly better and I no longer am under the effects of painkillers, I realize how ridiculous the cat thing is. My cat would kick my ass if I tried to lift her over my head under the pretense of trying to make her lose weight.

Also, here's some news you can use:
—There are about 10 hours of gameplay total (side missions and all).
—No save data from the first game carries over or has any impact on the game.
—It doesn't use Wii MotionPlus.
—The motorcycle returns in some side missions.
—Suda 51 had nothing to say either about the ports of the first game to the PlayStation 3 or Xbox 360, or about his ongoing project with EA.

We already technically know what's coming in the double dose of DLC slated to arrive over the next two months, but everything seems so much better when Patrice explains it.

Yes, as Totilo theorized, the Battle of Forli and Bonfire of the Vanities DLC, dropping in January and February respectively, comprise the two missing segments in Ezio's DNA, annoying gaps played off in the main game as corrupted information. The newly re-titled Sequence 12: Battle of Forli will run players $3.99, with 13: Bonfire of the Vanities a dollar more at $4.99.

What will $9 get you, aside from $.02 change? The Battle of Foril contains six new memories revolving around Ezio aiding Machiavelli and Caterina Sforza with the defense of Forli from the Orsi Brothers, while preventing a Piece of Eden from falling into Templar hands. It also includes another ride in Leonardo's flying machine, which is either delightful or annoying - I just can't tell.

Bonfire of the Vanities unlocks a new area in Florence, which you'll navigate using a new move - the spring-jump. Florence is caught in the grip of the mad monk Saconarola, and Ezio must help Machiavelli liberate the city throughout the course of more than ten new memories.

It sounds like a large amount of content for the asking price, though I wish Ubisoft hadn't presented them as missing DNA segments. It makes it feel as if you are paying to complete the game, and that's no way for a man to feel.

The only reason I can imagine for such a grievous oversight is the fact that he didn't actually voice Ezio in Assassin's Creed II. Other than that, his performance is flawless.

Thanks David for passing along the clip!

Those of you familiar with the series Might & Magic are probably surprised to see it, one, on the Nintendo DS and, two, converted from a hardcore role-playing game to a puzzle RPG. So, for the sake of not causing the Might & Magic fans to die inside by calling this game by the same name and to introduce the game as something new and different from the series — we'll stick to calling it Clash of Heroes.

Clash of Heroes puts players in a generic fantasy plot involving elves, necromancers, wizards and a ton of other stock fantasy characters. The game is divided into chapters with the player taking the role of a different stock fantasy character in each chapter. On the world map, you move your cute little 2D sprite from node to node to talk to characters, open chests and get into battles with other cute 2D sprites. Battle consists of two armies lining up on both the lower and the upper screen. Players' armies are made up of color coded units with specific stats and magic powers. To "fight," you've got to line up units of the same color in a vertical line. To "defend," you arrange them in horizontal lines that then form walls. Battle gets more complicated as you get bigger units that require you to sacrifice smaller units of the same color to charge them up for attack and equipped items also become a huge factor in battle.

Loved
So Cute! Aside from 2D sprites, Clash of Heroes is terminally adorable. The writing and characterization of the stock fantasy characters is witty and amusing — which goes a long way toward spicing the plot up. The anime-style cut scenes and character dialogue images are also very pretty and depict some of the cutest moments in the story. I think the instance that actually made me coo aloud was one where a cute demon sprite watches a volcano explode enraptured. Then he's hit by debris and burns up into an equally cute skeleton that says "It was worth it!" before crumbling into dust.

Very Clever: At their best, the battles are truly challenging in a way that makes you feel good about yourself when you beat them. Most of the challenge comes from finding ways to stretch out your turn. Unless you've got a special item equipped, most of the time you can only get extra moves during your turn to shift around units by causing chains of units to link up. For example, you could spend one move plugging a green unit into a formation that completes both a horizontal line and a vertical one — and that becomes two extra moves that you can use that turn — which will give you a major edge on the enemy if you manage to activate a larger unit and set up walls all in one turn. Aside from these normal battles with enemies, there are also specific "puzzle battles" that are actually brain teasers worthy of Professor Layton: You have to destroy all of you opponent's units in one turn.

Hated
Unbalanced: The game suffers from fluctuating difficulty levels, weird distribution of special items and a frustrating game design choice. You notice this right away in chapter two when you have to start with a new character, Godric. For whatever reason, his boss fights seem tougher and the progression of fights in his level leave you battling people three levels higher than you almost constantly. Also, the items you find in his level are not nearly as useful as the items other characters have in other levels and most of them are geared toward defense instead of offense. Finally, unlike every other character you play in the game, Godric's special spell that charges up as he takes damage or deals damage is also defense only. This proves to be a poor design choice because it makes Godric feel like the weakest of the all the character even after you level him up all the way. Then, you get to chapter three with Fiona as a ghost and suddenly the game is a breeze because Fiona has offense magic and an item in her level that multiplies all her units' damage by 100%. Crazy!

Can Be Repetitive: Because the game forces you to start fresh with a new character every time, the gameplay starts to feel stale. You always get the same type of units to start and then you have a grind a bit before getting the bigger units that actually have special powers. Then, once you're comfortable, it's time for a boss battle and end-of-the-chapter sequence that starts you back at zero all over again. I thought this repetition might go away in the final levels when the characters reunite to take on the ultimate baddy — but nope! Even there, you start over again with another character and then have to suffer through a string of boss fights with characters that the game picks for you (so you can't not play as Godric — ugh).

There is some good game design in Might & Magic: Clash of Heroes and I can't stress enough how adorable it is. But I would have appreciate some extra gameplay balancing with respect to offensive/defensive spells and what kinds of items are in which levels. I'm happy to recommend it to hardcore strategy game freaks and everybody who's waiting around for the next Professor Layton. But I have a harder time recommending it to the easily frustrated, especially kids who might miss the sexual innuendo between the succubus and Godric's brother, Aidan.

As for Might & Magic fans, I'm sorry to tell you there's not much here that resembles the games you loved from times past. It's a completely different experience more akin to Puzzle Quest than to anything else. While we're on the subject, Puzzle Quest fans beware — you cannot change units horizontally a la Bejeweled and this will drive you totally nuts for the first two hours or so. After that, though, your color-recognition skills will come in handy.

Might & Magic: Clash of Heroes was developed by Capybara Games and published by Ubisoft for the Nintendo DS. Released December 1 for $29.99 USD. A copy of the game was given to us by the publisher for reviewing purposes. Played all game types in both single and multiplayer modes and still think Fiona was better off as a ghost.

Confused by our reviews? Read our review FAQ.

Splinter Cell Conviction's collectors edition variant for "all European, Middle Eastern, Asian and Pacific territories" will contain the following, including an exclusive gameplay mode.

- An exclusive Sam Fisher statue
- Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell Conviction game in unique SteelBook™ case
- Infiltration Mode : Eliminate all hostiles in the mission area without being detected
- A special playable skin: Shadow Armor
- Early access to 3 weapons: SC300, SR2 and MP5
- The official Splinter Cell Conviction Soundtrack (more than 17 tracks)

That applies to both the PC and Xbox 360 versions of the game, due to hit the territories listed above on or about February 26.

The game was R.U.S.E., the March 2010 real-time strategy game from Ubisoft that will be playable on a PC or Xbox 360, and PS3 without a touch screen.

But with a multi-touch screen is how I would sample it last Wednesday evening. Specifically, I was playing the game on a HP TouchSmart monitor which runs a several hundred dollars.

Imagine your typical RTS, which isn't quite the description R.U.S.E. seems to deserve. As noted before on this site, the game has some good twists involving its battlefield perspectives and emphasis on deception. But for this post, consider it typical, with units spawned and selected from an overhead perspective, directed toward their targets.

Tapping on a unit with your finger selects it. Pressing your finger and then dragging it diagonally creates a box that selects multiple units. Those controls are simple. Your finger does what a mouse pointer would do.

Now imagine — touching your monitor for this is fine by me — dragging two fingers across your monitor. That makes the camera pan to the side. Drag two fingers the other way and it pans the opposite way. Up and down pans work similarly.

Now take the pointer fingers of each of your hands. Press them to the edges of the monitor and, iPhone-style, drag them toward each other. The view zooms in. Spread your fingers to the edges and the view zooms out.

Place one finger on a spot on your monitor. Start drawing a circle around it with your a finger on the other hand. This rotates the view. (These controls are different from what Ubisoft had demonstrated for R.U.S.E. played on flat table-sized monitors.)

These are functions that any decent RTS player would implement. What might be harder to do with just a mouse, however, would be selecting units that are far from each other on the screen and issuing them commands nearly simultaneously. A Ubisoft developer encouraged me to try this, having me tap and move one tank in the lower left of the screen with my left pointer finger while I manipulated a vehicle on the right side of the screen with my right hand. The developer pantomimed a skilled player tapping furiously with both hands, showing me the potential of two-handed play.

Conceptually, all of this was quite good. Functionally, it wasn't great yet. I had trouble getting the unfinished version of the game to reliably read my zoom commands. But that can improve. I didn't expect to find the touch control meaningful. Once I did, I just wanted it to work. One hopes it will. Then again, one would need to have a multi-touch monitor, and this one writer does not.

Playing games with the latest tech is a Ubisoft thing. In other corners of the hotel room where I played R.U.S.E., Red Steel 2 could be played with Wii Motion Plus and Racquet Sports could be played barehanded using a proprietary Ubisoft Wii camera. The recently-released Avatar game can be played in 3D, only on 3D TVs, which very few people have.

That doesn't stop Ubi. Ever the innovator. This time, with a monitor and my fingertips.

The problem with interjecting a video game between two previously released titles is we can pretty much assume the new title ends with a total memory wipe. Unless Ubisoft decides to release a new version of Warrior Within with references to Forgotten Sands, that'll probably be the case. We can't have the Prince simply deciding not to use the natural powers he'll be using in Forgotten Sands, can we?

After the events in The Sands of Time, the Prince goes to visit his brother's kingdom, only to find it besieged by the forces of evil. Using the powers of the Sands to save the kingdom from annihilation kicks off an adventure in which the Prince will learn what Spider-Man already knows; with great power comes great responsibility.

Expect epic moments, tons of acrobatics, and refined combat, all rendered lovingly in the Anvil game engine.

The game is being developed for the PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, PC, PSP, Nintendo Wii, and DS, with the last three featuring a different gaming experience than the more powerful platforms. Expect more details on what that means as we inch closer to the game's May 2010 release.

Be sure to check out the game's reveal trailer, which premeired this weekend during the Spike TV VGA Awards.

The EA chart was shown at an investor's conference, designed to appeal to people who EA hopes will think positively of the company's stock, which is labeled as ERTS. So they show off unusual stats, as you can see above, such as the number of games delayed or not delayed. That sends the message that: You can trust our company to deliver on its promises when we say we will.

That's sort of interesting, but how about this idea that EA puts out the most good games? The chart you see above was created by EA and pulls from Metacritic, the aggregator site that pulls review scores mostly from gaming outlets that publish review scores (i.e not Kotaku). EA had gone into the site and counted up the games released between January 1 and November 30, 2009 that scored an 80 average or more. The evidence points to EA not only improving quality year over year — I haven't met a gamer who would deny that — and now leading in quality — which is more controversial.

Shall we check that?

The Beatles: Rock Band (92)
Dragon Age: Origins (91)
FIFA 10 (91)
Left 4 Dead 2 (90)
Burnout Paradise: The Ultimate Box (89)
Skate 2 (89)
NHL 10 (88)
Tiger Woods PGA Tour 10 (88)
Fight Night Round 4 (87)
Boom Blox Bash Party (86)
The Sims 3 (86)
Madden NFL 10 (85)
Tetris (85)
Battlefield 1943 (84)
Need for Speed Shift (84)
Brutal Legend (83)
NCAA Football 10 (83)
Dead Space Extraction (82)
Henry Hatsworth and the Puzzling Adventure (82)
Mirror's Edge PC (81)
The Sims 3 World Adventures (81)
EA Sports Active (81)
EA Sports More Active Workouts (81)
Left 4 Dead Crash Course (80)
NBA Live 10 (81)

I can see why EA didn't count some of the above 25 in its chart. In fact, I can get to their 19 easily. Let's knock out six listings: 1) Mirror's Edge PC, because it's a port of a 2008 game 2) Burnout Paradise Ultimate Box (compilation of an '08 game), 3) The Sims 3 World Adventures and 4) EA Sports More Active Workouts (which both expand and somewhat require ownership of their earlier edition or edition's peripherals), 5) Left 4 Dead Crash Course DLC and... Well, 6) could go one of two ways. We could not count Rock Band, which EA distributes but doesn't publish, or we could not count the PSP Minis release of Tetris.

This is a hefty amount of 80+ games. If we average the full 25, we get this: EA's average 80+ metascore is 85.20. Let's not count six games. We'll include Rock Band but not Tetris. Then we get 85.95. It goes down only to 85.58 if I use Tetris and not Rock Band.

[UPDATE: I originally used the 360 Dragon Age metascore of 86 but have since updated the math above using its PC score of 91. Seemed only fair given PC was its lead platform. I've gone through this post and updated all listings to reflect the highest score given to any PC or console version of these games.]

Let's see if EA counted its competitors correctly.

Modern Warfare 2 (94)
Guitar Hero 5 (89)
Guitar Hero: Metallica (86)
DJ Hero (87)

A little math shows that: Activsion's average 80+ metascore is 89. Better than EA's, but it's only four games, and really, if you want to do a fair comparison of publisher quality, you'd have to do an average of all their games. Also notable is that there was a wide disparity between some versions. I used the highest Guitar Hero score, which was an 89 on the Wii. The game averaged an 85 on the Xbox 360.

Assassin's Creed II (92)
Might and Magic Clash of Heroes (86 *Game was released in December)
Dawn of Discovery (82)

More math: Ubisoft's average 80+ metascore is 86.67 with Might and Magic. It is another publisher with just one 90+ game.

Dawn of War II (85)
Red Faction Guerilla (85)
UFC Undisputed (84)
WWE Smackdown Vs. Raw 2010 (82)
Rocket Riot (80)

Result: THQ's average 80+ metascore is 83.2. They had no 90+ games.

GTA Chinatown Wars (93)
GTA IV: The Lost and Damned (90)
GTA IV: The Ballad of Gay Tony (89)
Borderlands (84)
NBA 2K10 (83)
Beaterator (80)
The Bigs 2 (80)

I do Take Two no favors for the average here by including The Bigs 2, but I did just make them look better by counting it in the overall tally, right? Anyway, Take Two's average 80+ metascore is 85.57. And look! They have two games with a 90 or above.

Metroid Prime Trilogy (91)
Mario and Luigi Bowser's Inside Story (90)
The Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks (87)
New Super Mario Bros. Wii (87)
Punch-Out (86)
New Play Control Pikmin (84)
Professor Layton and the Diabolical Box (84)
Art Style Digidrive (83)
Art Style Pictobits (83)
Rhythm Heaven (83)
Pokemon Platinum (83)
Mario Vs. Donkey Kong: Minis March Again (82)
Fire Emblem Shadow Dragon (81)
Art Style Box Life (80)
Wii Sports Resort (80)
Wii Fit Plus (80)

You could load up this one with caveats, noting that the Metroid and Pikmin games aren't new, but let's include them. Nintendo's average 80+ metascore is 84 even. Credit them with a pair of games at 90 or above.

Uncharted 2 (96)
God of War Collection (92)
Killzone 2 (91)
MLB 09 The Show (90)
Wipeout HD Fury (89)
LittleBigPlanet PSP(88)
PixelJunk Shooter (87 *Game released in December)
Flower (87)
PixelJunk Monsters Deluxe (86)
Ratchet and Clank Future: A Crack in Time (86)
infamous (85)
Patapon 2 (81)
Resistance Retribution (81)
Buzz! Quiz World (80)
Zen Pinball (80)

Let me average that up for you. Sony's average 80+ metascore is 86.6. Not shabby at all. Plus, the company can boast four 90+ games, albeit one of them a compilation of PS2 hits.

Forza Motorsport 3 (92)
Shadow Complex (88)
Trials HD (86)
Splosion Man (84)
Halo 3 ODST (83)
Halo Wars (82)

Let's crunch that. Microsoft's 80+ metascore average is 85.83.

EA didn't tally the top scorers for Capcom, Sega and Warner Brothers. All had a batch of stellar games, so I figured I'd do the work.

Street Fighter IV (93)
Resident Evil 5 (85)
Marvel Vs Capcom 2 (82)
Monster Hunter Fredom Unite (81)

Capcom's average 80+ metascore is 85.25.

Empire Total War (90)
Football Manager 2010 (88)
MadWorld (81)

Sega's average 80+ metascore is 86.3

Batman Arkham Asylum (92)
Scribblenauts (80)

Warner's average 80+ metascore is 86. They've got a 90+ as well.'

It's no surprise that EA's chart accurately showed that the publisher had the most well-reviewed games, though, thanks to Kotaku, you can now see what those games were. This breakdown shows a couple of other things:

1) While EA had the most games that received 80+ scores, its average score for such titles settled between its two most prolific game-publishing competitors. It beat Nintendo but was beaten by Sony.

2) It's clear that no matter how many well-reviewed games a publisher has, getting an 80-89 score is far easier than getting a 90+. That seems to be the big equalizer among these top publishers. No one makes lots of those and few make more than a couple.

So which company made the most good video games in 2009? Probably the one you like the most. But if you want to try using numbers to back it up in 2009, I think you have to go with EA for quantity or Sony for 90+ excellence and a higher average score from its 80+ titles.

The game is Ubisoft's newly-announced Racquet Sports. It offers tennis, squash, table tennis, racquetball and badminton and supports up to four players. Control options initially seemed, during a demo of the game in a New York penthouse hotel suite last evening, conventional. Racquet Sports can be played, like Wii Sports Tennis, with just the Remote. Or, for more sensitive motion control, players can use a MotionPlus. Using that second option, I competed in a virtual squash match in an underwater glass box against a Ubisoft developer. She had no mercy.

But the surprise was that the Ubi rep then offered me the chance to play the game with no controller. Racquet Sports enables this via the publisher's proprietary Wii camera peripheral, which originally sold with the company's 2009 fitness game, Your Shape.

The camera-controller mode only works in single-player and reminded me of games I've played with the PlayStation 2's Sony EyeToy. As with games like EyeToy Play, I had to stand within the dimensions of an outline rendered on the TV so that the camera could detect where I stood in the room. From there it would be able to register my movements.

Once I was calibrated, a tennis match started. An image of me was gone from the screen, replaced by the Racquet Sports' straightforward tennis-match visuals. I'm left-handed, so I lifted and swatted with my left hand to serve, and then volleyed swinging forehands and backhands. Between serves, a replay showed how the previous point was scored, but I could skip that with a wave of my right hand.

The Ubisoft camera doesn't operate with the sophistication I experienced in demos of Microsoft's Project Natal. It's not detecting my joints and mapping my movements to that of a virtual stick figure. It's, in the words of the Ubisoft developer showing me the game, looking at "pixel clouds," determining if my movement is straight out to the side or at an angle and interpreting that, along with the speed of my movement, into different kinds of shots.

I had a good time playing without the controller, though I wasn't sure why anyone would forgo the option to use one other than to conserve battery power in their Remote. It worked well, evidence that there's more than one way to do motion controls on the Wii.

I asked if the developers had tried using the camera mode with real tennis rackets in their hands. Not yet, I was told. But with a table tennis paddle, they said, it works just fine.

The folks over at Ubisoft were kind enough to cut together a very special video for Kotaku to share with you. It distills the very essence of No More Heroes 2 into a single, steamy... weird clip lasting all of 32 seconds. For some guys, that leaves even enough time to cuddle afterward.

Enjoy!

Ubisoft takes hitting things while imagining you are holding a racquet to a whole new level with Racquet Sports, due out in March of 2010 for the Nintendo Wii. Composed of several racquet-centric sporting events, multiple game modes from party to championship, and support for the Wii MotionPlus and Ubisoft's own Motion Tracking Camera, I fully expect the injuries stemming from this family-friendly game will be quite exquisite indeed.

"Ubisoft and Nintendo continue to reach new gamers with innovative casual experiences that push the industry forward," said Adam Novickas, director of brand marketing at Ubisoft. "As racquet sports are some of the most popular sporting activities throughout the world, we are excited to bring a realistic interactive game experience for the entire family."

Check out the game's official web page for a trailer of the realistic interactive game experience in action.

*And Sabrina the Teenage Witch — but I liked Clarissa better.

The glitch appears to be triggered if one turns off the console right after the autosave at the end of Chapter 11. The game then loads up the hideout the next time the game is started, but nothing else loads from the corrupted savefile. Key features of the environment (I won't say which, for spoiler purposes) aren't available so there's no way to advance. You're just running around in a confined space, no way out.

An Ubisoft community developer acknowledged that the ACII team is aware of the problem and "are doing our best to fix this issue as fast as possible." Unfortunately, it doesn't appear a bug fix has rolled yet.

Reports don't say if this affects all versions or just one console, and if the latter, which one is even affected. I have not replicated this glitch - because I don't have the game. The best bet is to just manually save the game after Chapter 11 as soon as the opportunity presents itself. If you have a busted gamesave, your only option is to start over.

Assassin's Creed 2 Glitch Breaks Game [CVG]