Eurogamer Expo: The Ubisoft Tent

Although there was a pretty extensive number and variety of games on show at the Expo from a whole range of developers and publishers, the only company to have a proper all-under-one-roof booth was Ubisoft (there was a MotorStorm booth opposite, but that's not the same). In here were EndWar (which I babbled about yesterday), the new Prince of Persia and Shaun White's Snowboarding, as well as a couple of Raving Rabbids TV Party booths outside. Just outside the booth you can see Ubisoft trailer DVDs and Shaun White-branded bags being given out (yes, we got some).

There were about a dozen Prince of Persia booths set up (impressive for such a small van) on top of the other ten or so in the main Expo building, and although this tended to make it seem that the game wasn't as popular as Killzone for instance, whenever I saw a machine running the game, it was occupied. So either people are at least intruiged by the new Prince, or Ubisoft's been sending in its people undercover (I kid, Ubi! Thanks for the lush PoP shirts btw).

Onto the actual game: ah. Now I'll admit that I haven't really been following news and media on the game as religiously as I have been for LBP or the like, but I was aware of a) the new look, b) the new accomplice and c) the lack of any connection to the previous games in the series. And the only other Pricne game I've played was the one for PSP that came out a long time back. That I was shit at.My issue with the new look is not any kind of loyalty to previous art styles, or even that I think cel-shading is ugly, it is that Ubi seem to be using cel-shading as an excuse to have massive chunks of quite bland colour everywhere. The area I played had you following the new girl (who has not relaly been introduced at this point in the game) as she ran and jumped around a bit, and there was just massive patches of brown that made up the floor and walls: not attractive. Now I can understand that in games like this you're supposed to be moving quite quickly and therefore not noticing this anyway, but that never stopped Burnout Paradise or Wipeout HD being gorgeous.

As I said already, I've not played much Persia before this game, and so in fact, the only comparison I can make is with Assassins Creed (same engine, much of the same staff, same parkour concept). And my comparison is this: Persia seems very...simple. There's pretty much one button to jump or grab or grind, and although this may appear to make the game more accessible it is in fact more of a blow. PoP is the sort of game that requires precision and perfect timing, something the one-button system and often sluggish movement cannot really enable.

I find it hard to make a recommendation or not, as Persia is not my normal sort of game, but I guess I suggest renting it first, whether you think you'll fall in love with it or not - from reactions at the Expo, it is very Marmite. Prince of Persia is made by Ubisoft Montreal and should be out in December for PS3/PC/360.

Whilst the Wanderer spent some quality time with EndWar, I took the oppertunity to try out Shaun White Snowboarding for the Wii (Balance Board and all). And if you think attempting to show off your non-existent snowboarding prowess to a girl is bad enough anyway, try doing it in a room full of viscious nerds.

 

Turns out the game is suprisingly good, and a helluva lot better than Ninty's E3 conference made it seem. But then it is easy to understand why they chose to show it off: the use of both the balance board (which you simply lean in whichever direction to steer and jump when applicable) and Wiimote is essentially seamless, and pretty solidly recreates what you're actually trying to do on screen, and for this reason is not only more fun, but also what feels like a better game than the non-waggle console versions (I played with those too, I'm not just making it up). So thats one of my main issues with the majority of Wii games down. Next up - graphics. And you know what? Those are damn good too! easily much better than SSX Blur on the same console and can comfortably be shown next to the HD 360 version with no embarrassment. The on screen UI is modified to be more edgy and fun to suit the different game, and powering down the slopes at full speed offered up no visible issues. It's potentially the best planned Wii game I've ever played so I have high hopes for its success. Shaun White Snowboarding is devleoped by Ubisoft Montreal and will be released for Wii, 360 and PS3 this Friday 14th November, with Windows, DS and PSP versions to come.

That's all for now (these posts get blooming long), but we'll be back with more impressions soon.

Eurogamer Expo: Tom Clancy's EndWar

I think it's probably safe to say that I'm a big fan of RTS (or real-time strategy) games, partly due to the fact that some of the great older strategy games (the Age of Empires series, Total Annihilation and StarCraft) are amongst the few games that actually run on my now-quite-ageing laptop. For this reason, there were two games in particular that I wanted to spend some time with at the Expo: Savage Moon, a PSN tower defence game that I'll be talking about soon, and the latest in the never-ending line of Tom Clancy games: EndWar.

The background of this game is a time when there is not enough oil to go around, and therefore the US, the Europeans and Russia have all decided to have a nuclear food fight amongst themselves in an attempt to secure the remaining supplies. And of course, this all happens in a nice grey near-future setting.

The beauty of EndWar, however, is not in its setting or backstory, but instead in the way the game is played. EndWar is almost entirely playable using only a headset (Bluetooth or USB; SingStar or Rock Band microphones work equally as well, but a headset is much less fiddly believe me). It works like this: you hold down the the R2 shoulder button/trigger and navigate the tree menu that appears using your voice. For instance, should you wish to move your tanks (which you have rather intelligently assigned to slot two) to waypoint Delta on the map, you say, simply: "Unit - 2 - move to - Delta". Its a very easy way to work out what you want to say, as only saying part of a command will bring up the menu to that point, so you can then pick the unit you want to move, hostile you want to attack or whatnot. There are a few tasks that require a pad, such as adding support troops and switching up your units, but this requires only the directional and the X button.

And the voice recognition is amazingly good. In fact, in the crowded nerd-filled room I was playing, next to three other players also shouting into headsets, and the regular bursts of "ooohs" from the sealed Gears of War 2 cubicle just along, the game had no problem picking up what I was saying perfectly. Admittedly, the demo I later played with my SingStar mic was not as good, but this is more down to the quality of the microphone than any fault of the game's. But, should you find yourself in a situation in which you don't fancy shouting your head off at crazed Russians, you can play the whole game using a gamepad, navigating the aforementioned tree menus using the directional buttons, but this takes away a large amount of the fun of the game.

Amongst others, one of the game types I played was Conquest, in which you simply try to take and hold more specific targets on the map than your enemy, and others on offer involved swanning into an area and taking everyone out to claim it, and defending your bases from incoming attacks. And this is where I can see the cracks in the game: the gameplay and unique feature is pretty-much perfect, but it is just being used in very generic situations, which could easily become very repetitive when stretched out over both an entire campaign mode and EndWar's innovative online play that recalculates areas of control every day based on the matches and skirmishes that have taken place.

Although I though it was a great session that I spent with the game, I think that is how it will likely be best played come the final release - in short sharp bursts. There are a couple of other niggles I had with the game, bearing in mind we were playing a near-complete, if not complete, version of the game (Tropies had been implemented - I unlocked a nice bronze one during one of my plays of the game): the loading times are near rediculous, with multiple screens that all disguise the fact the level is still bloody loading, and the minimap displays only the letters of checkpoints, so you better know your phonetic alphabet before you start issuing orders (after a good old shouting session, we realised B was for Bravo, not Beta). The game has enormous potential, and I will be glad to get some more hands-on time with the final game in the future.

Tom Clancy's EndWar is developed by Ubisoft Shanghai and published by Ubisoft. It was released on November 8th in the UK on PlayStation 3, and a special edition PS3 version bundled with the new official Bluetooth headset is also available. A downloadable demo is currently available on the PlayStation Store and Xbox Live Marketplace. A PC version of the game is slated for next year.

WWAP #5: Busy Edition

This week's been one helluva mixed bag games-wise: both the Wanderer and I have been busy with various activities, including of course Eurogamer Expo, but somehow (as ever) we've still found time to get some solid game time in.

I myself spent the beginning of the week getting to grips with Mercenaries 2: World at Flames on PS3, playing large amounts of online co-op with Aquatic and one or two other online buddies who also have the game. Post-Eurogamer and the PlayStation Store update I've been playing around in the Mirror's Edge and EndWar demos, and rather annoyingly, my Bluetooth headset died halfway through a run-through of the latter - SingStar microphones to the rescue - but at least now I have a decent excuse to get the official PlayStation one when it comes out.

Mr Aquatic has been just as busy as me, and after starting the week showing me the ropes of Mercs, he has been splitting his time between Uncharted: Drake's Fortune that he picked up the other week on the cheap, and his new best friend Dead Space. Unfortunately for him, the new LPB release date of the 5th falls directly on the day he goes to Italy for a week, which is just pure bad luck (the lucky sod), and unfortunately for me, I have no money to buy it either.

And that's just the start - I think Penny Arcade put it the best (click to see the full comic):

Although obviously the dates are different (thanks SCEE!) it's gonna be mental from here on out until Christmas. Here on the blog, this week will be just as busy as we continue with our Eurogamer reportage, and try some new things. Keep em peeled!