Ubisoft just done a load of games in Paris. Fifteen whole games, to be exact: some of them new, some of them old, but all of them in a big white event space on top of a French hotel. Ubisoft’s Digital Days 2013 took place in what looked like either a waiting room for an expensive plastic surgery consultation or crystal skull valuation. After some waiting around, Alain Corre, Ubisoft’s European MD, money-brain and the least well known member of the band, introduced the day by discussing expanding digital markets while pointing at a map of Asia with big dollar signs popping out of it, until eventually we were permitted to roam the cube and explore the games.
Here is a brief description of all of those games, in no particular order. I think I started at the game nearest the table with the coffee and worked clockwise, spiralling outwards from there until I found myself in a sort of free to play gully. Some of these games aren’t on PC, but have been included for completion’s sake.
1. The Crew
An open world car racing game in which the whole of a condensed version of the USA can be driven across, off-road and on. In the demo a lady on the radio told me to drive as quickly as I could along a road, making sure not to drive outside of a coloured strip. Once I’d successfully done that I was teleported to Miami, where I had to ram a bad guy to death as he drove all over the beach frightening people. Then a strange cutscene played where a bunch of orange cars revved their engines aggressively at a rival gang of black cars, a bit like West Side Story meets Knight Rider. Then it ended.
Excitementometer reading: Seven
2. Rabbids Big Bang
A sort of Angry Birds style game for tablets in which you smack a rabbit into orbit and then use a limited jetpack to stay in the air and meet objectives, such as doing laps of a planet or reaching an indicated top speed. This game was actually really good fun, though the constant nudges towards in-app purchases between levels was frustrating. I just wanted to smack a rabbit without interruption. That’s all I ever want.
Excitementometer reading: Hazy
3. Watch Dogs
I’ve noticed that the main guy’s leather jacket is so physics-enabled that it looks more like a big open dressing gown flapping around, as if he’s some mad person who’s stepped outside in his slippers to grab the newspaper but went on a rampage instead. It’s as if Ubisoft have made a game about the man who lived downstairs from Rachel and Monica in Friends, except instead of banging on the ceiling with a broom handle you control drawbridges and hack money out of pedestrians’ mobile phones. The mode being demoed was one in which you’re trying to reach a random point in the city while another player uses an iPad to hack your surroundings and slow you down by raising bollards and exploding steam pipes. Why are steam pipes even connected to the internet?
Excitementometer reading: Eight excitements and rising
4. Tom Clancy’s EndWar Online
This is a MOBA set in the EndWar universe, which I didn’t even know was a universe. The difference between our universe and the EndWar universe is that in the EndWar universe the top of the Eiffel Tower has fallen off. You’ve got helicopters, tanks and anti-aircraft units that act in a reliable rock, paper, scissors fashion, and you send them trundling along three lanes to have fights against another player who’s doing the same, but in the opposite direction. There’s a campaign map that’s way more interesting than the fights themselves, with territories that trade hands over weeks of play.
Excitementometer reading: Several hundred, microscopic grains of excitement in the wind
5. Just Dance 2014
This was just ants. Thousands of ants, crawling over you. There were ants in this booth.
Excitementometer reading: N/A (Numerous ants)
6. The Mighty Quest for Epic Loot
This free to play Diablo game is sort of already out, so I just stood around the big TVs they were showing it on waiting for a nearby table to be refilled with biscuits. The biscuits never came, so I wandered to another table where there were supposed to be hot dogs, but because this is France they were really weird hot dogs. It was as if they’d boiled them or something. Boiled hot dogs! Disgusting. I could only eat two.
Excitementometer reading: A grandmother’s dying smile as the sun rises
7. Child of Light
For some reason this game was kept inside a giant marshmallow. The queue was two hours long and I couldn’t see inside. Great!!
Excitementometer reading: Why did you hide your game in a marshmallow igloo? Why why
8. Rayman Fiesta Run
A sequel to Rayman Jungle Run for the iPads and the tablets and the whizzbangs, Rayman Fiesta Run is a game about jumping around and having fun. Everybody was sitting on giant bean bags playing this game, which gave this corner of the show a really laid back vibe. I didn’t dare sit on a bean bag however, just in case I got in trouble for using the bean bag without playing the game. I think the developers had brought them from home.
Excitementometer reading: One tiny baby excitement cut in half during apocryphal divorce proceedings
9. Assassin’s Creed Liberation HD
This is a remake of the Assassin’s Creed Liberation game released on PSP a while ago, except this time it’s for consoles and PC. This is the only Assassin’s Creed game with a female lead, which makes a nice change. When I first saw this game being played, the main character was attacking a crocodile for some reason. So that’s in the game.
Excitementometer reading: A dozen excitements placed in a controlled breeding program to conserve their numbers
10. Assassin’s Creed Pirates
Just in case “Black Flag” was a little too cryptic a title for you, Assassin’s Creed Pirates is a smartphone and tablet game that’s all about the naval battles from the most recent game in the series. Now the only remaining device in your home that cannot play an Assassin’s Creed game is your hoover (at least until 2015’s Assassin’s Creed: Megastab Hoover Dash).
Excitementometer reading: An excitement you sit on that, in the event of an emergency, can be used as a floatation device
11. Dragow
“It’s a game about dragons and floating islands,” said a friendly French man who knows all about this free to play browser based (and, I think, French language only) strategy game. You’ve got islands, which generate resources, and on those islands you breed and train dragons to fly off and attack and conquer other islands using stats and numbers and thinking (and presumably fire breath). “So it’s a bit like Neptune’s Pride?” I offered. “What? No.” said the man. Well alright then.
Excitementometer reading: “It’s like Travian, do you know Travian?”
12. Panzer General Online
A sort of tank fighting game set during an alternate World War 2 where all of the generals have agreed to only battle on an hexagonal grid using collectible cards. Free to play, multiplayer, looks intimidatingly strategic. So intimidating, in fact, that I wouldn’t even touch the controls or speak directly to the developer about this game. Instead I just let the developer talk about tanks to another journalist while I stood nearby, absorbing the information (and a mini bacon cheese pie) in a passive way. It’s got nebelwerfers in it, my favourite kind of werfer.
Excitementometer reading: Several interconnecting hexagonal excitements
13. Trials Frontier
I couldn’t play Trials Frontier because I’d run out of fuel. Superb.
Excitementometer reading: **Please insert 50p to continue using excitementometer.**
14. Valiant Hearts: The Great War
My game of the show. Set during the first world war and focussing on four human characters and one dog, Valiant Hearts is a beautifully drawn, side scrolling 2D puzzle adventure. The puzzles appear basic enough: counter-weight see-sawing chunks of debris using discarded artillery to reach a raised floor, distract guards using cans to reach detonators, but suffused throughout is a deeply meloncholy story set against the backdrop of one of the worst conflicts in human history. It’s about people more than soldiers, there’s a dog that you can stroke, and scenes play out in voiceless, comic vignettes, creating a dreamlike world richly described by the game’s sole, and hugely talented artist. One hundred percent lovely.
Excitementometer reading: **Please insert 50p to continue using excitementometer.**
15. Duel of Champions
A free to play collectible card game that I am very bad at. It’s out now.
Excitementometer reading: **Please insert 50p to continue using excitementometer.**
