Ubisoft E3 2016 Conference: Cringe

Ubi kicked things off with an uber-cringe dance number, and the usual host is back with her cringe-worthy moments. So things are business at usual at Ubi this year.

Ghost Recon Wild Lands – Although heavily, heavily scripted, I think there’s some promise here. Playing co-op could be fun. Otherwise it looks a little generic and I haven’t yet found the reason why I should care about this one.

South Park – Picks up after Stick of Truth (which was pretty good) where you’re still the King, but since the kids are all playing a “different game” now that means you’re back to being the new kid and no one likes you. The superhero motif is neat (who wouldn’t super powers like farts ripping the fabric of time?). Probably won’t pick this one up though as I don’t see the draw beyond the gimmick of South Park. Fun once, but I don’t need it twice.

The Division Underground – The original wasn’t great—okay, but not great—so I’m not really psyched about Underground.

Eagle Flight – Reminds me of when the Wii was first announced or Kinect and we saw all these “games” that were nothing more than tech demos. Neat concept. I’m sure it’s glorious in VR. They looked so funny on stage with their headsets on looking everywhere while the guy announced their match like an esport game. Sadly the game doesn’t translate to the audience at all.

Star Trek Bridge Crew – That’s it. We’re done. We can go home. Star Trek wins E3. This single-handedly guarantees I will get VR. I am a bit worried about how much of this is legit gameplay and how much of it is minigame and demo. I want this to be the FULL game where we explore galaxies from our bridge. I want to spend an entire Saturday on the bridge of a ship with Graev exploring the galaxy and fighting Romulans. This better not be a game where one guy puts out fires and another guy “flies” the ship. What was that game on Steam? This warrants another post.

For Honor – It’s like that old game Pirates, Vikings, and Knights but it’s Vikings, Knights, and Samurais. Huh. Gory as heck but looks interesting. I’ll have to check this out more.

[Some weird games not worth mentioning]

Watch Dogs 2 – The first one was a huge disappointment. Fool me once.

Okay so Ubisoft was really weird as usual, but not as bad as it could have been. I’d say they score a C+ where EA scored a D+. Both kinda sucked but Ubi sucked less.  Really lackluster offering this year save for Star Trek Bridge Crew. That has me sold on at least giving VR a shot. Yep, I’m shallow.