And those other douchebags have celebrities...

So, I did a quick run-through of the Xbox conference, so I thought I’d give the same treatment to EA and Ubisoft as well.

EA

• Mass Effect 3 is coming on March 12th of next year, so the delay isn’t nearly as long as some thought. The gameplay still looks good, and running around under Reapers’ legs on the battlefield is going to be awesome.
• Next, EA showed off Need for Speed: The Run which, as the name might suggest, now allows you to exit the car, running away from your pursuers on-foot. It looks like it might just be a set of races followed by long quicktime segments… which I don’t think I’d be too hot on.
• Star Wars: The Old Republic is going to be big, regardless of the fact that EA and Bioware can’t seem to show us anything but CG trailers. I have no doubt that it will be a good competitor to WoW, and I’ll most likely play it… but I’m starting to fear that I’d rather see some full-length CG movies set in the Old Republic than play the final game.
• The new SSX looks like it could be really good, bringing back the ridiculously over-the-top tricks and speed that the original had. What’s cool is that the game will feature every major slope on earth based on official maps supplied by NASA. They mentioned this as a “massive open world.” Now, whether or not this means it’s a globe-spanning game with separate distinct tracks or that it will have an open-world sandbox type of gameplay remains to be seen.
• Fifa – okay, here’s where I get to enjoy the privilege of this being my personal blog. I don’t care anything about soccer… so, moving on…
• Madden. There will be a Madden game even if there’s no NFL season this year. Also… when will this stop being called Madden?  He’s been a non-factor for so long now, and though I realize they have a lot of equity built up in the name, it just doesn’t make sense to be called that much longer, at least in my opinion. Here’s a funny point about this conference too — at the beginning they took a jab at the bigger guys for extravagant stages and celebrities at their conferences… and then they fucking brought out Ray Lewis, Peyton Hillis and Clay Matthews for no good damn reason. What the hell, EA?
• The Sims Social? Answer: No.
• Curt Schilling came out to pimp a little bit of his game called The Reckoning (some subtitle, yada yada) and it looked pretty cool, but then he was quickly swept off stage. Weird.
• Insomniac unveiled a new multi-platform title called Overstrike that seems to bring the Ratchet and Clank zaniness into a slightly more realistic and mature setting. Given their track-record of making games with really cool weapons and gadgets, I think this game might be pretty good.
• Then, of course, they showed Battlefield 3, which looks absolutely ridiculous. Built on the Frostbite 2 engine, they are claiming (and rightly so) to have the epitome in rendering, destructibility, audio and scale. The demo in the tank was mind-blowing in its realism. It releases October 25th.

Next, we had Ubisoft, which I have to say is the clear winner (or loser?) of most cringe-worthy press conference.

• First off, they brought out Michel Ancel (the creator of Rayman) to do an awkward Shakespeare reference on one knee, “U bi, or not U bi.” *facepalm*  He quickly recovered by showing off Rayman Origins though, which looks like a great 2D mix of New Super Mario Bros. and Earthworm Jim. It even seemed to be a bit too hard for the developers, as they died several times.
• Then, Mr. Caffeine came out and forced some comedy. No one cared. At this point, and several other times throughout the conference, they showed clips of “What this game might have looked like 25 years ago.” I really wonder how much time they wasted making these clips for a joke that didn’t even work.
• Next, they showed Driver: San Francisco. I really loved the first Driver, but never played one after that… and this game might change that.
• Gearbox’s Randy Pitchford then came out to show a non-gameplay clip of Brothers in Arms: Furious Four which looks to be a game based on Inglorious Basterds.
• Tin Tin. Spielberg and Peter Jackson talked about it a lot. I still don’t know what Tin Tin is.
• Then Ghost Recon: Future Soldier was shown, which looked pretty cool… though I’m really starting to get ‘Future-to-near-future-shooter-fatigue.’ I giggled a little as they were 4 Player co-oping it, running through a town telling all of the civilians to run away. Each players’ character was constantly shouting “Get out,” “Go,” “Get outta here,” “It’s not safe here!” It was a cacophony of hilarity. Also, they’re launching a separate game called Ghost Recon Online which is a free-to-play multiplayer game.
• Next, two ladies talked about Maniaworld which encompasses Trackmania 2, Shootmania (FPS) and Questmania (RPG). I’m assuming these are all just community-driven games with custom content.
• Raving Rabbids for Kinect looks FUN. I want to kick rabbids. That is all.
• Just Dance 3… it’s the third one. And Katy Perry had braces in the trailer. It was weird. Coming to all consoles’ respective motion-controlled aspects.
• Rocksmith will let you plug in your own guitar and learn to play. Dave Navarro seemed VERY excited about this… (except not really)
• Your Shape: Fitness Evolved 2012 will continue shaping you next year.
• And finally, after all the yawn-worthy stuff (read: the whole conference), they showed a good bit of Assassin’s Creed: Revelations, playing through an initial area where Ezio flips around a shipyard fucking shit up. At the end, there was some sort of teaser with the Animus rebooting and showing a portal underneath a Stonehenge-looking arch. It’s coming in November.

And that’s what happened in the two big, non-big-three, conferences. They, not unlike the Microsoft presser before, were fairly uneventful. Had I not taken notes, this post would have probably only read, “Mass Effect. Battlefield 3. Assassin’s Creed. Drool.”

Next up, Sony!