Ubisoft E3 2015 conference reaction

Ubisoft had been knocking it out of the park for the last few years when it came to conferences, but this year it came a bit unstuck. There was good stuff here, including a sequel to South Park, a new Ghost Recon where you kill the menace of DRUGS all over the GLOBE because DRUGS, a new Trackmania (for those into that sort of thing), and new looks at The Division and Rainbow Six Siege.

As expected, there was also stupidity. Jason Derulo celebrated his album and his single making number one by getting on stage to promote Just Dance. Sadly, he did so by singing like a man who may well have had a few ales, or had been kidnapped and made to dance until Yves was satisfied. It was a bizarre performance, to say the least. There was also a preponderance of ultra-scripted gameplay demos, wherein every day people like you or I or game developers who should know better than trying to get this shit to fly talk to each other like they're all trained killers. In fairness, they were playing Rainbow Six Siege and The Division, but at the same time no-one will play the games like that. They'll just toss grenades and shout 'see ya' before firing their guns everywhere, all the time.

Oh, and someone dressed in Jacob Fry cosplay embarrassed themselves in front of everyone, and remarkably not just because they were dressed like Jacob Fry.

Nonsense aside, there was a lot to like. Aisha Tyler was funny and free to go off-script, helping to recover situations when developers/cosplayers/massive recording artists had gone sideways. There was also a lot of diversity in Ubi's presentations, with the firm not simply relying on white middle aged dudes to sell its wares. It was a good look.

Trey Parker and Matt Stone turned up, announcing South Park: The Fractured But Whole. It got the laughs they expected, but perhaps the best moment of the entire thing was Trey Parker announcing that his head mic was "dumb" and it made him feel "fucking stupid". I'm not going to argue.

All told, however, the Ubi presser dragged, and it's becoming more and more apparent that its games are fairly indistinct. Not just in terms of being sequels, but in terms of different franchises sharing so many common themes and mechanics that it all starts to blur. Ghost Recon looked interesting, with globe-trotting co-op and a vast open world, but really it's much the same as what has come before. Obviously. We're probably not far out from the old joke of Tom Clancy's Tom Clancy Tom Clancy.

Oh, and there was no Beyond Good and Evil 2. Of course.