On Wednesday 7th I attended the Ubisoft Summer Festival, held in Sloane Square, London. The setup was the same as what was on show at the E3 conference earlier this year on the 15th June on Los Angeles. I took along fellow web assistant and, friend and gamer Charles Spinney. During this post we will report on what we saw and played on. It was exciting stuff…
After eventually finding the venue in Chelsea we found the entrance to the marquee only to be greeted by two of the organiser who after checking our names and getting us to sign a confidentiality agreement for a game allowed us to enter into the main arena.
The first stand we came across was the Just Dance 2 game by Ubisoft and the assistance made sure we took the controls and put on a performance. After pleasing the crowd and whooping Charlies ass I took 5 to ask a few details about the game. As we already know, it was confirmed the game will be released in October of this year. Although we only had a choice of seven tracks to choose from whilst playing the demo, the real game will consist of 42 tracks including great classics such as James Brown “I feel good”. Players will be able to play solo, in pairs, as a four or even as an eight. It promises to bring hours of entertainment and is definitely not going to let down the reputation the first Just Dance game has built up.
Next we were over to Shaun Whites Skateboarding, which was being shown on both Wii and for the PS3, with the Wii having a playable demo and the PS3 being able to view an assistant playing whilst answering questions. My first impressions of the game was wow. Putting on the 3D specs to view the PS3 version was an experience of joy and you soon forgot you were wearing the glasses which did make us look a bit stupid. The game on the whole is just another skateboarding fling althouh it does have a twist. You start playing without colour and the more tricks you make the more colour that gets injected into the game. Grind rails can be customised in terms of direction as you go along, meaning you make the grind and use the controller to take any direction you choose. This make roof tops and secret areas accessible and if you decide the rails not in the right place then simply delete the position and re make the grind to create a new path. Jump ramps can also activated which otherwise lay dormant.
Moving round to the Wii for a go on the game was the next stop, however you could instantly see that it was not of the same caliber in my opinion. For starters there was no 3D effects which we were not expecting, but the whole graphic look was different which I did not prefer to the PS3 version. The skater and surrounding landscape were only what can be described as cartoon like, where as the PS3 was more life like, this doesn’t tae away from the enjoyment the game provides if skate boarding games are your cup of tea. I engaged in a brief chat with the brand manager for the game, Jan Sanghera, who confirmed the games release as 1st October 2010.
There was not much else going on in terms of the Wii but Ubisoft were exhibiting PS3 and XBox material we did make use of. Charlie and I experienced the new Move controllers from Sony whilst playing Racket Sports which is the answer to the Wii Remote and corresponding game Wii Racket Sports Party. Personally it just felt like something they have bought out to compete with the Nintendo rather than a unique gadget, which is fine, sometimes this has to be. The Kinect on the other hand was very impressive, before playing I really didn’t expect that it was going to be much cop but in a nut shell it did every thing you would expect and more, but we are not here to talk Sony so thats enough. I just look forward to Nintendos answer to this.
The only thing I have not mentioned yet is the Michael Jackson Dance game hoping to be released this November / December time. I don’t currently have any information about this but as and when I do there will be a post.
Thanks for reading.
Technorati Tags: Just Dance 2, Kinect, Move, PS3, Ubisoft Summer Festival, Wii Games
