Ubisoft‘s UbiNight Overview

Ubisoft’s annual retailers game line up fun-fest.

by GrathiusXR

©2010 Arthur Kotsopoulos

It’s always exciting looking forward to Ubisoft’s annual Retailer’s UbiNights in the month of September, where they showcase their entire line up of titles to be released in the near future, from the Triple AAA titles through to casual games.

This year’s Ubisoft event in Sydney was one for all genres and gaming fans, with Assassins Creed: Brotherhood to whet their appetites right across to Kinect‘s Fighters Uncaged for the ‘motion-fighters’ out there, and of course to the amazingly addictive Michael Jackson: The Experience, for the dancing crowd and Motion Sports for the ‘sporty’ and ‘fitness’ fans.

There was something for everyone!

Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood:

Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood’s Multiplayer was on show and Ubisoft had set up an excellent 8 player LAN for gamers to get head-to-head within the game mode ‘Wanted’ at the well known Sydney nightspot, ‘The Ivy Room’. It’s such a brilliant location for such events.

I was initially worried about Multiplayer appearing in an Assassin’s Creed title, especially in a solely single player based game at first. I mean Bioshock 2 and Condemned 2: Bloodshot kind of suffered in their Single Player areas because of the inclusion of Multiplayer.

After a good session and getting used to the controls again, I felt as if a great deal of time and effort had been put into this Multiplayer aspect of the game to make it worth including.

• Assassin’s Creed Brotherhood Multiplayer Kill Streak.

It’s not some cheap team battle of Capture The Flag ruckus, in fact it’s a fully fleshed out Free-For-All game mode where you receive a ‘contract’ on another player and you must find and assassinate that player, whilst at the same time knowing that there is another player in the world who is doing the exact same thing and YOU are his contract.

In  this mode you are refreshingly rewarded points based on the style of your kill rather than how many people you kill, so those who think along the lines of ‘Kill Death Ratio‘ in multiplayer will find it largely does not apply here.

If you kill your contract silently with no one looking you’re rewarded with a plethora of points; if you have to run from your killer and you manage to hide you are rewarded with a massive amount of points too.

It’s a game mechanic that rewards the strategists and the skillful rather than the fast-kill crowd and I love it. The fact that if you run to find your contract you’ll be seen by your killer and he’ll be alerted of you’re presence means it’s either kill, hide or be killed.

• Assassin’s Creed Brotherhood Developers Diary 3

Each character that you’re able to choose has a different kill style: the Executioner and his axe, or the seductive female and her sharp knifed fans- it’s always pleasant to watch because you’ll never see the same death animation twice.

A little variety goes a long way to keep this game fresh and always fun for the player. Many of you have already played the BETA and are probably enjoying the game but for those of you who haven’t we have a very comprehensive write up on the Assassin’s Creed Brotherhood multiplayer BETA for the PS3 you can have a read of here.

Kinect Games:

On to the Kinect titles now. Fighters Uncaged is Fight Night in the streets where you choose your character and you can throw anything from punches to kicks to create combos and knock out your opponent. It’s different, it’s fun and a massive workout because you really have to put some effort into your punches.

Graphically the game is pretty poor. I mean for a title that’s pretty much fight fight fight and not much else happening on the screen I was kind of underwhelmed that visually it wasn’t impressive.

That didn’t hinder the gameplay so much because you’re more worried about not getting knocked out rather than ” ohh my character looks really blocky “.  As for the doubters who say Kinect has been downgraded etc.: There was no lag between punches from the person to the character on screen. It was a smooth transition which brings me to Motion Sports.

Ubisoft’s Motion Sports title is your usual array of sporting games from NFL, to skiing, soccer etc. NFL was an on-the rails fast paced dodge game. Leaning left and right dodging the opponents from attack made it seem fun but felt like a novelty; you KNOW it’ll get boring after a while.

Skiing was more interesting as it wasn’t as energetic but require finesse staying in between the flags pulling off tricks in mid air. The game was toned down and more skillful.

There seemed to be some lag involved from the player leaning to the character on screen and it did see odd watching from afar. On every turn the player was always struggling to stay in between the flags and on every turn he would either just be in between them or hitting the barrier on the side of the track.

Again graphically it wasn’t impressive but it was fun and a hard game to master- definitely one for the perfectionists and those who want to be the best.

Which brings me to the final Kinect title that wasn’t shown on Kinect but instead the Wii and definitely the most interesting of the lot: Michael Jackson: The Experience. It’s as authentic as they come and a visually engaging title with every song from the renowned master of pop, Michael Jackson.

Vibrant colours all around make it a treat to watch, although I’m not to sure how well it works with the Wii. You hold the Wii-mote in your hand yet you need to do moves requiring you’re feet body etc..

Now correct me If I’m wrong how does a controller read your whole body movement?  On Kinect you won’t have this problem.

With the Wii iteration, you don’t need to move your legs, nor body to each move shown on the screen as it doesn’t really matter – you can simply do the hand actions and you still get a high score.

You also need to be quite energetic and enthusiastic when playing this title because, come on, standing around as still as a tree just moving your arm doesn’t make it fun. If you’re not in it to win it, then don’t bother playing the game.

The Kinect version will definitely be the best of the lot.

Not only will your whole body be involved but while most games have avatar support this will have a visual representation of you on the screen and whatever you do in the real world whilst dancing will be represented in the game on screen it’s awesome. You can have back up dancers on your left and right who will do the same routine as you and it’s simply amazing.

This title shows off just how amazing Kinect can really be. Michael Jackson: The Experience is definitely THE title to use to promote the potential of Kinect.

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Overall this year’s Sydney Retailer’s Ubinight event was by far the most impressive I’ve been to in the last few years.

Not only was the crowd a little younger and more laid back, but the venue was perfect for the occasion. Anyone who lives in Sydney who has been to The Ivy will now why.

It’s a long way away until the next Ubinight but if Ubisoft’s line up of titles next year is anything to go by, it’s once again going to be an another amazing event.

©2010 Kotsopoulos

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Filed under: 3rd Party Games, Console gaming, Demo impressions, Game Impressions, Gaming Videos, New Xbox 360 Games, Xbox 360 Tagged: | Assassin's creed, Assassin's Creed Brotherhood, Assassin's Creed II, Bioshock 2, Condemned 2: Bloodshot, Fighters Uncaged, games, Kinect, Michael Jackson, Michael Jackson: The Experience, Move, Multiplayer video game, PS3, PS3 Move, Ubisoft, Video game, Xbox 360