E3 2009: Recap of Ubisoft’s press conference

They sure dragged that one out. Ubisoft’s press conference lasted two hours with a lot of talking, a couple big-name celebrities and very little actual game footage.

While Microsoft made a concerted effort to do more showing than telling, Ubisoft went so far as to get James Cameron on stage to talk at length (30 minutes) about his upcoming movie, Avatar, and the collaboration with Ubisoft and not show one speck of footage. Nothing. Nil. Nadda.

The other big name of note was soccer super star Pele, who came on to the stage and was awkwardly introduced, and even more awkwardly bantered with, the host, Joel McHale. Hale tried to make more jabs at Ryan Seacrest than a fencing star, with hardly any getting more than a snicker from the audience. Pele was promoting soccer game Academy of Champions which will feature his likeness.

There were plenty of the game announcements and teases including Assassin’s Creed 2, Red Steel 2, Shaun White Snowboarding: World Stage, Splinter Cell: Conviction, Ruse, more Rabids, More Turtles and a fitness game.

Oh, and it is definitely pronounced OO-bee-soft.

Here’s the bullet point list of the notable goodness from the press conference.

• Host was The Soup‘s Joel McHale: “I am a gamer. I love them. I haven’t had as much time to play them recently because I have two kids and I regret that. They are distracting me from my gaming time.”
• Word of the day: Confluence. The company wants to focus on bringing together various media including movies, books, web and varied controls with video games.
• Unisoft is launching a new web site, UPlay, which will offer four sections: UShare, UWin, UHelp (for midgame help) and UShop.
• The company is working with Hollywood a lot more including with James Cameron, Peter Jackson and Steven Spielberg.
• James Cameraon took the stage and talked (a lot) about Avatar the movie and the related game. “Games derived from movies historically have kinda sicked. I didn’t want anything associated with Avatar to suck,” so the game will follow its own story line. Avatar will be the first major stereoscopic title.
• Red Steel 2 will take advantage of the WiiMotionPlus controls and be bundled with the WiiMotionPlus at launch. You can switch between shooting and sword swiping and block bullets with your sword.
• Shaun White Snowboarding: World Stage was teased. Will use the skate deck controller shown at Microsoft’s press conference.
• Pele came out to promote Academy of Champions, a soccer game that he hopes will help to educate children. Will be released later this year.
• Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell: Conviction will be released Fall 2009 exclusively for Xbox 360 and PC
• Ruse was teased with a great trailer that showed gamers controlling forces via a giant table.
• Fitness is the fasted growing genre and Ubisoft will release Your Shape with a camera Christmas 2009. Will be for Wii and the camera will connected via USB.
• Rabids Go Home game looks like a minikart-Katamari hybrid where yu drive around and collect stuff.
• Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Smashup, to be released Fall 2009, will be a Smash Bros. Brawl style game featuring the turtles, Shredder, Splinter and a scantily-clad April.
• No More Heroes 2: Desperate Struggle is being worked on.
• Also working on a yet-to-be-named project called Eden with Tetsu Yamaguchi.
• Assassin’s Creed 2 was the conference ender, with a very long and very good looking trailer (possibly in-game cutscenes) and a little game play. Game will be released November 17, 2009.