Today, a small group of Capsule Computers staff got the opportunity to hang out at the UBISOFT office in Sydney. These staff members were Phil (MasterABBOTT), Michael and Myself (LinkageAX). The Ubisoft offices were a sight to behold, as upon our entry we were greeted not only by Owen, but also Sam Fischer and King Kong. They have several office cubicles and a whole room dedicated to gaming. There were also beers and cola. We were presented with dev-kit 3DS devices by Owen at Ubisoft, and a decent selection of launch titles to preview. These titles are the ones I had the honour of previewing.
Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon: Shadow Wars
Ghost Recon: Shadow Wars is a game that keeps the feel of previous Ghost Recon games while also altering the core mechanics of the game. In this edition of Ghost Recon, players control their squad in a type of turn based system that is reminiscent of more classic titles like Advanced Wars or Fire Emblem. In this game, units are placed in an area are move about on a grid in order to line up enemies and then attack. Each unit has his own weapons and skills to utilise on the field. The 3D works well with this game, though it is almost completely unnecessary – that doesn’t mean that it’s a bad thing. Somehow, the 3D enhances the game even though it adds no gameplay benefit. I found myself playing the game with it on at full power throughout my entire sitting, except for when I was messing with it just to see the difference in 3D perspective.
Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell Chaos Theory
Splinter Cell plays very much like a Splinter Cell game would; Stealthing, grabbing corpses, assassinations, lock picking and etc. In the build of the game that I got to play, we were tasked with breaking into a bank to steal something, or something (spoilers). It took a few minutes to become acquainted with the controls, as there were no instruction manuals to reference, but it didn’t take too long. Within a minute or so, I had taken out a guard with my pistol and was looking for a way to break into this bank. I happened across a security camera, which the game was begging me to avoid, but, me being me, I went back to where I had killed that dude earlier, picked up his corpse and then dumped in front of the camera. Security is going to have a field day with that one, heh heh. The controls on Splinter Cell were a little unweildy at first, considering the slide-pad is to move and a,b,x,y are to aim, but become quite natural. My session ended with me being killed by a guard whom I assumed would remain asleep as I tripped an alarm. What kind of bank has guards equipped with assault rifles?
Rayman 3DS
Rayman is back! And this time, in 3DS form. If I remember correctly, Rayman 3D is a port of the classic Rayman 2 that was released on the Nintendo 64 (though this version of the game is a port of the Dreamcast version). During my playthrough I found that the game controlled and played very similarly to the more classic titles on the N64, titles such as Banjo Kazooie and Conker’s Bad Fur Day. In my session I was tasked with finding a Frogs father or somesuch, which I took to immediately. After collecting a few Lums and traversing a few platforming bits my time with the game was at an end. It’s definitely a game to look out for.
Raving Rabbids 3DS
Yes, the Rabbids are starring in their own platformer and is quite an entertaining game. With level designs similar to Donkey Kong Country, the game feels right at home on a Nintendo system. The platforming is cool, the controls are responsive, the 3D is awesome, etc. The Rabbids themselves have a few things they can do during the game, such as jump, attack enemies and pick up objects to use as projectiles. The fun in this game lies in its great level design and entertaining cutscenes.
Battle of Giants: Dinosaurs 3DS
This title involves players taking on the role of a dinosaur, doing RPG-like quests and battles in order to level-up and equipping your dinosaur to make it stronger. The battles are quite entertaining and require you to counter an opponents moves with a certain other type of move. It’s very scissors-paper-rock, but doesn’t feel as though it is. Take one of our battles as an example. An Ankylosaur would attack our incredibly-long-named-dinosaur and we would have to move out of the way. After we moved, the Ankylosaur became paralysed enabling us to start attacking it and doing massive amounts of damage. For some reason with this game, I could not get the 3D to focus properly at maximum… This may have been a bug in the test version or my eyes being unfocused. More likely the latter. It looked fine at 50% though.
All up, the day was incredibly fun. The Crew had a great time previewing all of Ubisofts 3DS titles and we’re thankful for having to opportunity to play all these games early, on a dev-kit 3DS too! They’re so pretty! The 3D is also a very interesting piece of technology and I look forward to seeing how Ubisoft utilises the technology in all of their future titles. The 3D is a very interesting piece of technology. Ubisoft have the largest launch line-up for the 3DS and their games are worth checking out. We look forward to seeing how Ubisoft utilises the technology in future 3DS titles.
