Live-Blogging The Ubisoft Press Event

Hey! We're here at Ubisoft. What's going on? A guy is playing something that looks like Rez. Is this the new game from Q Entertainment?

He's playing it with Kinetic. The action is accompanied with a thumping soundtrack and loads of sparkly effects. It's called Child of Eden, and it is from Q Entertainment. Ta dah,

Joel McHale is hosting again. He is a pretty funny guy. Don't ask for proof right now, because I'm busy.

Aha! Here's another look at Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood. After fighting a bunch of guards, the Assassins line up and take on a mass of guards head on. It'll be interesting to see how adding more allies to combat changes combat. Ezio is now a leader, and he's wiser though he still makes mistakes according to the presenter. He's still a ladies man, though.

We're getting a live demo of the game now. Riding on horseback is a bigger focus, and Ezio can become more skilled as he goes on. He's as agile on foot as ever, though, effortlessly bounding across beams and on rooftops. Hey, he can shoot a cannon now, too. When he's using the cannon you get a nice shot of Ezio's ponytail, too. He can knock down towers with well-placed cannonballs and slice counterbalanced ropes to rapidly zip up walls.

The demo ends with Ezio scaling up the Colosseum in Rome and staring down from above. And there's multiplayer. No details. What a drag.

Now we're getting a taste of Shaun White's Skateboarding. OH MY HE IS ON THE STAGE!!!!!!

Remember that one time when he was on stage with Cammy at Nintendo's thing? That was pretty funny. Anyway, Joel and Shaun are sitting down and getting real. Did you know that Shaun used to like video games? And that he's excited to be in a video game again? Well, he is. He also has two Olympic gold medals.

Shaun says that his experience as a skateboarder changed the way he viewed the world. He'd see things to grind on when wandering around, which sounds worse than it is. In this game, everything is an opportunity for skating. Players can modify the world on the fly. This isn't new info, but hey, Shaun White.

It's gameplay time. It looks good, and being able to create rails to grind on out of thin air is pretty slick. There's a degree of verticality that you rarely see in skating games. Probably because people would probably die if they tried stuff like this.

There's going to be a 3D version of the game, too.

Just as an aside, Joel McHale seems like he actually likes games.

Now he's being interrupted by some people playing laser tag or something like it in the audience. Attractive people, as he points out. What is this nonsense?

This is taking a long time. Oh, it's something called Battle Tag. Suddenly, we're at Toy Fair. They're calling it a new type of video game--the kind you play away from your TV. Is that still a video game then? I always associated video games with the video part, but what do I know.

Joel and the producer are playing against one another. There's some running and tagging and collecting and why is this at E3? You'll be able to play up to four on four matches, and you can connect your gun up to a computer and track your stats.

Ubisoft is now showing something called Innergy. It looks like a PC game that uses Ubisoft's version of Nintendo's vitality sensor. By controlling your breathing, you can help guide a little blip through an undulating path. This is supposed to make you relaxed. Now a weird puffy thing is dancing around as he's surrounded by a bunch of other blips. By making it for the PC, Ubisoft says players can take it with them through the day--work, home, during lunch, before bed, whatever. You'll have to lug a PC with you, but that's not our problem.

This is as good a time as any to talk about Ubisoft's philosophy behind games. It turns out, they want to create experiences that combine the body and mind. Cue the Kinect games.

If there was any doubt that Kinect would open the floodgates for minigame collections, it's as clear as day now. MotionSports is a compilation of things like skiing, football, and soccer. There you go. Now we're getting another look at Your Shape: Fitness Evolved. This was at Microsoft's press briefing earlier in the morning. They're giving off a few new details, such as the ability to issue fitness challenges to friends via all those social networking things you all know and love.

Rabbids are here. Was there ever any doubt? Their latest game is Raving Rabbids Travel in Time. They tool around and help cavemen start fires, Egyptians knock off the Sphinx's nose, and those types of things. It's wacky.

Ghost Recon: Future Soldier is up next, showing off the exoskeleton-enhanced soldiers of tomorrow. Another trick the Ghosts have in the latest game is optical camo, which will likely be familiar to Metal Gear Solid 4 players.

In a live demo, we see a Ghost sneak up on a soldier and uncloak as he shoots the poor sucker's neck. We're in a ruined area, and the guards should all be fired. Each one is completely oblivious to the Ghosts, who can get uncomfortably close while cloaked.

Players can work together, tagging persons of interest to highlight people who are tactical priorities. Now we're jumping over to a section where a Ghost is inside a building, hidden in the shadows. He takes his time lining up his shot, which happens to be right on the face of a helicopter pilot. We wrap up learning that the entire campaign will be playable with four players. Also, it's in 3D.

Hey, it's a Driver: San Francisco trailer, complete with funky music. The game obviously takes place in San Francisco, and it features Tanner, the hero from the first game, and Jericho, the villain from the second game. Tanner is chasing after Jericho, who is courteous enough to leave a trail with his taillights so Tanner can keep track of his position.

Tanner is in a coma, by the way, but he doesn't know that. A new shift mechanic is tied into that development, and it allows Tanner to hop from car to car at will. He can also use a birds-eye view of the world, which gives him an advantage in tracking down the bad guys. It evolves as he progresses through the story, to the point where he can see the whole darned place. Coma.

Now Ubisoft's CEO Yves Guillemot is taking the stage. That wasn't an intentional transition, by the way. He's showing off some more games. Finally!

Project DUST is about a tribe fighting to survive. They dance and play drums. Aside from that, there's not much to go on. It looks like terraforming is going to play a part in gameplay.

Next up is... a new Rayman game! It's been a long time. It looks gorgeous, with hand-drawn style animation. It's called Rayman: Origins.

Mania Planet is a new hub for PC gamers based on the customizable racer TrackMania. TrackMania, ShootMania, and QuestMania are the three games that will compose this world.

Ubisoft is coming out with a Michael Jackson game. It does not appear to be a sequel to Moonwalker. A bunch of people are on stage, dancing to Beat It.

They are dancing their hearts out. The screen above is the only thing presumably associated with the game in view. Anyway, a bunch of people are really dancing.

And that's it. Goodbye.