I don’t know what was worse, the annoying presenter, or the games that were actually shown. Ubisoft set the theme of their press conference to celebrate their 25th anniversary, showing brief clips of 1986 versions of games they were showing off in the presentation. While it was a cool touch, the sad part was that I’d almost rather play the 25 year old versions of some of the titles shown.

The show started with a demo of Rayman Origins. While it looked like a fun little platformer, I cried a little when I later learned that the development team behind the game was originally working on Beyond Good and Evil 2 before it got shelved in favor of a new Rayman game. Driver: San Francisco was also shown off and it looks a lot better than the past few games in the series. Of course, that isn’t saying much, since other things that are a lot better than the past two Driver games include stuff like Ebola and being on fire. Far Cry 3 was the surprise game shown off, going back to the “pacific island full of crazy people” theme from the first entries in the series. One of the characters in the demo poorly defined the word “insanity” as doing the same thing over and over again expecting different results. I found this sadly ironic, considering this is something like the fifth Far Cry game set on a remote island loaded with mercenaries and monsters.

A lengthy Ghost Recon: Future Soldier demo was also shown and while a lot of people complained that it just made them want to play Battlefield or Call of Duty, it was one of the only games shown that got me excited. The near-futuristic equipment and tactical nature of its gameplay looked very appealing to me, and I can’t wait to check it out once it’s released. Gearbox also announced a comical spin-off to their ultra-realistic World War 2 shooter, Brothers in Arms, which should really just be called Inglourious Basterds: The Game. This was pretty disappointing considering I would much rather continue from the great storyline left off in the past BIA games. Finally, Assassin’s Creed: Revelations was given its due time as an intro cinematic showed some of the story elements that will come up in the game, followed by an action-packed demo that made for an explosive finale to the press conference. The amazing new features and the promise of completing Ezio’s storyline have me pumped for this game.

Much of the remainder of the show was a disaster, showing off casual games like The Adventures of Tintin, Rabbids: Alive and Kicking, Just Dance 3, Rocksmith, and Your Shape: Fitness Evolved. While the whole casual scene worked for them in past two years, this was Ubisoft’s chance to come back and support their core audience, maybe with a new Rainbow Six or Splinter Cell title, especially considering so many have been hoping for a true revival of the Tom Clancy series. Judging by the reactions of others, I think it’s fair to say that no one really cares about a new Just Dance or a Rock Band contender. It’s fairly apparent that music games are dead at the moment, especially with the shutdown of the Guitar Hero and DJ Hero series, as well as announcement that there would be no new Rock Band games in the near future. While the other casual games might give some attention to the family gamers, many were hoping for some more exciting titles, myself included.