Features// E3 2012 Diary Day 4: Hitting the Show Floor!

Today opened up with me trotting over to the Ubisoft booth where I was treated to a series of demonstrations.

It was extremely busy at the vast complex that is the Ubisoft booth at this year's E3, and its size demonstrated how dominant the French publisher/developer is. I managed to see some yet to be released footage of Assassin's Creed 3, which included Boston circa 1777 along with some rather brutal executions of Redcoats (aka Brits).

This was followed up by an equally impressive demonstration of Splinter Cell: Blacklist. A running commentary was given on the footage that was shown during Ubisoft's press conference. It would appear that there is some cross-pollination between development teams of Assassin's Creed and Splinter Cell as the latter seems to be influenced by the former.

My last stop at Ubisoft was at the ZombiU installation. I managed to get some hands on time with the game that features an undead infested London. It's as tough as nails and reminds me in some respects to DayZ.

Time prevented me from seeing Farcry 3 and Watch Dogs I'm sad to say, but I will be providing full write-ups on the titles I did get to see. Who knows, I may squeeze in some time during Day 5 to see the other two games?

Next on the list was Bethesda. They were showing off two games: Elder Scrolls Online (ESO) and Dishonoured, the latter of which I had some hands on time with.

Again I'll be expanding on these two titles in a separate article, but I can say that for ESO I fear that it will not be the game people are hoping it to be, for Skyrim in MMO form it certainly does not appear to be and indeed nor did Bethesda promise such a thing.

Dishonoured on the other hand has an interesting premise with an equally beguiling art style. It reminds me a great deal of the first Thief game in many respects.

I managed to get a bit of a break and wandered around the South hall and noticed something called 'Guardians of Middle Earth'. Announced at E3, it's a MOBA/DOTA clone that is being made by Monolith and published by Warner Brothers Interactive and is set in Tolkien's universe. It looked intriguing but I'm concerned over how many of these games are appearing of late, I'm not sure there is a market for so many of them.

I finished off the day with a chat to Stephen Hood of Codemasters regarding F1 2012. A full transcript of the open and frank interview will be released very soon. All I can say is that much is discussed in terms of the level of simulation the F1 games have had and the issue of bugs is also discussed.

Well that's enough drivel from me, I have to hot foot it back to the show floor for the last day of the show!