“South Park”, “Ghost Recon” and “Star Trek” among highlights of Ubisoft E3 Press Conference

After a pretty solid outing from Microsoft, Ubisoft attempted to bore it’s audience to death with a needlessly long two hour conference which was stuffed with filler and over long gameplay demos. It was hard enough streaming it online, I felt genuinely sorry for the people sat in the auditorium. Regardless of the severe pacing issues, there were in fact some pretty decent titles on show – here are T.A.P’s highlights.

Ghost Recon Wildlands

Release Date – 7th March 2017

The return of the Ghost Recon franchise looks like a great way to while away some gaming hours with your mates with some intense looking co-op campaign missions. The title really reminds me of the old ‘Mercenaries’ games back on the Playstation 2, shined up and dragged into the modern gaming world with a Tom Clancy lick of paint on it. Here’s hoping it can deliver on some truly memorable co-op fun.

South Park: The Fractured but Whole

Release Date – 6th December 2016

We never thought the 2014 sleeper hit South Park: The Stick of Truth would emerge from its development hell but it did and it blew everyone away; not just because the script was as good as any episode of the TV show but because it was also one of the very best RPGs released that year. The sequel looks just as engaging and just as funny. Oh and they also announced that if you buy the game before the 31st of March next year you’ll get ‘The Stick of Truth’ for free on PS4, Xbox 1 or PC…take my money Ubi, take it now!

Eagle Flight

Release date – 2016

One of the more intriguing VR titles we’ve seen to date and something that reminds us of the PSVR exclusive ‘Rigs’ in that it’ll be fast, manic, multiplayer fun. I love the idea of flying with a VR headset on and it just waits to be seen how immersive this game can get.

Star Trek Bridge Crew

Release Date – Autumn 2016

Well it’s finally here, the reason i’m going to buy a VR headset; honestly, stick a Star Trek label on anything and i’m a sucker for it. From an objective point of view however this looks like a really lighthearted social game where 4 players intereact to operate a Federation Starship through various trials and tribbilations (pun intended). It doesn’t look too deep or too challenging but it will certainly have pricked up the ears of any Star Trek fan and seems like a fun distraction for a few hours. Now excuse me while I set my phaser to stun and go force my friends to play it with me. Shotgun I get to play the captain.

For Honor

Release Date – 14th February 2017

Be a Knight, a Viking or a Samurai in Ubisoft’s take on ‘Dynasty Warriors’ is what screams at the screen whenever you watch a trailer for For Honor. Hopefully this title will have a bit more in the way of tactical depth than the aforementioned ‘Dynasty Warriors’ as it certainly seems to have the frenetic combat down. What’s particularly interesting is the story which looks like it has been carefully thought out and offers a lot more than your standard go here and hack this to death, rinse and repeat. We’ll need a hands on to really get to grips with this but it’ll certainly be on our watchlist.

Watchdogs 2

Release Date – 15th November 2016

This is a reluctant addition to our highlights list at the first game was such a huge dissappointment. After so much hype it turrned into a poor man’s GTA with a hacking gimmick and a dull story to boot. Ubisoft seem to be listening though as they’ve completely ditched the first game’s protagonist in favor of someone who looks a lot more interesting and the hacking does look a lot more involved these days. Time will tell but we at T.A.P towers advice waiting for the metacritic score before making your purchase.

Steep

Release Date – TBC

Taking the honored postion of final game on the docket at the Ubisoft conference was the interesting if somewhat confusing ‘Steep’. This looks like a heavily social sports game where you’re encouraged to perform death defying tricks as you paraglide, Ski or otherwise find a way to dangerously fall down a mountain, and then go online and share those stunts. It’s a difficult beast to gauge at the moment but certainly worth a second look.

That’s it from Ubi – any highlights we missed, let us know in the comments below