Take It Or Leave It – E3 2014 – Ubisoft

Welcome to Take It Or Leave It, where each week I pick out new comics and tell you if they’re worth the price and you should take them, or if you should just leave them on the shelf. Nope! This time, we’re looking at the big press conferences of E3 2014, ranking not only the shows themselves, but also the best, worst, and generally weirdest of the games that were shown during them.

The company behind everything Tom Clancy, Assassin’s Creed, Watch_Dogs, and more were up next on the show. The question was, with the status of multiple games in question, would we finally be updated on them here?

	Ubisoft Press Conference Having to follow EA wasn’t exactly much of a challenge, but Ubisoft was out to satisfy (mostly) everyone. Despite some awkwardness in watching people exercise and dance, and having gone another E3 without mentioning where Beyond Good and Evil 2 is, they still succeeded overall – especially after their closing surprise. Verdict: Take It

Far Cry 4 The next game in the Far Cry franchise (and my personal favorite game of 2012) is approaching fast, and it looks like everything I could’ve hoped for. Another villain that’s just as sick and twisted as he is likeable, an entirely new kind of environment, vastly improved cooperative play and much more were promised and shown here. Even more, PS4 owners don’t even need a copy of the game in order to join a friend who does in that cooperative mode – an interesting feature for sure, though whether a lot of people use this or not remains to be seen. Verdict: Definitely Take It

Just Dance 2015 No big surprise here, another game about dancing to pop songs like nobody’s watching, except that they might be. Along with this announcement came the reveal of Just Dance Now, a mobile version of the game that allows you to compete with friends by dancing with your phone in your hand. People are clumsy enough with their fragile smartphones as it is, I’m not sure encouraging them to flail their arms around with it is the best idea. Verdict: Leave It

The Division After some choreographed dancing, we jump straight into a decaying New York City, and are finally given some story details about this title. Some kind of plague is wiping out society, and most of the survivors have – of course – resorted to organized (and not so organized) crime. You are one of the sleeper agents tasked with saving what’s left of the city. Depressing trailer shown, but exciting gameplay. This one’s absolutely on my watch list. Verdict: Take It

The Crew It’s not very often that I get excited for a racing title. Most of the time, it’s because it’s a Burnout game, but there’s always an exception. The Crew promises massively multiplayer, open world racing where you and friends can race and go on missions in cities across the entire United States, without ever seeing as much as a loading screen in between them. With some crazy looking car customizing and that kind of freedom, this is something that any arcade style racing fans should not miss. Verdict: Take It

Assassin’s Creed: Unity While a new Assassin’s Creed doesn’t surprise anyone, the developers at Ubisoft still managed to get people more than excited for this one. Taking place during the French revolution, players will once again put on their hooded coats, hidden blades and all kinds of other tools for murder and take on the Templars in a new time period. Sounds like par for the course, right? Sure, up until the announcement that the game will feature 4 player cooperative play and be exclusively on new gen platforms. Verdict: Take It

Shape Up Another sharp turn in theme and tone here, as we go from assassinating the French to . . . working out. This exercise based game uses the Xbox’s Kinect and promises to make exercise more fun, giving players objectives to complete and high scores to pass. One example was a mini-game called “Piano Step,” which looked like what would happen if you played Guitar Hero by hopping side to side, while another game involved doing more push-ups than your opponent, and bigger objects would appear on your back on screen as you did more. This has the potential to get some kind of audience to work out a bit more, but I have doubts on whether or not its entertainment will last more than a month or so. Verdict: Unsure

Valiant Hearts: The Great War It’s not often we see a game that uses a cartoon art style to tell a serious story, and even less games about World War 1, but Valiant Hearts is doing both. It seems like the game focuses on a dog that works with multiple different teams during the war, and a partnership with an upcoming documentary will lead to some real stories being told and restored photographs from that time to find. Some of the clips shown in the trailer featured imprisonment and graveyards, so it’s easy to believe that it won’t be quite as happy as the art style might normally imply. I’m sensing a tearjerker here.   Verdict: Maybe Take It

Rainbow Six: Siege Ubisoft wrapped up their conference with the return of Rainbow Six. Finally! We watched as a multiplayer match went down involving terrorists(?) taking control of a suburban Boston home and making a hostage of the woman inside. Barricading the windows while the SWAT-like team planned their attack, we could see some very well done methods of interacting with the environment. Once the assault starts, we see some fantastic environmental destruction as the gunfights escalate. Floors, ceilings and walls alike crumbled and fell apart with each bullet and explosion. Although I would’ve loved to play the now-canceled Patriots story that they originally planned for this game, this footage looks phenomenal, especially for something labeled “pre-alpha footage.”   Verdict: Definitely Take It

Jeremy Harrison has been into gaming and just about everything nerdy or out of the norm for as long as he can remember. He likes to keep an open mind about things, but also has a strangely high amount of fun getting into a rant or good debate. . . which is probably why he was recruited to this site in the first place. You can Email Jeremy or follow Jeremy on Twitter @NightmareAsylum or Facebook