Take it Or Leave It – E3 2015 – Ubisoft

Welcome to Take It Or Leave It, E3 2015 edition! It’s that time of the year again, when gamers come together and learn about the titles that will be leaving their wallets aching and hollow over the next year. Here, I will go over each of the major showcases with brief descriptions and reviews of what was announced, in typical Take It Or Leave It style.

Next up on the slab is Ubisoft, the people behind everything from Far Cry to Rayman. Despite having quite a few games with messy launches (to put it lightly), their past year was still strong. The questions here became whether they’d be able to top themselves . . . and also when we’re getting our hands on The Division.

	Ubisoft’s Briefing Kicking things off with a pretty entertaining pre-show consisting of their employees doing their own take on “Celebrities Read Mean Tweets,” there wasn’t really much to complain about here. Sure, that awkward attempt at making a meme was really unnecessary, but their show was overall one worth watching. Verdict: Take It

South Park: The Fractured But Whole The first announcement of the show is a surprise sequel to last year’s The Stick of Truth. Now, the kids have decided to switch over to playing super heroes in hopes of making a better game than before. Still controlling the “new kid,” you’ll learn of your own back story as Coon & Friends continue their fight against Professor Chaos. This looks like a considerable improvement over the last, already great game. Verdict: Take It

For Honor Brutal combat and strategic teamwork come together in this medieval-themed game where knights, samurai and vikings collide. Although the focus seems to primarily be on competitive multiplayer, a single player story mode is also promised. A couple of fairly short gameplay clips shows that one wrong move can result in your head coming off, but some quick thinking can overcome being outnumbered. Hopefully the actual game’s matches are a bit longer than what was showed, but for now it’s still worth keeping an eye on. Verdict: Unsure For Now

	The Crew Last year’s massive racing game is finally getting a sizable expansion pack with Wild Run. Featuring motorcycles, monster trucks, drag racers, drifters and plenty of new events to cater to the new vehicles, this just might be what the game needed to stay alive. . . although it was pretty disappointing to begin with. Verdict: Maybe Leave It

Trials: Fusion Another expansion announcement comes with the Awesome Level Max add-on. In the reveal trailer, we see. . . a cat with a golden gun riding a fire breathing unicorn? Well, okay then, that’s one way to mix up the usual dudes on dirt bikes (or bicycles in some cases) that the game usually consists of. Adding in a few other cosmetic options, 30 new tracks and more editor options, this expansion is available now either as an add-on to the original game, or as a “complete” edition of the game with all of the other content released before. Verdict: Unsure

The Division Yay, more Division! We are now introduced to “dark zones,” dangerous quarantine zones where no one can be trusted. These areas are heavy on player-vs-player gameplay, and even your own friends can betray you at a moment’s notice, but making it to extraction can mean getting some great loot. Open betas were also announced to come to all platforms “early next year,” along with a new release date of March 8, 2016. Verdict: Still Take It

Anno 2205 Just in case games like Sim City or Cities XL weren’t satisfying your appetite for creating all kinds of cities with ease, here’s another one. What makes this one different is that it, of course, takes place in a future where succeeding with your regular sci-fi Earth city can mean getting to build another one on the moon. The phrase “race to the moon” was used here, making me wonder if there is some kind of competitive aspect to it or if there’s more of a story to it than the others. That remained unclear during this announcement, but it still looks to be an interesting take on the city-building genre. Verdict: Probably Take It

Just Dance 2016 Thank God, no overly-long “people dancing awkwardly” segment to go along with this one. After claiming that Just Dance is the “most successful” music game series ever (which I’m sure has nothing to do with Guitar Hero and Rock Band going on hiatus for years), it was revealed that this year’s game doesn’t need your platform of choice’s motion camera, because you can now use your smart phone as a controller if you prefer. There will also be a new paid subscription service that streams new songs all year long, including hits from previous games. Sounds a lot like Guitar Hero: Live‘s “GHTV” mode to me, but charging extra to use it? That might end up hurting them in the long run, especially now that the music genre is making a comeback. Verdict: Maybe Leave It

Rainbow Six: Siege We finally get some details on this game’s main story this time. . . which boils down to “blah blah global terrorism threat, we need Rainbow team back,” basically the same as every other in the series (not that it’s a bad thing). Angela Bassett debuts in the gaming world as the new “Six,” the team’s commander, and enemy AI will be able to play both offense and defense in “unsuspecting ways,” including setting traps. People who prefer cooperative play will have plenty to do as well, with four different variations on the classic Terrorist Hunt mode. Verdict: Take It!

	TrackMania: Turbo The TrackMania series finally makes its way to the console world, and brings the full track customizing community with it. Boasting a total of 200 pre-made tracks and the ability to race a randomly-generated track on the fly, this could very well be paradise for people who love insanely fast arcade-style racing. Verdict: Probably Take It

	Assassin’s Creed: Syndicate The Assassins have made their way to the industrial revolution, and have all kinds of new toys to play with along with it. Horse-driven carriages, grappling hooks, cane swords and plenty of other clockwork styled tools will be bringing out the steampunk in all of us this year. Verdict: Definitely Take It

Ghost Recon: Wildlands Ubisoft closed out the show with one more surprise: the return of the classic Ghost Recon series. Moving away from the futuristic style of the previous few games, this one focuses more on a massive open world where one mission can have many different ways to approach it, and will play out very differently depending on that approach. Go in stealthy at night or guns blazing in broad daylight, kill your target or burn everything down around him and let him deal with something worse than death because of it, this one looks to leave all of that up to you, and if it’s anything like what the trailer shows, it’ll be damn awesome for it. Verdict: 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