PAX 2011: What Square Enix and Ubisoft had at their booths

Matt Hawkins Contributing Writer, Video Games

Once again, I was at Seattle last weekend, for perhaps the biggest gathering of video game fandom in all of North America (with the only thing coming close being PAX East in Boston, during the spring). Check out just a few of the things that the makers of Final Fantasy and Just Dance were showing off.

Square Enix’s booth mostly dedicated to two things: Deus Ex and Final Fantasy XIII-2. No need to really spend too much time on the former, since it’s out already. As for the latter, I guess I could have given the game a spin, but I have no f’n idea who Final Fantasy works these days, how about just the trailer that made its debut at the show instead?

There was at least one game I got my hands on though…

di PAX 2011: What Square Enix and Ubisoft had at their booths

Dead Island
You know, the game in which zombies have overrun a tropical retreat that made serious noise upon it debut, mostly due to the sappy piano music laden trailer. I immediately knew something was up, so here’s a shocker: it f’n BLOWS. Like seriously.

The demo began with you trapped in some room with a bunch of other vacationers, with the sounds of zombies desperately trying to get in. Basically you have to run around the place to find a weapon to face the hell outside. I believe the mission to go save some poor sap that’s stuck outside. You were only given ten minutes to do so btw.

Well, I suck at games and all, but Jesus, I looked around for a solid six minutes and couldn’t find jack. Perhaps it could have been accomplished in the proper setting, but as a demo for a busy trade show, it was total fail. Not that it matters; basically every single game journalist pal of mine has said the same thing over the past two weeks: “So I’m playing Dead Island, and man, what a piece of sh*t”. You heard it here folks.

… Another game that made its debut was the long-awaited follow-up from Kim Swift, one of the folks behind the indie sensation Portal. Her new game is called Quantum Conundrum and here she is explaining the whole deal for Gamespot…

Upon first glance, my initial reaction was “great, looks JUST like Portal.” Not helping the game’s case was all the stupid pink hats that they were giving out that to all the sheep at the show, who merrily wore them with much glee. But in the end, it looks to be quite the neat, brain-twisting puzzler! Sure it’s still kinda like Portal, but then again, so are like many games these days, and there’s nothing wrong with that.

Moving onto Ubisoft’s big ass booth, they had tons of Tom Clancy stuff, but which I passed on (sorry). Though by far the biggest game being pushed was Just Dance 3. Am so pissed that I missed R2-D2 and C-3P0 on stage (I heard it was epically awesome). At least I got the chance to give the one game they’re pushing a rat’s ass a try…

rm PAX 2011: What Square Enix and Ubisoft had at their booths

Rayman Origins
After years of the franchise screwing around, due to the emphasis on those stupid rabbit sidekicks (who aren’t even that funny to begin with, but hey, the French find the dumbest sh*t funny) getting the spotlight, in the form of lame ass Mario Party-rip offs for the Wii, it’s nice to see the… whatever the heck Rayman is supposed to be… back in action.

Screenshots made the game look gorgeous, as did trailers, but one has to actually play the game and be two inches from the screen to truly appreciate all the finer details. It’s simply mind-blowing, and I was explained that the game doesn’t use pixels whatsoever, but vectors to truly bring the original line art to life.

Unfortunately, how it plays is another matter. It’s a four-player affair, similar to New Super Mario Wii. Which sounds great on paper, but the means to helping your pals out is way too complicated. Not sure why they didn’t just rip off the most crucial element of the original. Furthermore, the game is hard as hell.

Which to be honest is what made the original Rayman platformer so awesome. Yet what works fine for a focused, single player affair might not fit in a party game, sorry. Though I’ll need to play more to make the final verdict. At least it’s not an obvious sh*t-fest that Dead Island was and is!

TrackMania 2: Canyon
Even though I actually played this one, am going to mostly rely upon the trailer to do the talking. Cuz me explaining all the wacky turns and aerials will get old after a while…

… Though I will confirm that, yes, the actual game looks that amazing. Granted, you probably need the most souped upon PC on the planet, to get those same results. But still, the damn of CGI cut scene graphics moving at your fingertips is finally here.

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