E310: Day One On-Site Wrap Up

Gotta’ admit, I’m pretty tired after an amazing Activision concert that wrapped up a long and otherwise frustrating day for me. It started off badly, considering my flight was delayed two hours in Boston, and I ended up missing both the Microsoft and EA press confernces. Luckily, Dave “GET SOME!!” Oshry was already on site, and able to attend in my absense.

In addition, the amazing Ripten home team busted their ass to bring you all the big reveals that went down, while our fast-fingered live bloggers brought you up to the minute keynote information.

I’m going to start my day one wrap up with some quick thoughts on the Ubisoft keynote, unless of course you’d like to hear more about my airport fiasco, the cool Sicilian guy I met who owns his own makeup company, and the giant former bouncer they sat me next to on the flight? Didn’t think so.

The Ubisoft E310 keynote was interesting. I myself have never played with Rabbits or Rayman so I don’t have much to say there other than the Rabbits looked cute and the Rayman looked colorful and fun if you’re into that sort of game.

The footage of Ghost Recon: Future Soldier, Driver, and Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood werem more up my alley. Community’s Joel Mchale shined as the Ubisoft host, giving his color commentary during the on stage gameplay sessions. My personal favorite was after a would be sniper took a bullet to the head. Joel quickly added “hey that guys got a family.”

As far as the workout game and the musical based intro — I wasn’t as much of a fan. Being a bigger guy, I’m not really interested in having a video game that involves me jumping up and down with a virtual Jillian Michaels.

That aside, my biggest WTF moment would still have to be the intoduction of the in-home laser tag game called “Battle Tag.” That’s right kids, break the vase, kick in the TV, and punch grandma in the face, because nothing is off limits with Battle Tag.

If you’ve got a living room the size of the Kodak Theater, you’re probably going to be just fine letting a group of hyper kids run through your home firing plastic rifles at each other. But anything smaller than that, and you’re just asking for trouble.

A Michael Jackson game was announced at the closing of the Ubisoft Keynote, and the crowd seemed to like it. Dancers took the stage reinacting MJ’s classic hit “Beat It” in a game set to use the Microsoft Kinect device as a means to help you mimic his iconic dancing moves.

From there, it was a quick run to the hotel for a shower and change before heading off to the Activision night time event at the Staples Center. I mentioned it a bit in the intro here, but I’ll add a little more detail before I call it a night.

The show kicked off with DJ Z-Trip getting everyone pumped, and then quickly shifted to Usher rising up from the stage. He performed a few songs, and was eventually joined by the Black Eyed Peas’ Will-I-am in his closing act. Other appearances included Jane’s Addiction rocking out to “Been Caught Stealing”, Chris Cornell performing Black Hole Sun, Tool’s Maynard James Keenan doing an excellent cover of Queen’s Bohemian Rhapsody,  a massive stripper pole climbed at least 40 feet by a fairly attractive and completely  insane woman in a bikini, and several other groups of half naked woman doing various dances throughout the night.

Of course, Activision also found the time to splice in some video game footage during the musical performances, along with a quick half pipe session conducted by Tony Hawk and friends to promote his upcoming game “Tony Hawk Shred.” This one actually looked somewhat decent and pretty colorful too.

The show was closed out with some solid Call of Duty: Black Ops footage featuring a nice arcade like helicopter sequence with lots of well timed fireworks pumped into the arena to scare the shit out of everyone anytime an in-game explosion went off (and there were plenty).

Finally, as we suspected, Eminem took the stage to cap the night with a few solid renditions, including a special guest duet with the rude boy lover herself, Rhianna. He left the stage after an encore performance of “Lose Yourself.”

That’s pretty much it. Got to hand it to Activision for putting on a great show and pimping their warez at the same time. Free beer, free concession stand snacks,  and tons of great entertainment. I’m pretty sure everyone left that place happier than they walked in.

We’ll be brining you more of the same in just a few hours when E3 officially opens it’s doors tomorrow. Look for our Sony and Nintendo live blog keynotes, hands-on impressions, breaking news, rumors, and a bunch of vidoes and photos. See you then.

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