Confluence is French for Convergence.

It opened with the usual quick flash of their upcoming games, set to too loud music.  With the mix of realtime and CG footage, it felt cribbed from EA’s conference last year, though they did spring for a MC to soften some of the lulls.  He did his best, but there’s a reason there’s no legendary videogame comedians, aside from Kaz.

Confluence was the buzz word that Ubisoft attempted to etch in the minds of the audience, with the promise of joining different mediums, mainly games and films, with the power of their newly purchased FX studio and a major online destination Uplay.  All of their end of the year games will support it, providing the ability of trading screenshots, bragging over your achievements, and snagging the DLC.  It’s not a bad idea, but a tad optimistic considering this ‘confluence’ has never worked well in the past.

Thunderous applause greeted the arrival of James Cameron, under the logo for Avatar: the Game.  He talked and talked and talked about his upcoming movie, and to a lesser extent about the game that was being made in concert.  I’m sure both will be visually astounding, but the plot about innocent natives being encroached upon by a more technological and morally empty race.  Made worse by these endless explanations without even a single screenshot of either the movie or the game.  Keeping something under wraps when the movie hits in seven months and the game is going to be on the show floor seems a little lame.

The appearance of Red Steel 2 brought the house back up with a slashing use of wii motion plus.  Whole new setting and a whole new main character, but no faces.  For some reason, every is masked or garbed or scarved, spewing menace as they attempt to smash the slash this graphic novel style cowboy.  The game is built around the idea that hitting things with a stick is fun, so I guess slashing them to pieces it better.  Wii motion plus, so the sword matches one to one your movement.  I was a little disappointed block was mapped to a button instead as a gesture, since the pace of the game could support it, but I guess that might be a little to hard on more casual players.  At least the harder you slash, the more damage you can pull off, switching seamlessly from swords to guns with the fluid grace only 60FPS can provide.  Visuals are actually pretty sharp for a Wii game, and coming bundled with the wii motion plus will be a boost for both.

Then they brought on stage a true legend, a god of the sport of soccer, Pele.  Pity it wasn’t to promote a better game.  He spoke much of the importance of educating children through sports, to learn fair play and teamwork, but Academy of Champions looked like something emerging out of focus group hell.  Hogwarts mixed with characters designs from the Incredibles, with the plot of the Karate Kid.  It’s hard to judge the game from a CG trailer, but it looked like the weakest effort of the conference.

Flipping back to the hardcore, they brought out Splinter Cell: Conviction.  The presentation was nearly identical to the one they held at the Microsoft Conference, emphasizing that Sam Fisher is now out of the system and looking for revenge, moving as a powerful predator without forcing stealth.  The mini-sandbox for each level is very much like the Hitman series, though they had the unique idea of projecting your objectives and other info directly on the walls instead of some popup box.  There’s also no more shadow meter, but instead the screen dithers to black and white while you’re hidden, using color to show off enemies and other important items.  The effect was far better done here than Saboteur.  Other things like complete environment interaction and seamless transition of areas was promised.  We’ll see how it goes.

After a months old trailer for RUSE, they dipped into the casual section with a guy boasting about how their Imagine series was one of the largest selling brands around.  They proudly posted the numbers, and then said it’s all about making the best games.  Seemed a little contradictory to me.  Tween 2.0… two horrible buzzwords with a little digging at EA thrown in.  This confluence involves a magazine, online game, and ability to make art and upload it to share with their friends.  Petz nursery is for raising animals to then transfer to other games, training your animals into animal superstars.  Looked a bit nicer than EA’s similar offering, honestly.  Then came the rival to Charm Club, Style Lab.  Girls can take pictures of themselves to cover it with makeup and styled hair, or make jewelry they can actually buy.

Then Ubisoft dove into their own fitness segment with Your Shape.  Trying to do EA one better, they promised it would be completely hands free by using a custom camera for the Wii.  This will act as the eye of a personal trainer, allowing people to use their own fitness equipment and set up their own training regime, though I was disappointed to see you have to use the wiimote to set this all up, making it not so hand’s free.

As if sensing a lull, Ubisoft raised the roof again with the zany Rabbids Go Home.  At least these inventive characters are free from crushing mini-games to go on a level by level adventure in a shopping cart, collecting everything in sight to build up their tower to the moon.  It’s a bit Katamari and a bit Tony Hawk in the way you have to wield the cart through the environments, avoiding enemies and collecting up the big stuff.  The whole feel was like something out of a Disney 3D movie with its exaggerated personality, including a rabbid lurking in the wiimote that can be amused, abused, and used in the game.

Relatively brief was Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Smash up, on the 25th anniversary of the franchise.  Gamearts, the people behind the latest Smash Brothers, is behind it, and it really shows.  From what they showed, it seemed like a straight up clone with TMNT skins on the characters, but nothing too wrong with that.

The closer was an entirely CG movie for Assassin’s Creed 2.  Aside from the Renaissance Italy setting, it seemed completely generic, with the brooding anti-hero sneaking and leaping around, and the sneering villain promising to have his way with the man’s mother just before he’s killed off.  If this is the result of the confluence with Hollywood, they can keep it.