You know the saying that they save the best for last? Well that pretty much sums up my last day. I saw a lot of games and a lot of sweet surprises I didn’t expect. To start the last and biggest day of course I started at the Activision booth and Call of Duty Dog, I mean Ghost. The best part of the demo was the theater it took place in, full leather recliners and mega surround sound. Call of Duty looks great but they just showed the same game play areas that they revealed at their Sunday event so nothing really new was unveiled. Honesty after seeing the new mechanics that Titanfall and Destiny bring to the shooter genre I can’t help but feel like Call of Duty is really looking like an old dog, that needs to be taken out to pasture. I did get a cool T-Shirt though and sat with super space pimp Cheapy D.

Destiny is the new franchise from Halo creators Bungie and it looks like it may be my game of show edging out Titanfall but only by a hair, things can change as these games get closer to launch. Whats not to like, Destiny is a class based MMO shooter with dynamic world events, quests, mounts and of course epic loot. Destiny was demoed on PS4 by a group of devs and looks to be pretty far along as they actually allowed me to film the demo and they usually don’t let you unless they’re pretty confident in the final product. The reason Destiny may be my game of show is that it  has the most replay-ability and of course the multiplayer looks wicked. Watch my video and see for yourself.

Next up was Ubisoft and they definitely had one of the strongest line ups they’ve ever had. A big surprise up their sleeve was Tom Clancy’s The Division, an open world RPG, 3rd person, MMO shooter that is visually stunning and doing something we’ve never seen before. You can watch the demo I was basically shown HERE but we were treated to an extended demo of real time game-play. In our demo a 3rd player dropped into the game via an app on their tablet and was controlling a support drone that could tag targets, heal and even battle with the party. This feature is pretty awesome as you can still play with your friends if you were on the road and earn experience even when you aren’t at your console. The Division is a title to keep an eye out for and from what I saw it’ll definitely be on my radar.

Next up was South Park the Stick of Truth, the new RPG from Obsidian entertainment who most recently brought us Fallout New Vegas. South Park the Stick of Truth is an RPG in a style reminiscent of the Super Mario RPG games. You’ve got an open world with traps, enemies and puzzles but when contact is made with an enemy the game switches into your classic Japanese style turn based battle system. South Park the Stick of Truth is literally a playable version of the South Park show with all the wit and banter expected from your favorite characters. The demo had one of the longest lineups at E3 and it didn’t disappoint, I usually don’t laugh out loud at video games but I was busting a gut every time Cartman opened his mouth or dropped the F-bomb. Unfortunately when I asked about a release date all I was told by the devs was that it would be available some holiday season and they really got a kick out that smart ass answer.

A definite highlight of the Ubisoft booth for me was getting a private demo of Assassins Creed Black Flag from the game’s lead designer Sebastian Berton, he was the guy responsible for the new Naval battles introduced in AC3. Behind closed doors I was shown a demo with the main character Edward Kenway accepting an assassination mission and having to track down his target on a small secluded island. Quickly though a simple assassination turned into the target fleeing onto his ship and Kenway having follow for some good ship to ship combat. After the target’s ship was disabled we were then able to board and take out our contract, resulting in a nice reward and a new ship to add to our fleet. A cool new feature that seems to be the trend was that we could use a tablet for displaying a real time map, sending our fleet out on missions and much more. Unfortunately I couldn’t take any footage or pictures but the developers definitely are taking good advantage of second screen functionality. The world in Black Flag is huge, filled with side quests and dynamic missions. For example after our victory we came across a small island with a ship wreck, after closer examination we found a corpse clutching onto a treasure map. So then we were off searching for some pirate booty (sorry I couldn’t resist) on a small island with ruins and a Spanish expedition party. In typical AC fashion we were treated to some nice environment traversal to the location shown on the treasure map, BTW we had the map displayed on our tablet the whole time so no fumbling in menus which I might add is pretty nice. Meanwhile as we reached the top of the ruins an optional mission occurred where the Spanish were holding 2 pirates captive, after stealthily taking care of the guards we now had 2 extra bodies in our army and a nice treasure to boot. I won’t lie I’m a huge Assassins Creed fan and from what they showed it looks like they are definitely listening to the fans and fixing many of the wrongs from AC3. All in all I had a really good time checking out the Ubisoft booth and I can already feel my wallet hurting. I did also check out Watch_Dogs but there wasnt anything diffrent than what was shown during the Sony Press Conference.

After Ubisoft I went to check out Disney Interactive’s booth where I saw Fantasia Music Evolved and Disney Infinity. At first I was pretty skeptical of Fantasia, Harmonix released a trailer that was pretty terrible in my opinion and left people wondering what the hell is this game? Well after my demo I can say that we might have another fun music game to get our hands on, figuratively speaking. Fantasia takes advantage of the new Kinect on Xbox One and the motion tracking is definitely improved from the original Kinect. Fantasia allows you to conduct the music and remix songs using the motion of your arms like Mickey did in the movie Fantasia and that’s where the name and influence come from. Check out the video above of Queens Bohemian Rhapsody being played live and demonstrating the game play. Finally I got an extended demo of the toy box mode from Disney Infinity, Disneys answer to the Skylanders franchise. Using the Disney Infinity base you can bring your toys to life, now you can play with your favorite Disney characters in story mode and the limitless toy box mode. Check out the extended demo I got below, I safely say that you’ll probably want to hide this one from the kids or your going to be stuck buying a bunch of new Disney toys.

At this point my final day was almost over and I was was pretty much wiped, fortunately I had my fill of E3 and felt like I got to see everything I was looking forward to. Over the coming weeks I’ll do more write ups on games I played and saw. I’ll also do a breakdown on the new consoles and offer my opinions. I can say right now though if I had to only buy one system I’m definitely leaning towards the PlayStation 4. I will buy both consoles of course but Sony is just killing it and doing so much right with the development of the PlayStation 4. With that we end another E3, next up is PAX in a couple months where we’ll get to see more of these titles again and get even more hands on time. Thanks for reading and feel free to message me if you have any questions regarding E3.

Check out my gallery below and follow me on on Twitter @RicF, also check out our YouTube Channel for more videos.

By Ricardo “Rico” Ferreira
@RicF