Montreal developer Ubisoft electrified a crowd of 5,000 on Friday night with its back-to-back presentations of Splinter Cell: Conviction and Assassin’s Creed II. The Sam Fisher game was first, with Creative Director Max Beland giving the presentation. He stressed that this Splinter Cell will change the way people play stealth-based games. According to Beland, typical stealth games require players to be careful and slow, and stated that Conviction will instead “make you feel like a predator, not a grandmother.” In other words, you won’t be forced to play in a cautious and deliberate manner but can go balls-to-the-wall aggressive. However, you still have the option to be as stealthy as you like.

Another factor that Beland stressed about Conviction is the concept of Mark and Execute. The sticky camera returns, but this time with a more significant role. You can mark enemies with the sticky camera and promptly take them out. When asked during the subsequent Q&A session about concerns that this would make gameplay too easy, Beland said not to assume that using the sticky camera would be as effortless during real gameplay.

Beland showed the same 10-minute mission from E3, with Sam searching for his daughter Sarah’s killer. After “interrogating” a guy in the men’s room into a bloody mass of meat, Sam infiltrates a mansion and kills about 20 guys before he is captured. Two words: Bad. Ass. This definitely isn’t your average Splinter Cell game. Sam Fisher is, as Beland notes, more like Jack Bauer in that he’s not afraid to make the first move when taking out his enemies. All with the help of the reconfigured sticky camera. With Splinter Cell fans accustomed to the slow and deliberate stealth style from past games, it’ll be interesting to see how they’ll respond to Conviction.

Assassin’s Creed 2 was up next, with Creative Director Patrice Desilets giving the presentation. It started off with showing the same trailer from E3, in which Ezio assassinates a man at a masquerade ball in 1486 Florence and is chased by the city guards. You can view the trailer below.

After the trailer, Desilets gave a 10 minute in-game demonstration of a particular mission. He demonstrated a number of new features in the game, one of which is the ability to pickpocket others by bumping into them. You can use your money later for purchasing medication and even poison. You can even use the money to bribe local thugs, as Ezio did when he didn’t feel like fighting a group of guards. A funny way to use money is by throwing it on the ground and watching people nearby diving after it.

Another new feature is that you can now blend with any group of people in the crowd, not just monks. Just stand in between a couple of people to go unnoticed. Also, Eagle Vision has been improved such that you can now see in third person. And of course you can now swim, which is obviously handy seeing as part of the story is set in Venice.

Desilets commented that Assassin’s Creed 2 was somewhat influenced by Prince of Persia, which is demonstrated in a dungeon scene as Ezio explores the tunnels under Santa Maria Novella church. Since some parts of the stairs have crumbled, Ezio instead has to jump from beam to beam, similar to a certain Persian royal.

While Sam Fisher fans will have to wait a little longer for Splinter Cell: Conviction to be released since it has been delayed to early 2010, Assassin’s Creed 2 followers only need to wait another two months for the game’s November 17th release.

One Response to “PAX 2009: Ubisoft Presentation”

1. Liuqahs15 says:

   September 6, 2009 at 8:34 am

   Good article! Everyone’s trying to revolutionize stealth, and it’s just not going to work out. There are fans of the genre for a reason, and that’s because it works.