Categories
Games Personal

Interview with Shigeru Miyamoto and Yves Guillemot

The moment I saw Shigeru Miyamoto walk out on stage at Ubisoft’s E3 press conference, I was ecstatic. It’s no secret that I have quite a bit of fondness for Nintendo, and so to not only see the company I work for collaborate with them, but then to also see Miyamoto himself help with the promotion, it was awesome. The game itself, Mario + Rabbids Battle Kingdom, looks super fun and I can’t wait to play it. Here’s a Eurogamer interview with both Miyamoto and Yves Guillemot talking about the collaboration.

Yesterday was Ubisoft Montréal’s annual assembly, and not only did Yves show up to talk at the assembly, but I also had a chance to take a photo with him (below), and at the same time tell him how happy I was that we were collaborating with Nintendo like that, and how excited I was when I saw Miyamoto on stage at our press conference.

Categories
Games Web

GameCenter-DX Plays The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild

screen-shot-2016-10-29-at-14-05-30

I’m of course a huge fan of GameCenter-CX and Arino Kacho, regularly watching old episodes. But more than just a gaming celebrity, Shinya Arino is also a Japanese comedian, part of a duo called Yoiko, and his partner is Masaharu Hamaguchi. Nintendo has often partnered with GameCenter-CX to promote some of its releases — notably Super Mario Maker and Pokémon games — and one of these special web series takes the form of GameCenter-DX, where Hamaguchi takes on the roll of Executive Director (quite the promotion, considering Arino’s lowly “section chief” title). Where Arino sticks to retro games (Super Mario Maker being the understandable exception), Hamaguchi only plays new games, and the latest video has him playing The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. It’s similar to what we’ve seen in the demo videos from E3, but fun to watch nonetheless.

Categories
Debaser Uncategorized

Excellent E3 Experience

The Ubisoft conference is being streamed in our studio’s largest room, on two giant screens. I’m sitting with a few of my colleagues – about 300 of them – waiting for the segment for our game to start. We’ve all been cheering and celebrating all of the announcements so far, but the most exciting moment for our team is of course going to be when For Honor makes an appearance, first in the form of a new cinematic trailer, then with our creative director Jason VandenBerghe setting the stage for the world of For Honor, followed by game director Roman Campos-Oriola playing through a level.

I’ve excitedly watched E3 – the game industry’s biggest show – from afar for years and years, but this year was special in that it was my first time taking in E3 while having a personal investment in what was going on.

I’m working on a game that was taking part.

As I say each year, I always hope that this will be the one where I actually get to go to E3, but despite not going, it was definitely the most exciting one I’ve experienced so far. I had a great time as always watching all of the keynotes, while getting excited for the big game reveals, but following it all while you have something “in the ring” just makes it that much more special.

And even better, people seem to really like our game. As I write this, the 3rd and final day is coming to an end, and already we’ve received a “Best of E3″ award from GameSpot. I’ve also watched a few videos and read some hands-on write-ups that seem to be really pumped by the gameplay that was experienced. 

So what next? As the fantastically funny Aisha Tyler announced at the end of our segment during the Ubisoft conference, you can go to the For Honor website to register for upcoming Alpha and Beta access. 

The game’s release date was also announced: February 14, 2017 – Valentine’s Day!