Crying children and ye olde Jerusalem
Few games could ably follow Call of Duty 4, but a quick teaser trailer of Resident Evil5 - showing some very angry people and at least one little girl with black goop streaming from her eyes, got us riled. Then, it was right into a live-action demo for Assassin' Creed. While lesser men in the crowd were captivated by the game's lovely spokeswoman, Producer Jade Raymond, we soaked in the recreation of old-time Jerusalem and watched the main character swan dive from a high rooftop into a wagon full of straw, then push a soldier off a roof to distract the guards below. He then free ran - mostly leaping from one wooden beam to another - first directly into a five-on-one ambush where he showed off his counter-and-combo-based fighting and then into a brutal kill when he caught his quarry.
Assassin's Creed looked hot, though most of the buzz about it after the show dwelled upon the dead man who got stuck floating in midair (it doesn't come out until November, folks - just relax) and the fact that the little, Matrix-y visual touches that not-so-subtly reminded you that it's apparently a virtual reality world were actually intrusive and uncool. We'll have to see how it works in the final game.
