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We've got another two months to go before the release of Splinter Cell Conviction. That's plenty of time, it would seem, for Ubisoft to tease us relentlessly with more information and gameplay snippets, as evidenced by the latest trailer. It's filled with a mess of information for returning Splinter Cell fans, and capped off by the realization that, "For the first time, you'll feel what it's like to be one of those NPCs hunted by a Splinter Cell." And yes, that prospect looks just as terrifying as it sounds.

Call to mind Wii Sports' tennis, and you don't have to stretch your imagination too much further to arrive at Ubisoft's Racquet Sports. If you own a Wii, you already own this experience, to which Ubisoft has added some variety, including ping-pong, badminton, squash, and beach tennis, and a more fleshed-out art direction than Nintendo's pack-in or even its sequel, Wii Sports Resort. There's no Mii support, but Racquet Sports offers its own dollish avatars, customized with unlockable trinkets. There's a derivative multicultural vibe, too, as the characters and playing courts span the globe in classic and fantastic scenarios. Grandma vs. dashiki-clad boy in an aquarium squash court? Yes.

Of course, the experience you don't own is "tennis" played with a motion-tracking camera. No, not Natal -- not at all. Ubisoft's USB camera, first bundled with scarcely-reviewed Your Shape (featuring Jenny McCarthy), might be on the cutting edge of a revived and revamped gaming tech trend, but its implementation in Racquet Sports is painfully dull.

As you might imagine, it's kind of hard to believe the words coming out of someone's mouth when a gold wrestling championship belt is gleaming in our eyes, which is why we're not sure what to believe coming from the mysterious "Adam" regarding a possible Splinter Cell Conviction demo coming this January. Seen with the Hip-Hop Gamer in a video after the break, Adam -- a gentleman who Ubisoft wouldn't confirm to us is an actual employee -- seemingly announces the existence of an upcoming Conviction demo.

When asked by the eccentric interviewer about the possibility, Adam responds, "It's coming out in January, and then the actual game: February 23rd." We asked Ubisoft for verification of Adam's words, and were told by a rep, "I cannot confirm a demo at this time." So, anyone know Adam?

Ubisoft's new Wii sports collection, Racquet Sports, is on the way to help you use some of the Wii peripherals you bought! Ubisoft is cleverly aiming not just at the Wii Sports Resort audience, thanks to MotionPlus compatibility, but also the people who bought Your Shape and would feel weird about having a camera that works with just one game.

Racquet Sports includes tennis, ping-pong, badminton, squash, and beach tennis (which totally counts as a separate sport). It features various single-player and multiplayer modes, including a Party Mode with randomized, "wacky rules." There's no word on how the camera peripheral will interact with the game, though our money's on "your face as an avatar" more than camera-based controls. Racquet Sports will be in stores by March 2010, though you may not see it behind the ten thousand other games also being released that month.

If you're one of the unlucky Assassin's Creed 2 players who've been wandering around the Hideout for days, with no way to get back into the playground of Ezio's memories, you'll be relieved to know that a new freedom patch is on the way. It'll launch for PS3 today and on December 11 for Xbox 360.

The patch promises to fix the Sequence 11 glitch and many others (the list may contain spoilers for you), including a bug that allows Ezio to walk on air in "extremely rare occasions." We didn't know about that one, but now we're going to miss it.

[Via XboxGaming]

Three brief new trailers for No More Heroes 2: Desperate Struggle have appeared online, each highlighting a different aspect of the game. The first trailer (after the break), from GoNintendo, shows off the cute retro-themed job minigames that Grasshopper has added for Travis's second outing. There's some kind of motorcycle racing game, a training game in which you kick weights back at your trainer, and ... oh, no. A plumbing game that's like the bane of our existence, Pipe Dream. Great.

The second trailer, from IGN, features quick clips of fighting from all three playable characters (plus Jeane the cat! Plus NSFW language). The third, from 1UP, features Shinobu being really creepy.

Though Assassin's Creed 2 has been enjoying near-universal praise from critics, apparently some folks have taken umbrage with the game's intro as it pertains to Ezio before he becomes a calculated killing machine. When VG247 recently asked the game's writer, Corey May, how he felt about that complaint, he told them that "it was necessary to spend time with Ezio as a carefree adolescent."

While he admitted that the development team could have "refined the sequence so that it either moved faster or provided the player with more action-oriented activities," he remained steadfast that "it needed to be more than a token five minutes." May said the developers will try to "sharpen" the experience next time around, but even if the execution may have been perceived by some as less than perfect, "the idea of the beginning of the game" is what mattered most to him.

We're behind you, Mr. May. Stabbing dudes sure is a ton of fun, but a little bit of context goes a long way.

There's some classic platforming to be had in both Rayman and Shinobi in this week's Nintendo downloads, and even a way to deal with Jack's overabundance of stress in Stop Stress: A Day of Fury. There's over ten titles in all, so cruise past the break for the full list.

There's a good reason why we never went into late-night comedy: We really didn't want to compete against lanky comic genius Conan O' Brien. We thought writing about (and, more often than not, making fun of) video games would be a career path where we'd never have to compete with the gargantuan Irish host -- unfortunately, in a recent episode of Late Night, Conan managed to encroach on our territory, making a joke at the expense of the recently released (and tepidly received) Avatar: The Game.

Check out the video of Conan's gag after the jump while we consider another career choice -- one that will definitely be devoid of Conan competition. (We're thinking about horse whispering. Seems pretty safe, right?)

[Via Kotaku]

Now that Assassin's Creed II has been out amongst the crowds, slinking its way into millions of consoles, gamers are stumbling upon some of its secrets. While you may be stuck tracking down those last few feathers, others are discovering ancient beasts and, according to CVG, game-breaking glitches.

Some gamers apparently found themselves stuck controlling Desmond in the Hideout after DNA Sequence 11, a direct result of shutting off their system after the game autosaved. When they later booted the game back up, they were unable to return to the Animus and continue Ezio's 15th century adventure. CVG didn't comment on whether this was affecting Xbox 360 or PS3 gamers, or both.

We've contacted Ubisoft to see if this is the first it's heard of the issue and also urge you to contact us if you've encountered it.

Update: Ubisoft has acknowledged the "SQ11" glitch. Posting on the company's message boards, community developer "Atmon" confirmed that Ubisoft is aware of the issue and is "glad to say that it will be solved through our upcoming patch," but did not suggest a release date for said patch. In a separate thread, Atmon continued to dance around the issue of a release date for the patch, explaining that upcoming server maintenance is unrelated to fixing the glitch.

Newegg has been the place for heavily discounted M-rated Wii titles lately. The latest game to have its price reduced to a negligible amount: Acquire's Tenchu: Shadow Assassins, one of the first major Wii releases of 2009. At just $9.99, even wannabe ninja who spent all their lunch money on caltrops can afford to pick it up!

If you've waited all year to play a game about using ninja cats to distract sort of British-sounding targets, and you somehow missed this game, now's your chance to make that right.

[Via GoNintendo]

Ubisoft has announced -- rather cryptically -- that Assassin's Creed 2 will receive two batches of downloadable content over the coming months. The first, entitled "Battle for Forli," will launch in January, 2010, followed by "Bonfire of the Vanities" in February. You're advised to have either a PlayStation 3 or Xbox 360 (fairly important components for playing the base game, we might add), along with at least 1GB of free space for each download.

Ubisoft has promised to divulge more information later this month. If we were to don our speculation hats in the meantime -- if only to cover up our Robert Langdon hair -- we'd say that "Battle of Forli" will continue the story of Caterina Sforza, who made a brief and undignified cameo in the game as a boat tutorial. The second DLC, "Bonfire of the Vanities," will likely concern the mass burning of sinful objects in Florence. Remind us to toss some of those evil feathers on the bonfire.

Older readers out there might think that the 3D gaming revolution began with the advent of consoles like the PlayStation, N64 and the Sega Saturn, but the real 3D gaming revolution is just beginning, according to Ubisoft. 3D gaming doesn't refer to three dimensional graphics anymore; nowadays it means that the game jumps out of the screen and into your eye holes. Beginning with the game adaptation of James Cameron's Avatar, Ubisoft Montreal's Yannis Mallat tells the Financial Post that he sees the company becoming a "360-degree entertainment content provider."

As the wording suggests, Ubisoft's future won't necessarily be restricted to games. Mallat hopes that future game consoles will be able to render photorealistic graphics, enabling Ubisoft to create games and films using the same assets -- similar to what the company did with the Assassin's Creed: Lineage short films.

Of course, enjoying this "360-degree entertainment" will require a special television set. Still, Mallat is firmly behind the technology, saying that it does for images what Dolby did for sound. "No one wants to go back to mono," says Mallat. That's all well and good, but a huge number of gamers have yet to even upgrade to an HDTV at all, let alone one that can take advantage of 3D technology.

[Via VideoGamer]

The 2008 reboot of the Prince of Persia franchise (which, apparently, is getting shut down) featured some of the most enjoyable snark and pith we've ever heard in a video game. Fortunately, Andy Walsh, the man responsible for the Prince and Elika's sharp-tongued exchanges, was recently recognized for his witty dialogue when he won the Writers' Guild of Great Britain Games Award last night in London.

Normally, this is where we'd drop in a quote from Walsh about how excited he was to receive the award, but it doesn't seem that anyone initiated the optional dialogue with him following the Writers' Guild awards ceremony. Too bad, something tells us we've missed out on the best part.

Among the comprehensive list of numbers in Ubisoft's first half fiscal 2009-10 report, measuring performance in April through September 2009, one figure stands out: the French company's reported €52,027,000 in not-profit. That's right, Ubisoft's profits are down by more than €70 million (over $100 million) from the same period last year to rest firmly in the red.

From a profitable first half of fiscal 2008-09 of roughly €24 million to just over €52 million in losses in the first half of fiscal 2009-10, Ubisoft's profits have experienced a year-over-year change of -316.53 percent. However, CEO Yves Guillemot remains steadfast that projected sales figures for Assassin's Creed 2 and Avatar will ease Ubisoft's financial woes. This is, after all, the most important Q4 in the company's history.