The doors are open to the public at Gamescom now, which means it's basically impossible to play anything on the show floor unless it's Lips. I did have some appointments with Ubisoft, though; that explains the intense Ubi-ness of this update.

10:35AM-ish -- For the Horde

PS3 booth day one vs. day two.

Microsoft booth day one vs. day two.

Nintendo booth day one vs. day two.

2:30PM -- Ruse (XB360, PS3, PC)
Every once in a while, someone takes a crack at making a real-time strategy game for consoles. This is one of those times. But it might actually work, because developer Eugene Systems has completely redesigned the traditional RTS interface.

The last time I saw this game it was via a crazy E3 trailer starring two dudes who arched their eyebrows at each other while moving troops with their minds. It wasn't quite like that this time.

Battles takes place on a tactical map in a command and control center, but you're not shuffling around plastic pieces in a make-believe war -- you can zoom in incredibly close to see individual soldiers and tanks fighting it out, or pull back to see the entire map.

One of the guys talking me through the game said he prefers playing with a 360 controller rather than mouse and keyboard, simply because the zoom and panning controls are so fluid.

Like any RTS, Ruse is built on a fairly standard foundation of resource gathering, factory building, and territory control. The twist comes in the literal ruses, special powers you can activate to hide your units and buildings, reveal your enemy's forces, increase your units' speed, create decoy forces and structures, etc.

The gameplay was very fast-paced, and while I felt comfortable using a controller almost immediately, it's too early to say if advanced players will be satisfied with anything other than a keyboard (at least on PC). The Y button opens up a tabbed interface, and from there you can access unit production, buildings, and your ruses. Otherwise, you can center your view on a unit to select it and issue orders. I'm not actually sure if you can group units together -- I'd assume so, but I didn't think to ask.

Ruse goes into open beta later this fall, and ships in Q1 2010.

3:05PM -- Avatar (XB360, PS3, Wii, DS)
Play Avatar in 3D and it looks incredible -- it made me realize instantly that 3D is obviously the future of games. But that future isn't here yet, because you'll need a special TV, and you probably don't have one. Avatar is ahead of its time in that regard.

The rest of the game, or at least the rest of the level that I saw, is not ahead of its time. It appears to be a fairly standard shooter, with a minor twist in that you can take a break from the usual space marine action and opt to control a Navi instead, a 10ft. tall blue guy who likes to whack stuff with a big club. Or a staff. Or two big blades.

In 2D, unfortunately, the game looks pretty unremarkable. It runs on the Far Cry 2 engine, but despite the lush, rainforest environment in the level I saw, the textures appeared lower rez than I was expecting, significantly worse than the amazing screenshot below. But then the usual caveats apply -- the game still has four months of development, and the final polish could bring significant changes.

4:00PM -- Assassin's Creed 2 (XB360, PS3, PC)
I'm a bad person and didn't actually play the first Assassin's Creed, unlike about nine million other gamers (45% finished it, according to Creative Director Patrice Désilets). Assassin's Creed 2 may push me over the edge, though, as it appears to address the complaints about repetitive missions in the first.

Désilets ran through a laundry list of new tweaks: in-game cut-scenes, pick-pocketing passersby (and using their cash to buy poisons and other tools of the trade), a one-shot-one-kill hidden gun made by your pal Leonardo da Vinci, and you can make it rain with a handful of coins to create a diversion or convince witnesses to shut up and fill their pockets.

More importantly, Désilets and team are adding some more focused, linear sections of the game designed to test the player's skill at free running and maneuvering through the world. It's like a little bit of Prince of Persia (Désilets was also creative director on Sands of Time) in your otherwise open-world Assassin's Creed.