Our man in France is currently enjoying the estimable hospitality of Ubisoft, with all which that implies. On previous experience that may or may not encompass stale butties, warm OJ and grey-eyed UK journos, shambling from stand to stand, stinking, playing games like the woeful neophytes they profess not to be and regretting that last half of shandy the night before.

Doubtless we’ll be regaled with the highlights if our lad ever finds his way back home. Meantime we can clue you in on the best of what’s on show – and there’s plenty of it too, with a couple of notable exceptions. In alphabetical order, then:

Beyond Good & Evil 2
In a word, stunning. In three words, see the screenshots (the ones with a big pig in them). Good grief!

Brothers in Arms: Hell’s Highway
Truth be told we prefer COD4’s more straightforward, guns-a-blazing gameplay, but fans of Ghost Recon or Rainbow Six Vegas may prefer the more tactical approach employed here.

Far Cry 2
Gameplay shifts to Africa and drops the animal superpowers of earlier iterations. There’s no co-op mode, alas, but the single player game is reputedly close to 50 hours long.

Prince of Persia 4
In which the acrobatic Arabian gets a new female sidekick called Elika, and a painterly makeover. Should be a good one.

Rayman Raving Rabbids TV Party
More minigames madness, although this outing makes innovative if occasionally embarrassing use of the Wii Balance Board. Especially in the cow snowbaording section.

Shaun White Snowboarding
Built using the Assassin’s Creed game engine and looks suitably amazing. Also boasts snowball fights, seamless online play and a Balance Board interface for the Wii version which, if handled properly, could be seriously educational. White himself is said to be “stoked”. Indeed…

Tom Clancy’s Endwar
Which is playable entirely via voice commands. Is this the future of videogame interfaces? And does this mean that future evolution will see our thumbs wither and drop off? Probably…

Tom Clancy’s HAWX
A serious challenger to the Ace Combat series, as these screens ably testify.

So, surprisingly, no sign of Splinter Cell: Conviction or the James Cameron movie tie-in, Avatar. Although Yves Guillemot has announced that the latter should be arriving around this time next year. But, heigh-ho, who knows – they both may yet be hiding in some darkened corner of the expo, waiting to be discovered. Either way we’ll be back with our hands-on impressions tomorrow.