This Friday I was lucky enough to go to the Eurogamer Expo in Earl's Court, London, and I ended up accidently having a great time- In case you don't know, think an Expo like E3 or GDC, only smaller, as this is the UK's only video games expo right now, and it's growing steadily into a bigger event. It didn't rival its peers this year, but it's certainly shaping up.
It's my first ever visit to a Video game convention, and there was a lot of anticipation before we went in. The queue outside was full of excited nerds. I tried to look as un-nerdy as possible. A guy in front of me ate some cheese-its. "You'd never catch me eating cheese-its at a nerdy nerd convention, like a nerd", I said to myself.
It was about an hour before we, as a whole class, were given wristbands and let into the convention. I flashed my band at the security gaurd dramatically, and he let me in. That was damn cool, but very nerdy. The nerdiest thing, however, was yet to come, as as soon as I hit the show floor it was like letting a kid loose in a playground, and I went straight to the first machine to play Journey, followed almost instantly by Uncharted 3 (played on a 3D-TV!) and then Rayman Origins, the one I was most excited for.
I probably should've taken more time on those three games, as later, queues would begin to amass and playing them would be essentially "locked off". On the other hand, if I hadn't played them in such quick succession, I may have missed out on them entirely.
I played a whole level of Rayman Origins with a second player, and that was great fun- The game felt very smooth in comparison to Rayman's previous 2D games, and the level I played wasn't as hard, either. The combat involves only close range punches, as opposed to the thrown or charged punch of Raymans past.
The enemies in the stage I played shot at you, and when hit, inflated and rose up to the top of the screen. If they rose up a certain distance, they'd deflate again. So you had to hit them twice, the second time, while they were airborne.
As a result, the fights felt like huge flurries of fists and noise, but it was also very orderly, since we knew exactly what we were doing. At one hidden room, there was a destructable log tower full of said enemies, which I had great fun breaking to pieces.
Journey is a lot slower and more meditative, which didn't translate well to the busy show floor, but I decided to try and cool myself down as I went into it to try and get the most out of it. As I said, I didn't get much of a go on it, but it looked great. I was walking through a desert full of sand, which rolled in an abstract way, and reflected more light than sand should logical reflect, but it looked gorgeous, and you could definitley tell it was sand, despite having the texture of silk. In the distance were some tall pillars, which I stopped before I could reach.
Uncharted's demo was multiplayer, which wasn't as exciting as I'm sure single player would've been to me- the 3D was as good as all other 3D TV demos I've seen, i.e not great, but I think it's my eyes, and not the game. The game itself is similar to Uncharted 2 in terms of feel of the controls and general graphical fidelity, but I don't consider this bad, as Uncharted 2 is still way ahead, graphics-wise.
To the right of the show floor was a foreboding white wall with an "18" on it. It was the over 18s section, where games such as Modern Warfare 3 and Saints Row: the third were kept. I got a go on Saints Row the Third, but not for very long, and having not played Saint's Row before, couldn't compare it to its previous entries.
The game in the 18s section I really want to talk about though is Anarchy Reigns, by a favourite, Platinum Games. This was their new IP, and it's a multiplayer melee fighting game. In other words, like Halo or CoD, but with fists instead of guns. I was entered into a full four player vs match.
It controlled smoothly, as a brawler should. Mostly I admit I just ran into the fray furiously tapping buttons, but this would often get me killed unless I employed a strategy. The guy next to me had managed to cleave me in half with a chainsaw a total of three times, and I'd figured out how to do the same. L2 to get the chainsaw out, and triangle to do a powerful attack. I got him with it by surprise.
By now we'd all gatehered in the same part of the arena and were a cartoonish cloud of punches, so I ran off to the side to think. I saw a car, and wondered if I could pick it up. I could! And I laughed as I threw it into my unsuspecting rivals.
This game feels really good to play, hopefully it'll have Smash Brothers same more intimate style of close-range combat, combined with 3D arenas, and controls that resemble Devil May Cry or Bayonetta style fighters more closely.
It was 12 O Clock, when apparently Tim Willits of id software was meant to give a presentation, but I had no idea where this presentation was supposed to be. I found out just in time, and came in late, with another guy who seemed to be in the same situation. We were both given free id T-Shirts, and I stuffed mine in my bag and walked into the conference room, heavy metal blaring, lights dimmed, and clips of Wolfenstein, Doom, and Quake flashing on the screen quickly. The room had full surround sound, and during the Rage demo, we could hear everything happening all around the room, in brilliant quality.
Before Rage was actually demo'd, he talked about the History of id Software, and I learned a few things about Doom's history as shareware, which I didn't know about. Tim also made gentle fun of John Carmack, which is always fun.
After that I explored the indie booth, which was right outside the conference hall. I played really big sky and pineapple smash crew. Out of the two, Pineapple smash crew was probably the most interesting. I was controlling four dudes with the same control pad, and getting their asses kicked way too much. They talked to eachother while I was playing the game, which was cool, and made it stand out.
After spending far too much time wandering around looking for something to drink and not really playing anything (Although I managed to have a quick go at Final Fantasy XIII-2, Super Mario 3D land and Joe Danger: the movie) I decided if I was going to get the most out of it, I'd have to queue for something. I picked the Skyward Sword booth, which was the only dressed-up booth on the floor, the others all being mostly screens and simple renders behind them to indicate what they were.
I was allowed two whole minutes on Skyward Sword, but it felt like hours, because I was failing in front of the people queueing behind me. The demo had three options: Bird flight, Dungeon, or Boss battle, and I had picked the boss. It was against a guy I'd seen previously before on a preview video, but whom I only knew as "the tongue guy".
I went straight for him, and everything I ever knew about Zelda left my mind at the same time, as tongue guy grabbed my sword, and I was left standing there, awkwardly trying to free my sword from his grip for
too long.
Long story short, he got away with my sword. I chased after him trying to get it back, feeling like a flailing moron, and I eventually did, and reached the second stage of the battle, where bullets were thrown at me in line formations, and I had to match the formation with the wiimote stroke. At this stage I died.
I love the new sword controls- I've always thought about all the things you can do with a system like this, but Nintendo came up with some great ideas, like spinning your sword in front of these eye creatures to confuse them, or hooking it underneath spiders to flip them, exposing their soft underbelly for you to stab. I also had fun fighting run-of-the-mill moblins, as I had to map my sword strokes against theirs to break their gaurd. I haven't played a game like it.
I had a brief go at Final Fantasy XIII-2. Having not played Final Fantasy XIII, or any recent Final Fantasy game since VII (I am sorry), I couldn't really compare it to its previous game, except from the breif time I played it in a shop once.
I decided to go to another conference, for a game I wasn't super interested in, but mostly because I'd explored the show floor enough. I hadn't played Ratchet and Clank: All 4 one, which was the only game I had left to cross off, because too many people crowded the machine at the time. The conference was for Ninja Gaiden 3, and it started off with a short message from Team Ninja's president, saying how he was disappointed not to be able to be at the show in person, but had sent someone from the American team instead. The man in question was Peter Garza, and his presentation was actually a lot of fun- the presentation behind him kept "poking fun" at him, by riffing off his monologue, complaining that it wanted to get to the gameplay footage, and making jokes at his expense.
Another man sat at the side of the stage. He was bald, thin and wore glasses, and he, well... Didn't look like a ninja. But I really hoped what was coming was what I was expecting- And I was right- being a developer, he completely aced the demo level of the game, live, without losing a single hit point. It was gripping.
After that was a Q and A, where prizes and merchandise were given out to those who asked good questions. I snuck out of the conference at this point, because I had a plan to get into the queue for the Uncharted conference an hour early, and I was going to be late.
The last hour was spent queueing up to see Nolan North and Richard Lemarchand talk about Uncharted 3, and I was right to queue early, as only a select few of us made it in.
This was the highlight of my day- Richard and Nolan traded wisecracks all throughout the Uncharted demo, and we were taken through two scenes, the first one was a clip that'd been shown on the internet, where Nathan Drake (the main character, played by Nolan North, for those not in the know) and Elena (One of many secondary characters you can team up with) sneaking onto a cargo plane. The scene came to a close as Drake got flung out of the back of the plane, into a desert below.
We were told not to film the second clip, or talk about it because it hadn't been shown anywhere else, and we were amoung the first people in the world to see it. All I can say is that it was "well good".
I had to leave the Naughty Dog conference early, sadly, during the Q and A session at the end, as my phone kept ringing (on silent). We were due to get back to the group bus by six, and I was holding them up. I made my way through the conference hall for the last time that day, and back into the lobby. As I ran through, a corporate sponsored man asked me if I wanted a pack of doritos, before throwing them at me. I caught them in my chest mid-run, and then thanked him.
So I ran to the back of Earl's court, stuffing these cheese-its in my mouth, but went the wrong way first time, and had to go all the way around the building to reach it. I was out of breath, we got on, and then drove away, leaving the still-crowded (but mostly over now) con and heading home.
I miss it, it was a really good decision to get the tickets as a last-minute move, and going there was a much better way to spend a Friday than sitting around in my house doing nothing. I feel sort of inspired to work on something, but right now I'm still tired out.
I only finally managed to get the wristband off today, it was really tight, and I needed to slowly wear at it over the course of three days.
