At the Eurogamer Expo

This weekend I found myself heading to London town to check out the last day of the Eurogamer Expo and take a look at a number of upcoming titles that were there. It was a pretty good day out all in all and there were a bunch of great games to get hands on with, including a few surprises.

Given tickets for the expo were sold out I was expecting a mammoth queue upon arrival, and whilst there was certainly a sizeable line outside the Old Billingsgate it went down pretty quickly and before too long we were in. In fact the crowds weren’t at all bad, and whilst there was clearly a good number of people in there, nothing felt too crowded or took too long to get a good look at.

3D Gaming

We also took the time during the day to check out a presentation by Nvidia about 3D gaming. I’ve got to say I’m not at all convinced by it. They showed off Need for Speed: Shift and I was at a loss to really spot the difference. In fact, the only time I spotted the 3D look to it was when the guy brought up the in-game menu to quit. They also showed a bit of Batman: Arkham Asylum, which again looked no real different to the game I’ve already played.

There was also a demonstration of some 3D photos and 3D video, and these featured the couple of times I could actually noticed the 3D-ness going on, though it still wasn’t exactly mind-blowing. So far I’ve found that with 3D vision some of the detail is lost and I find it harder to focus on what’s going on, not to mention the potential for unpleasant headaches. I’m also very much not convinced of the worth of a £100+ system of active glasses just to view it.

I’m sure there’s a future there for 3D technology to come to fore, but despite what the hardware manufacturers might be saying, I’m not convinced it’s just yet.

The Games

As for the games themselves, we got to see a good number and hands on with a good chunk of those too. I’m going to list the games in the vague order I remember us stumbling upon them and mention my thoughts on them:

Bayonetta

First game of the show we came across and whilst I’ve never been a massive fan of the Devil May Cry style of game it does look entertaining and Bayonetta certainly looks slick, and suitable amounts of mad (when my mate randomly picked up a tuba looking think and starting firing with it). It was a little tricky trying to work out what buttons were needed, but certainly a game that got bumped up a few notches on the ‘games to be looking out for’ list.

Assassin’s Creed II

This was possibly the game drawing the biggest crowds, and it certainly does look impressive. Sadly didn’t get to have a go of it myself, but it did look really good and I remain rather excited for it.

MAG

I should have really tried this earlier having been granted access to the beta on the PSN (not sure if that’s still going actually), but the Expo was my first hands on, and I can’t say I was thrilled. It seemed like an entirely generic shooter and felt rather empty, though it may not have been running with the full 256 people. I did manage a rather impressively stupid death though when, the game having defaulted to parachute based insertion, I respawned in midair, assuming that a parachute would automatically deploy, except it didn’t and I merely plummeted to an instant death. Oops.

Joe Danger

In the Indie Games area there were a few random titles, but none were as impressive looking as Hello Game’s debut Joe Danger. Again, not one that I actually managed to get hands on with, but it looked excellent. The graphics and presentation were amazingly slick, and the gameplay looks to be really fun. This is one I’ll definitely be looking out for it hitting the XBLA in future.

New Super Mario Bros. Wii

I was highly sceptical of New Super Mario Bros. Wii and the idea didn’t appeal to me at all. However, I was at the expo with three mates and two of them wanted a go, so why not. And this was a surprise as I really enjoyed it. We had a lot of fun with the game and had to be kicked off by the Nintendo woman manning the station because we lost track of how much we were playing. That said, I’m not convinced the game will work at all as a solo experience as all the fun was mucking around with my mates. Would be interesting to see how much of that transferred to a 2-player game, but with the four of us it was a riot.

Rabbids Go Home

I’m a big fan of the Rabbids characters and the idea of them having a proper game to themselves sparked my interested. Sadly, the reality is something of a bland follow-the-path type game. The animation and characterisation was fun, as I’d expect from the Rabbids, but I couldn’t see myself picking this one up if I had a Wii.

Split/Second

What I’d heard about Split/Second prior to getting hands on with it had me intrigued, and it certainly sounded promising, but after playing the demo for myself this pretty much a guaranteed purchase. This was possibly my game of the show as it really blew me (and my mates) away with how fun it was. Not since the original Burnout has a racer hit me with that wow factor. The sheer variation in how the game played out, even with the four of us revisiting the demo pods for a second or third play, was amazing, as was the number of “Holy shit did you see that!” moments. This is definitely one to keep an eye out for.

Battlefield Bad Company 2

I had a brief hands on with Bad Company 2, which was playing out as a multiplayer mode demo, and it was a bit too brief to really work out the controls and HUD, but I will say that graphically and technically it looked pretty damn amazing. I saw a guy charging a tank through a building and just the look of the level itself was quite something. The first Bad Company looked interesting, but not enough to garner a purchase, but BC2 might change that.

God of War III

Until yesterday I’d never played a God of War, but I think I now understand why people tend to speak of them highly, as the demo for God of War III was fucking ace. Definitely not for those who dislike gore, but yeah, a lot of fun and I now plan to grab the God of War compilation and then number III when it hits.

Aliens vs. Predator

AvP certainly looked reasonably impressive, but my hands on experience wasn’t a great deal of fun. It was another multiplayer deathmatch set up and somehow I managed to pick a marine to play as, which proved to be a rather bad idea as I got pretty well raped by the aliens and predators on the map. The spawning was pretty atrocious though with close-by enemies being far too frequent; one time I respawned only to find almost immediately the view point being lifted, the camera looking down and there’s a predator claw in my stomach. I’d be curious to see how the aliens and predators played as the marine felt horribly under-powered in the match up.

Blue Toad Murder Files

We got chatting to one of the ladies talking about this game as we were stood taking a look, and whilst the premise is somewhat interesting (a murder mystery puzzle game), the cost and episodic nature, plus rather simplistic looking puzzles, didn’t really grab me all that much.

Heavy Rain

This is the other front runner for game of the show as Heavy Rain really was impressive both to watch and play. I got to sit and run through the detective in the corner store scene and almost managed to sneak up on the gunman without getting detected. The interface is certainly different, but worked surprisingly well, and from having a mild interest in the game I’m not quite excited for it.

Mass Effect 2

Another I didn’t get hands on with as it had quite a crowd around the pods, but the game section on display was one that’s been in the recent video media released and looked really good in motion. This was pretty much a guaranteed pre-order anyway, but good to see that it still looks great.

Medieval Games

One of the random Wii games we found ourselves having a play with as we spotted it had 4-player support. However, like most Wii games it’s another generic mini-game collection, and not a good one either, far from it. If you’re a Wii owner I would avoid this one.

Saboteur

The last game I cast an eye over was Saboteur and whilst I didn’t watch it being played for too long it didn’t really grab me. It really came across as a rather average third-person action game with a graphical hook (the whole blank and white with red showing up thing). Could have potential, but I’m not holding my breath.

So some more things to be excited about in 2010, not that I exactly needed more games to be excited about, but there’s good things to come.