Eurogamer Expo 2011

It's official... I'm no longer an expo virgin! Eurogamer Expo was a blast! The last 4 days have flown by and I'm surprisingly awake despite leaving the house at 6am each morning and standing up queuing for pretty much the whole day.

First Off

I was lucky enough to get Early Entry tickets for Thursday & Sunday, and with Thursday being the first day of the event and being not quite the weekend, the place was so much quieter than Friday & Saturday. Perhaps with better planning, I should have headed to some of the stands of some the bigger titles, but instead, I headed straight to Mass Effect 3. I have to admit, I'm a huge Mass Effect fan. Mass Effect 2 is one of the primary reasons why I have such a large backlog of games to buy and play; I just can't seem to stop myself from starting another new game with different class and different love interest just so I have plenty of save games to import come Mass Effect 3's release in March 2012. So whilst people were running to get their hands on multiplayer CoD:MW3, Battlefield 3, Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim or RAGE, I was happily playing a couple of runs of the Mass Effect 3 demo that had been showcased at E3 and Gamescom previously. I'll post a more detailed review of the demo in a later blog post.

The Developer Sessions

So after 45 minutes in a relatively quiet Mass Effect 3 stand, it was time to wander over to the first of the Expo's Developer Session. This year it was being kicked off my Sony, where they were showing off the PS Vita for the first time in Europe. 

The presentation demoed PS Vita's front and back touchscreens, the dual analogue sticks and a selection of launch titles. There was nothing really new to report until they starting showing off one launch title, Reality Fighters. The use of the camera to import the player face onto an in-game character was a interesting & quirky feature, but nowhere near as eye-catching as using the camera to create an augmented reality fighting stage as you battled against another player wirelessly. 

The session wrapped with a demo of the new game in the Uncharted franchise and PS Vita, Uncharted: The Golden Abyss. In all honestly, the processing power blew me away. It was like watching someone playing an Uncharted game on the PS3. Later that day I was fortunate to get the chance (by random choice of a selection of PS Vita titles) to try it and would highly recommend it as a must-buy title if one was to get a PS Vita. The use of  touchscreen to direct Nathan Drake's climbing path and the internal gyroscope to help him swing across gaps were as clever as they were logical and intuitive. Whether Sony can reclaim market share from Apple in the handheld market is still uncertain, but by George, it looks like they are going to be trouncing the Nintendo 3DS, once the glasses-less 3D novelty wears off.

Upon exiting the talk, a huge queue was forming from the centre of the Expo floor caught my attention. Then it suddenly hit me... I'd forgotten all about OnLive! The cloud gaming service had started in the US earlier this year, and with much fanfare, was launching it's UK Service at Eurogamer Expo. Throughout the entire show, they were handed out thousands of  free OnLive consoles for internet-enabled HDTV's. They may not look like much, but these things retail at £69.99 each. Not something to sniff at! 

So I joined the end of the queue and after 50 mins of waiting, I was able to collect my console having previously signed up online already. I checked the time conveniently it time to immediately head back for OnLive's Dev Session. A chance to learn what this service offers and to get at least half an hour off my feet. As I entered the hall, I find there's an OnLive console on every chair! *Facepalm* Almost an hour of gaming wasted!

The picture is from the presentation given by Steve Perlman, OnLive CEO, explaining a general overview of how OnLive works. He demonstrated some of the features of the system such as instant load up and start of any purchased game, the ability to watch friends' OnLive sessions and creation & rating of brag clips from your own OnLive game session. On the face of the it, OnLive is very reliant on the reliability of a gamer's internet connection, which given the current state of the UK infrastructure is a large enough concern. They said that for PC and Mac's, a 2-3 Mbps connection is only needed, whilst a 5 Mbps connection is required for playing on a HDTV. In tests, up to 3GB per hour can be streamed whilst using OnLive, so anyone with an broadband connection with a 'fair usage policy' have every right to be wary.

Make War, Not Love

Back on the Expo floor, I decided to wander through the Over 18 section where some of the longest queues could be found. Queues for console multiplayer of Call of Duty: Mordern Warface 3 and Battlefield 3 were almost as long that for the OnLive console giveaway and since I'm generally terrible at any console FPS, I decided to spend time looking at my alternative options. After jumping out of the BF3 queue, I noticed that there was absolutely no one demand for the PC multiplayer of Battlefield 3 and given that Alienware were a major sponsor of the event, all settings were dialled up to 11 on the laptop it was running on! In my foolish youth, I had spent lot time playing Unreal Tournament 3 and Counter-Strike, so I thought I'd try my luck at the ol' WASD configuration once again. And boy, did I not regret it! Not only did I not come last, but the whole experience was very immersive; from the sound effects to the movement and reloading animations, it was the first time in a very long time that I've felt one with a game in an first person perspective. It's just shame that I can't afford a computer that will let me run the game in ultra-high resolution.

Still buzzing from BF3, I headed over to the Rocksteady booth were showing off Batman: Arkham City. Queues were much shorter than I expected given the success of Batman: Arkham Asylum, but fortunately for me, Rocksteady were in the shadow of the Bethesda's huge booths to accommodate the demand for Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim and RAGE. How could anyone top BF3? Being Batman, that's how! Opening up the universe beyond the limits of the Asylum grounds means much more Bat-fun in a sandbox world. The fighting mechanics are smoother much more fluid, making countering and chaining combos easier. Dealing with the last thug with a bone shattering slow-motion finisher was eternally satisfying. Overall, it is a marked improvement on the much acclaimed Arkham Asylum.

Rocksteady stepped up with a surprised Dev session when Namco Bandai's Dark Souls sessions were pulled, and for the better in my opinion. Super-hyper Community Manager, Sarah Wellock (I blame the Arkham Asylum sponsored Kick energy drinks) and the much calmer QA Lead Noel Chamberlain, showed off some Easter Eggs in the Expo floor demo as well as pulling off a 40 hit combo in the Challenge Maps with both Batman and Catwoman.

Lightning Strikes Twice

One game that peaked my interest prior to the start of the Expo was Final Fantasy XIII-2, having played the first game previously and find that it was a very good game after the 35+ tutorial had finished. The main reason being that I am always attracted to a good narrative. All FF's since FFVII, no matter their criticisms, have had excellent plots and universes that you were comfortable to grind in. So if the intriguing world of Cocoon and Gran Pulse are the foundations for this continuity, then I'm all for it. 

Graphically and gameplay wise, FFXIII-2 looks very similar with it's predecessor, but as I played through the demo, I noticed the inclusion of quick time events during 'Cinematic Action' cutscences midway through a boss battle. Not overly innovative, but I appreciate the break in the monotony of the same plane of view when in combat. Personally, I don't mind more of the same and I look forward to see how this FF story ends.

The Mixed Bag

Games that disappointed whilst I was at the Expo were Assassin's Creed: Revelations and Uncharted 3: Drake's Deception. I have nothing bad to say about what was offered up at the Expo, but it's just that, again, the juicy narrative is found in the Single Player campaign, but only the Multiplayer was only on offer in the demo.

Surprises of the show go to SSX (I'm excited about the franchise reboot), Burnout: Crash (fun top-down Arcade offshoot of one of the most fun modes from the Burnout franchise), Driver: San Fransisco (which despite the ridiculous premise, it actually an entertaining driving game) and Saints Row: The Third (for being brave enough to not take itself too seriously in order to avoid any more the 'GTA Clone' stigma).

Due to the queues, there were some games there was just no way I was getting a go on and I left the Expo regretting not getting the chance to play Counter-Strike: Global Offensive (for pure nostalgia value) and Star Wars: The Old Republic (as I'm not a huge fan or Star Wars or of MMORPG's, and that EA were letting players play for 20-30 minutes a time, again, I felt it wasn't worth my time queuing up for something I merely curious about). Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword was another I should have had a look at, since I've heard good things about despite being a Wii title!