Star Wars: The Old Republic Beta Test Event

I'll happily admit that I'm not the biggest Star Wars fan, nor have I had any experience or interest in playing any MMORPG before (I try to avoid them since I have a slightly addictive personality), but when I received a beta code from Bioware through their Bioware Social Network (having previously signed up for Mass Effect 2 DLC), my curiousity peaked. What was all the fuss about? MMO's have come and gone, yet WoW still remains unrivalled. What could this massive beta testing event possible do to persuade me otherwise?

Initial impressions weren't great, if I'm honest. I wasn't expecting to have to download almost 17GB of data to install the test client on a Friday evening, so I'd have to leave that to finish overnight. Then come Saturday morning, with everything installed and ready to go, I find that all of the servers are down for maintenance; stupid Central Standard Time! I am able to finally start creating my character a couple of hours later.

Ultimately though, after accumulating 24 hours of building up my character over the three days, SWTOR had really won me over. I'm huge sucker for a good narrative and if the look and feel of the gameplay fit as well, then I'm sold. Bioware (surprise, surprise, also the creators of Mass Effect) have done good on both accounts and I find myself wanting to even more spend hours leveling up my character (Trooper Commando, ranged DPS FTW!) and further abusing the fair usage policy on my broadband connection in the process. My one regret is that I'm not able to continue playing this offline, since I'm so low level that I'm not looking for groups to take on flashpoints; I'd rather take on the solo missions which rely on the game rather than other players on the server.

I have Deus Ex: Human Revolution and Batman: Arkham City on OnLive to play once I find some time, so I won't be playing SWTOR at launch (not that I can afford it at the moment), but hopefully I'll be able play it some time later in 2012. Perhaps when I'm not competing against hundreds of thousands of players for the same starting area objectives. But what with Mass Effect 3 coming out in March 2012, it looks like Bioware will be taking a lot of my time and money in the near future!

Pure Tech Racing

Yesterday, my friends and I went down to Horley; a small town near London Gatwick airport. Thanks to a mutual friend, we had been given gift cards to have a race experience at Pure Tech Racing. Essentially, they're a consumer arm of the manufacturers of professional racing simulators, Ball Racing Developments (BRD). BRD's simulators are so advanced that they supply many of the Formula 1 racing teams with their technology!

We began with briefing on safety issues and on how to operate the car, but before we knew it we're sitting in the simulators themselves ready to start the qualifying session.

Each 'car' was actually the carbon fibre cockpit of a single seater racing car. We were seated very low down in the car; so low in fact that half of my field of vision was blocked by the steering wheel. Luckily, the accelerator and brake pedals were adjustable so my short legs could reach them. Behind the steering wheel, the paddle shift gearbox was located. These manual gears took a long time to get used to since I always pick an automatic gearbox when playing Forza 3! It was vital that I listen to the sound of my engine to establish if I was in too low or too high of a gear; the audio of which was provided by plugging a pair earphones into the a 35mm socket in the cockpit.

My view of the race track, partially blocked by the steering wheel, consisted of three large monitors which displayed the track, other cars around you and any barriers/obstacles you were about to crash into.

We were advised to wear the racing seat belts provided since each of the cockpits are raised on a set of motorised rollers, which move forward/backwards and side-to-side simultaneously to re-create some of the forces we might experience if we were in real racing car (up to 1.5G). For example, if you turned the car too violently and fast into a corner, the cockpit would move in such a way that you felt the back-end of the car flick out and lose control, and all through the seat of your pants.

The 15 minute qualification gave us a chance to get used to the car and each of the corners, as well as setting a fastest lap to provide the grid order for the race. I found the barriers and gravel traps all too often, but luckily crashing incurred no damage to the car. Otherwise, we'd have traveled quite a way for just 30 seconds of racing! As I was still getting used to the car, I managed to place 5th out of 8 cars, ahead of both of friends in 6th and 7th respectively.

After the qualifying session, we were given a telemetry sheet and a debriefing from the race instructor on how we could improve our performance in the race. The telemetry sheet of race data showed that I was "treating every corner like hairpin" just so that I wasn't flying off the track into the nearest barrier!

With the information in mind, we returned to our simulators and started the 15 minute race. I had a horrible start off the line as I found cars streaming past me into the first corner. Thankfully, practically everyone in front of me went straight off or collided with other cars whilst I carefully kept my car on track. I managed to take back a couple of places, but the majority of cars ahead began to disappear into the distance. But that didn't matter. My battle wasn't them, it was with my friends (and keeping my car on the track); not that I knew where they were anyway!

Corner after corner, lap after lap, I hardly saw anyone else in this race! I thought I must have been last since I hadn't seen any other cars and I'd been off the track a number of times. As the race finished, I looked up and saw the results and to my astonishment I managed to finish 3rd! my mate's girlfriend finished where she started in 6th, whilst he sadly brought up the rear as he had somehow managed to spectacularly crash into the barrier and flip the car into a grandstand of virtual spectators!

Overall, I was great day out. Having an extra sensation of the car movement, G-forces and the car setup certainly added extra dimensions to the normal docile routine of playing Forza or Gran Turismo. It was a real adrenaline pumper, but at £35 a time, it might be while before I come back again.

Assassin's Creed Merch

I've still to finish Assassin's Creed Brotherhood, but I feel that I have the proper knowledge and threads to do so now before I get my hands on Assassin's Creed Revelations.

Hoodie is from Insert Coin Clothing.

The Assassin's Creed Encyclopedia (White Edition) was purchased from UbiWorkshop.

N.B. That's a letter opener, for those of you curious/worried.

Final Fantasy XIII-2 Community Event

Saturday afternoon. Portabello Road, London. It's world famous (no thanks to the film, Notting Hill) market is in full swing and it is busy. I'm walking at snail's pace, trying to push past dawdlers and tourists taking their sweet time. If only they'd just let me pass and get to where I need to get to. That place being the Electric Cinema; the venue for the Final Fantasy XIII-2 Community Event, run by Square-Enix exclusively for community members on their website (i.e. people who bother to sign up).

I stand at the front of the queue, having got there ridiculously early, and as it grows I hear curious locals and non-gamers asking such questions like "I've never seen it so busy. What are they queuing up for?" and "Isn't Final Fantasy a love film?".

Inside

After an hour, it's finally time to let us into the lobby and have my name checked off the guest list. As I enter the main room I think "wow".

A goody bag and poster are found to adorn each of the leather armchairs (Yeeeaahhh! My own armrests!) that make up the entire seating in the room. Not only are the seats comfortable, but each seat has it's own foot rest to put some weary feet up. How could this any better?

As I look over to my right hand side, I find a chocolate cupcake and a coke. Not bad, given the 5 minutes spent signing up to the website to attend this free event. I was already a goody bag up anyway!

On with the show

The presentation starts with a 'you're some of the first people in world to see this new footage, so please no photo or filming' disclaimer, so hopefully I'll still be making sense as I try and describe what happens. After a short interpreted speech (probably pre-written in both Japansese and English) from FFXIII-2 producer, Yoshinori Kitase, we jump into a mid level gameplay session. According to guy talking us through, we are in the Act 3 of the game wondering about a returning area called Sunleth Waterscape. Controlling Noel Kreiss, a character new to FFXIII-2, the person running the demo leads a party of Lightning's sister, Serah Farron, and returning character & Serah's fiancé, Snow Villiers.

The demo goes through a couple of random encounters whilst traversing the level to demonstrate the different fiends that will aid Noel and Serah in the game as their '3rd party member'. Having already played a FFXIII-2 demo at Eurogamer Expo 2011 back in September, this is nothing new. However, the fact that Snow still participates as a party member, but isn't involved in Paradigm Shifts is an interesting reveal.

There's an emphasis on exploration on FFXIII-2, which is not exactly hard given how the majority of FFXIII was so linear. There are many branching routes to take throughout the level, but for the sake of time, we only explore one alternative route, which involves riding on the back of a giant four-legged beast. Ideally, it was also a good time for Square-Enix to reveal a feature, called Moogle Throw, where despite protests from the poor creature, you pick up Serah's Moogle (and the party's companion), Mog, and aim him at out-of-reach treasure orbs whilst in a first person view. He will then open and retrieve any items picked up from the treasure orbs and return to the party; no doubt hoping that he won't be thrown again.

The main objective of this part of game is to collect an artefact, which are used at the Time Gates, as part of the story's progression. Once obtaining the artefact, a cutscene initiates, which is very promptly skipped by Square-Enix, so not to reveal plot spoliers. The demo comes to an end and a small raffle of three FFXIII figures and an Xbox 360 begins. The couple immediately sitting to my left win the first figure and the eventual Xbox 360. So much for being at the front of the queue! The short event is over and all that is left to is get a couple more pictures and then set off to re-negotiate the busy Portabello Road.

Yoshinori Kitase and I. My Japanese doesn't extend far enough to allow me to ask him 'Why was FFXIII so linear and is Kingdom Hearts 3 ever going to be made?'