Eurogamer Expo 2011

So, somehow I managed to win entry to the Eurogamer Expo 2011 this weekend (I have a feeling that it was somehow due to answering a questionnaire on The Raiding Party site, ch-ch-check it out), so I thought I'd share some of my impressions of the coverage they had for some of the games that are set for release in the near future. Now, I am an avid gamer, but I'm not die-hard enough to wait in a queue for hours just to play 15 minutes of a game, so there were a lot of the more popular future releases that I wasn't able to get hands-on time with, but I had a look over the shoulder's of a few people who were willing to wait for the opportunity.

Elder Scrolls: Skyrim

As soon as I got into Earl's Court I high-tailed it to the Skyrim demo which had around 30 plus widescreen televisions hooked up to an Xbox 360. We started off on the character creation screen where I was presented with the races and customisation options for each. Now, we didn't have long, and I was reminded of this by one of the booth attendants, so it wouldn't have made much sense to spend too long creating a character, but from what I could see the amount of detail that has gone into the process is spectacular. I opted to create a more human looking character (Breton), and ended up making him look something akin to Captain Jack Sparrow. You have the option to customise pretty much every part of your character's facial features; you can add flecks of dirt to give him a more barbaric look, add scars of different shapes and sizes, laugh lines, and seeing as that was all I really had time for I can only presume that the level of detail continues from there.

With character created, I began. Straight away I was in the snow-cropped mountains, and I made my way out into the world. After pressing a few buttons and switching from first-person to third-person view, I realised that my character was dressed in rags; not befitting to such a cold climate. So, with ease, I was able to look through my items to equip myself in iron armour, with a heft axe and shield to protect myself with. After a few more moments of traversing I overheard an attendant mentioning the magic skills, so I decided to equip some fire-magic in my left hand in place of my shield. Within the first few moments, I didn't really encounter anything but lush landscape. I passed a stream, examined some interesting rocks (no, really), and every now and then spied something small running through the undergrowth. I have to say, I did all this veeerrrryyyyy sloooowwwlllyyy. I don't know if it is just because I am used to fast paced game, but I found myself longing for some sort of sprint button, because it seemed to take a while to walk down a fairly small path. But, on reflection, I think that this is actually a good thing as it allowed me to appreciate the graphical work put in, meaning there will be less chance of me rushing around and missing the finer pieces of Skyrim's world.

I reached a small village that I recognised from some of the Skyrim demo's already shown. I decided to talk to a few people, refrained from killing a chicken that blocked my path, and had a little go at iron forging. I liked this part, as instead of the rather slap-dash way of repairing and creating items in Fallout 3 or Oblivion on workbenches and such, here I could actually see my character hammering the hot metal needed to create an iron dagger. You can skip this, there is nothing keeping you watching the scene, but it is a nice element that will add to the role-playing experience. Then I was off again, and a little further up the road away from the village I spied my first victim. As he was a fair way away yet, I decided to switch my load out to bow and arrow. I crouched, fired...and missed a few times. It would obviously take some practice. In any case I had to switch back to my axe pretty quickly, and I frantically slashed and smashed my way through a few random strangers who I hope were evil in some way. The most satisfying part of combat is the execution style finishing, and I can tell I will be testing out each type of weapon available to see if the animations differ in interesting ways. The only thing that marred my experience was the game freezing mid-battle...well, more accurately, I froze. I don't know if it was a spell or a glitch, but I couldn't move my character in any way while some barbarian hacked at me. I didn't know what to do, but then rather comically my assailant fell down some stairs in her attempts to lop my head off and killed herself, which somehow freed me from my ambivalent state. Who knows?

I didn't have long left so I traversed higher up the mountain where the snow was thicker and a few more enemies awaited. What I did find was that the shadows of birds in the sky kept having me frantically looking upwards for dragons, which I'm sure will be common practice when the game hits shelves on 11-11-11.


Mass Effect 3

This was my second port of call, and because of my impatience I jumped onto a demo that was already half-way through so I didn't get to experience the full package, but I was impressed none-the-less. The demo had me taking out Cerberus thugs with the help of Garrus and Liara, but because the person before me hadn't bothered to upgrade Shepherd in any way, I wasn't left with any tricks to use, which was a shame. However, combat was still very satisfying; with headphones on and a vibration friendly controller, firing pistol, assault rifle or submachine gun felt particularly badass. The guns feel like they pack a real punch, but not to the extent of the new mêlée option. Whipping out my omni-blade to carve into a unsuspecting mercenary means that rushing headstrong into attackers is no longer a suicide move. Yes, cover is still important, but you'll definitely feel like more of a hero when you vault over cover to punch your target to the ground, compared to hiding behind a wall and peppering them with shots. The graphics weren't overly different from Mass Effect 2 on the Playstation 3, and I would have liked to have had a few conversation moments to see if they've adjusted any of the mechanics, but overall I'm still counting down the days until March 2012.

Uncharted 3

 When I played through Uncharted 2, I didn't really stick around much for the multiplayer; especially when Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 and Call of Duty: Black Ops were about. So when the Uncharted 3 demonstration was based solely on multiplayer, I wasn't expecting much. And to be honest, not much was different, though it was definitely fun to play. I think my ability to play shooters competitively has been marred somewhat by the COD games, as I am so used to the fast paced first person nature of deathmatch games that I find myself slowing down immensely as I try to aim at an opponent in an over-the-shoulder view. But the free-running aspect still makes for a more entertaining experience than most shooters, and I'm still looking forward to the cinematic sequences in the story campaign.

Final Fantasy XIII-2


I forgot to get a picture of this one, oh well. Final Fantasy XIII was an interesting instalment - the graphics were great, the complicated gameplay was pretty well implemented, but the characters and story didn't draw me in quite as well as some of the previous games. But, Final Fantasy XIII-2 looks good, with more interactive cutscenes (God Of War style) which may make the game much more enjoyable to sit through. It made me want to find my copy of the previous game, so I think that's a plus, and the graphic as usual looked immaculate.

Batman: Arkham City

I didn't really get to play Arkham City as by this point the queues had started and I couldn't be arsed to wait around, no matter how awesome the caped crusader may be. But I did linger annoyingly over someone's shoulder while they played through. I'm liking the new locations; Arkham Asylum was great but the dreary darkness got dull after a while; so swooping around a cathedral sounds like it could be a blast. The combat looks simple, meaning you again will be able to feel like Batman when you play; being surrounded by ten goons will be a piece of cake once you're guided through the counter-moves and gadgets. Looking forward to seeing more of Catwoman and Robin too!

Star Wars: The Old Republic

I definitely should have waited to play this hands-on, but the problem was...I actually felt intimidated! I've never played a MMO before, especially not on the PC, and so putting me in a pool of 20 other people playing at the same time was a bit daunting. But that didn't stop me from sticking around to watch what looks like the Star Wars game to end all Star Wars games. But, because I didn't play it myself, and because I didn't get to see some of the parts that I wanted to see, I can't say much about this. BUT the release date has finally been announced; pre-order it while you can!! http://www.swtor.com/preorder?sourceid=eag3106

Sonic Generations

I had a little go on this one because rumours had said that this game looks like it will make up for the last few Sonic the Hedgehog games to spoil our screens (yeah, you know, the ones with werewolves and giant cats?). I'm fairly certain the whole game isn't like this, but the part that I played was essentially a 3D version of the old school Sonic games - side view and everything. The only problem is, it's fast, just like those games, so sometimes it got a bit frantic with too much to see and so little time to react. But it definitely looks promising

There were a number of other games that looked pretty good, of which I will summarise here;

Monstermind - Another addictive game for facebook, but looks a lot more rewarding than Farmville or Mafia Wars. You have to check it out to understand; sort of a social take on SimCity - with monsters!
Saint's Row: The Third - This game looks crazy! The bits that I played had me in a car with a tiger in the front seat alongside me, and firing an octopus launcher...yeah?! Where GTA IV was grey and dreary, Saints Row : The Third looks full of life
Lord of the Rings: War in the North - Definitely a game that you need to play online with friends; was a bit hard to get into, but could be an exciting outing to Middle-Earth
Dark Souls - The unforgivingly hard RPG from Japan is back and promises even more player deaths - it looked as if the graphics had received an upgrade, but no doubt it will be just as infuriatingly terrifying as Demon Souls
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 & Battlefield 3 - The war of the shooters has begun, Battlefield's graphics look amazing and COD:MW3 looks well oiled and ready to have millions playing online
Assassins Creed: Revelations - More of the same; there aren't any huge changes as we follow Ezio again - but the multiplayer was very popular last time round and so we can expect some improvements there as well


A special mention to Alienware - I don't PC game that much, but they look SO cool and I doubt you can find a PC that'll play the high-end games to the quality that Alienware do...I want!