N-Philes

Eurogamer Expo 2009

Posted November 2nd 2009 by Will Davey.

Having had no past experience with games conventions, I was really interested to see what the Eurogamer Expo would have in store for me. Luckily, I was pleasantly surprised. With two floors packed full of games and another floor where you could book sessions to talk to some games developers, as well as a café-style area where you could try out the PSPgo system, there was plenty to see and do.

The day started with me taking a two hour train ride to London, where I then jumped on the underground to make my way to the venue. Upon arrival, I was greeted with a queue of what must have been nearing 200 people. I wasn't surprised really, but I did manage to find a press line, and I soon found myself inside the huge building with a special "press/trade" band around my wrist. It was a different colour to the bands that those normal people were wearing too, so I felt doubly special.

Following my entrance to the grand venue, I was greeted by a big sign showing the layout of the place and where all of the games were. I carefully studied where everything I wanted to see was located, and as I made my way to the nearest free station to play a game, I promptly forgot everything I'd just read. Still, I had all day to look around, so I figured I'd end up seeing everything anyway.

In terms of playing anything "exclusive", the only game I played that hasn't already been released was God Of War III. I managed to get lucky and jumped straight onto an open station, and I soon found myself controlling the next-gen version of Kratos. After starting it up I realised that this was the same demo from E3 '09, and also the demo that was released to some select PSN users over the weekend. However, as I wasn't at E3, and I wasn't one of the select PSN users, this was a golden opportunity to get my hands on the game.

I just want to clarify that I've never been a huge fan of the God Of War games. Don't get me wrong, they're not bad, I've just never understood the fascination with them and why they've been held in such high esteem. That said, after playing it, I can safely say I'll be buying it on day one. It's an over-the-top, action-packed, crazy-fun and brutal experience - and that's only a demo. It reminded me of Uncharted 2, not in terms of gameplay, but because of the breakneck pace of the action, and how the set-pieces just keep on coming. One thing that did add to the experience though, was that by the time I'd finished the demo, I'd amassed a crowd of about 15 people who were all watching me play. Their reactions to some of the brutal kills and insane combat techniques were great, and it really made it much more fun.

Moving on from there though, I ended up watching some people playing more high-profile games, with stand-outs being: Mass Effect 2, Assassin's Creed II, Heavy Rain and New Super Mario Bros Wii. I didn't get the chance to play them, probably due to my lack of patience to wait around, but they all looked very impressive in their own way. Mass Effect 2 and Assassin's Creed II both look very good, expanding on the originals in many ways without it just being a case of "more of the same". Heavy Rain looked interesting to say the least, but it was hard to get hyped about it simply because it's not my type of game. Finally, New Super Mario Bros Wii looked just as I thought it would, and some four-played-craziness is bound to ensue when the game releases in the next few weeks.

A lot of my time was spent simply wandering around and looking at games, and I was genuinely surprised at how much time I managed to fill doing just that. The only other game I played was Street Fighter IV, but the difference being that it was in a proper cabinet. One thing that really made me happy was that Street Fighter IV was consistently one of the busiest games at the show, and it was good to see people turning up just to watch, even if they didn't have a go themselves. I'm a huge fan of the game, so I spent a fair bit of time there, but seeing so many different ages of men and women show up to play made me see that, given the right situation, the Street Fighter community is still very much going strong.

After such a great day, I did have one disappointment. Having ventured up to the "PSPgo Café", which is where they were selling food and also had a relaxing area with loads of PSPgo systems, I found out that LittleBigPlanet PSP was playable. At different times of the day I tried 6 of the systems that were available (about 15, I think), and only one of them had the demo on it. That one, sadly, was always in use when I went to have a go, and there ended up being a queue for this particular PSPgo system, which makes no sense to me. All of the systems seemed to have three or so games that were all the same, but they'd also have a couple more that seemed to be different on every system. Still, I did manage to watch one guy play a bit of the demo, and it looked as good as I wanted it to.

As the day came to a close I made my way back to the London underground, then back to the train station, and then took another two hour train ride back home. Not only was the whole event a great experience, it was something I'd never done before. It also makes me wonder just how huge something like E3 must be. Still, we'll see where I am when E3 2010 rolls around, but for now, bring on Eurogamer Expo 2010!

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Oh, and to make conversation, have any of you ever been to a games convention? What was it? When was it? Did you enjoy it?

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