(Originally posted on Grimm Games on 28th September 2012)
As my first games convention ever and also my first games convention as a journalist I walked through the glass doors of Earl’s Court slightly late and after a little queuing to claim my wristband I made my way inside the gaming haven of Europe. I was overwhelmed by the sheer size of the main hall and as such I was completely lost on where to visit first so I walked around the show floor just to get a grasp of what was where and what was actually here. Walking past the press area I resisted the urge to wander in claiming to be a journalist though having a peek through the window there was a single male in the room on a laptop, Dan Maher of Inside Xbox fame was emailing someone but I decided not to knock on the window…it seemed important.
I initially spotted two Nintendo 3DS systems unmanned by the side of the walkway, both with playable demos. I picked up Professor Layton and the Miracle Mask while my friend picked up Castlevania: Lords of Shadow Mirror of Fate. Professor Layton was the same as always with some fun puzzles and great cutscenes I decided to leave it. My friend complained about the poor framerate of Castlevania and we moved on to the Wii U booth.
Two queues surrounded the Wii U booth and when we asked the attendant she told us that the wait for ZombiU was two and a half hours while the significantly smaller queue was for the Nintendo games. We chose the shorter wait obviously and after a minute or so we were ushered in and while the games were busy we saw a panoramic view thing which we decided to take a look at. We moved the Wii U pad around and the image on the pad moved with us, it was really interesting but as the New Super Mario Bros. U booth emptied I made a move for the console.
Super Mario Bros. U was fun to play, my friend, I and a random person played with the two wiimotes and the pad. The wiimotes were just playing Super Mario Bros. but the Wii U pad gave you the ability to plant blocks wherever you like. As stupid as this sounds, it really is quite fun and adds for great moments with friends. Unfortunately the controllers we were using were running out of batteries and kept freezing or turning off. We slowly moved over to Pikmin 3 and after watching a few people I grabbed the wiimote and played the course demo. Great fun was had, the high score for the demo was 1300 as I was told by the attendant as I attempted to beat the high score, I had collected all the fruit and the last of the gold was going into my onion, closing in on the high score my time was running out, the last of my Pikmin were collecting the gold and…the demo timed out early. The attendant assured me it did that sometimes and we moved on to The Wonderful 101 as I felt slightly robbed. Platinum’s new Wii U exclusive was the star of what we played though, mixing Pikmin with Viewtiful Joe the game was incredibly fun. As we actually used the Wii U pad properly for the first time, here it was used to select your special powers but also when you go inside buildings it acts as a view of the inside, it’s very cool.
Taking a walk around we realised it was 2 o’clock and hurried to the conference centre to find that the room was full and that we wouldn’t be seeing Hideo Kojima anytime soon. Taking the opportunity as the queues were down we looked around a bit more, wandered around the retro games booth, played a bit of Metal Gear Solid and some terrible Sega Saturn racing game before appearing at the Namco Bandai booth where we saw both Tekken Tag Tournament 2 and Ni No Kuni: Wrath of the White Witch. Eager I pounced on Ni No Kuni, unfortunately I was at a console with no sound so as the next one became free I hopped over. Honestly such a beautiful looking game, the gameplay was brilliant and ever so original and I am well and truly looking forward to the full game now.
Moving on we saw Crysis 3, my friend remarked at how ugly it looked for a Crysis game, shocking as it is, then a few moments away Far Cry 3 was there, shining in its colourful, gorgeous scenery and a sight of the happiest man I have ever seen in a game ever. Playing a slight bit of Far Cry 3 I was certainly impressed, much better than the disappointing Far Cry 2 and definitely on my to buy list. We visited the Black Ops 2 stand but were unable to play the game through the people and the staff were very eager to stop people filming or taking pictures. On our way back down we saw DmC: Devil may Cry, it looked great fun but as I came to play I was thrown by the graphics, I found it difficult to look at the screen, the tearing and characters models just didn’t look ready though fortunately the combat was up to scratch, as a fan of Devil May Cry it felt very disappointing but I wasn’t expecting Ninja Theory’s battle engine to be as good as it was, so a bit of a double edged sword.
God of War: Ascension was playing pretty close by so we took a look and we just caught the end of a multiplayer match which looked like great fun so we took on the single player demo. Slightly unimpressed with the repetitive combat, my friend managed to defeat the boss one-handed and not watching the screen, I was slightly surprised to see that God of War has since been influenced by Prince of Persia: Sands of Time and Uncharted with some, now generic, wall climbing and a weird time control mechanic that barely works. Disappointed with the two hack and slash games on display we strolled past the queue for Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance and decided to leave that one game for today, it was probably the second busiest title at the expo.
Continuing our little walk we ended up at the Bethesda and Square Enix part of the room and in the corner was Dishonored. I tried to take a few pictures but was instantly told to delete them by the staff member there. We got to try the game and quite frankly, I wasn’t expecting to love it ever so much as I did. I quickly took a look at the power wheel and noticed the psychic powers at the bottom. The first thing I did was summon rats to take care of the guards and it worked a treat. There were some optional side-objectives to the mission I played which didn’t seem to be told to you and I’m sure affects the full game in some way. After sneaking, possessing and summoning rats to my objective I put the target to sleep and carried him down the stairs. I was seen by some guards and panicking I jumped into the river to save myself, unfortunately I killed the target. Many re-tries later I teleported to my final destination and completed this rather brilliant demo.
Just across from Dishonored was Tomb Raider, mesmerized by the pretty graphics from the Square Enix production budget I was drawn into picking up a controller and, while not as good as Dishonored, I was again wow’d. Tomb Raider was incredibly atmospheric and while the complaints of sexism against throwing Lara around and beating her up I feel are unfounded…there is a lot of beating up Lara. The demo was in the pre-beta stages but already the visuals were crisp and the controls fluid, the cutscenes were spectacular and when we got to the gameplay I feel the survival elements improve upon Uncharted’s cinematic style that’s emanates from the games every pore. The demo wasn’t terribly long but what I played I very much enjoyed and hunting the deer was in itself a heart-breaking task. Upon our final minutes on the show floor my friend and I decided to play Borderlands 2. The split screen gave me a slight headache and the art style, while unique, isn’t quite as good looking as I remember it to be in the original. A quick look around the merch stalls for purchases tomorrow and we were out of the venue, tired but ready for another day of intense gaming.
RabbitsAhoy! 