As you may know already the UK team from The Koalition have been attending the Eurogamer Expo 2010, which has come to be the UK’s largest gaming event. It’s been very hectic trying to bring you guys some exclusive content. So much so that we’ve hardly played any of the great games on offer. We have however been attending conferences and Q&A sessions with developers. We also have a couple interviews coming up as soon as I manage to get through all the editing. We will also be doing a few impression articles during the week, complete with assets. Yesterday the wifi at my hotel wouldn’t stay stable, which set me back somewhat as far as posting up content. So to give you as many impressions as possible at once I decided to follow my colleague Carl Daniel and write a blog post summarizing my experience.
Firstly I have to give mad props to my colleagues. Kieran Blackman may get hated on for his extreme fanboyism, but he goes hard to get content. He has done some great interviews, and has made some great connections. Carl Daniel made this whole thing possible by giving us a place to stay. He has also helped to keep us focused as well as offering his own impressions of the games on show. My good friend Rameez Quadri brought some high tech gear along with him, allowing us to give you some high quality images from the event.
Now that we have that out of the way, let me speak on the various games I have been able to check out.
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inFamous 2
I got to check out inFamous 2 at the press conference from Friday. The guys from Sucker Punch showed us some of Cole’s new abilities that can be used to tackle your enemies this time around. We got to see some of his attacks using the his mele weapon known as The Amp. Also the guys at Sucker Punch spoke on the new Cole, and they even acknowledged the whole ordeal where fans backlashed against Cole’s character model being changed. Let’s get Ninja Theory for Dante next!
Little Big Planet 2
People will think that I’m talking out my arse when I say that this is one of the best games of the show. But who cares, all I can do is speak my mind. The first Little Big Planet was outstanding to the point I didn’t know how they would top it. During this conference they showed us exactly how far they could push the bar of innovation. Media Molecule are some of the coolest developers you could ever meet. During the conference they created a new level with input from everyone in the crowd, just to show how everything is possible. They also showed off the tools which you can use to assign button mapping to your created objects, as well as motion. Not only that but you can now compose your own music score for your levels. Theres tons more to say about this game, but I will write up an impressions article with assets during the week. Look out for it.
Killzone 3
Not much new was shown for this game, but they played a demonstration with the move controller. Once again I was stunned at the mele attacks, especially the one where you can gouge an enemies eyes out.
The Witcher 2
CD Projekt has crafted the perfect follow up to The Witcher. The Witcher 2 is one hell of an RPG. Many of our readers may not be familiar with the game as it’s on the PC, but I can tell you it’s one of the best games we’ve seen at the expo. CD Projekt say that they hope to make a console version some day if the opportunity arises. Look out for more information and assets soon.
Socom: Special Forces
This is one of the few games I actually got to spend some time with. This build of the game had a couple glitches in which I was walking on air, very confusing. Overall though Socom: Special forces is a very solid shooter. It is very different from what we have seen previously in Socom games. I don’t want to judge it fully this early on, but it seems a lot less tactical in terms of realism. Also Anthony Frasier and Edward V we’re correct about the move functionality in the game. I stood by and watched someone else play and for a moment I thought he wasn’t even playing at all. Where is the motion? It’s not like you can use the Move wand to aim and shoot, so I have to ask what is the whole point?
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As I said before, make sure you keep checking out the site throughout the week for full on impressions of all the games discussed. Also look out for Kieran Blackman’s blog for his personal thoughts on the expo. Follow me and Carl Daniel on on Twitter to get live updates from us during the final day of Eurogamer.
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