Staff Blog: A Recap of Eurogamer Expo 2011
For a long time now, there have been trade fairs for all sorts of industries and hobbies, but it's the level at which these shows are taken to which has been consistently expanding. The Electronic Entertainment Expo (that's E3 to you & I) has been going strong for some 16 years and is considered by many to be the main event of the video gaming calendar. While America gets its fair share of other fairly large expos and conventions, mainland Europe has GamesCom and Japan gets Tokyo Game Show, both of which are shows catered to professional journalistic gamers (with the last few days open to the public) and come chock full of announcements with first showings of trailers and gameplay. Unfortunately, the UK doesn't really have a direct equivalent to these, but the next closest thing would have to be the Eurogamer Expo. Although only having run for the last 4 years, Eurogamer Expo has fast become the largest video gaming expo in the UK. This was my second year in a row attending Eurogamer Expo as a member of the public (no press pass for me), and I was again there with various other members of the community (shout out to Laguz, Eskimo Keith, Kiwiified & MooMoo)! These are my thoughts and reflections on the show, for all those that couldn't come along.
First thing to note was how much bigger the show was this year. It had moved from a smaller venue into Earl's Court One, more than doubling its floor space, and adding an extra day, making it a four day event running from 22-25 September, which in the end racked up the attendance of 34,000 eager gamers. This was clearly shown especially on the Saturday, as titles such as Batman: Arkham City & The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim had massive queues in order to get your hands on the demos. The PS Vita also had a reasonably sized queue, but the thing that really had people the craziest by far was OnLive who were giving away free consoles or vouchers to buy one for a measly £1. You've really gotta hand it to their marketing team, because they have no doubt successfully got thousands of UK gamers to put their foot in the door towards their cloud subscription service.
Of course, OnLive weren't the only ones giving away free swag, and by the end of the weekend I saw plenty of people coming away with free T-shirts, posters, bags and even Ocarinas provided you could convince Nintendo staff you were a big enough Legend of Zelda fan! There were also plenty of shirt and merchandise stalls tempting you to part with some hard earned cash for the pleasure of wearing your nerdiness on your chest. My favourite piece of merch had to be the foam pickaxe from Minecraft which would have been perfect for the cosplayer I saw walking around with a Steve head (not so much for the Creeper who was lurking the following day).
On the note of cosplaying, I must say that they were a lot more prevalent than last year. There was a competition on the Saturday for the best Nathan Drake cosplay, with the winner taking away a free PS Vita on day of release, with assorted Elenas and a very porn-star-esque looking Sully. Other notable cosplays which I saw would have to be Commander Shepherd (Mass Effect), Chell (Portal), Big Boss & Sniper Wolf (Metal Gear Solid), Scorpion & Sub-Zero (Mortal Kombat), Joker (Batman), Serah (Final Fantasy XIII-2) and various Marios & Links.
Speaking of Serah and Square Enix's latest spin-off title, for the care of all the Final Fantasy fans from FF Union, I feel like I must talk a little about the demo which was on show there. To begin with, Final Fantasy XIII-2 was one of the few games that was showing on both PS3 & Xbox 360 as most other titles favoured one or the other. There were about 15 screens set up to try the demo, which saw Noel & Serah running around after Atlas in the Brescha Ruins, which is the same one that was used at E3 earlier this year. From a gameplay point of view, fans of the original game won't be disappointed, with the only notable change being the addition of feral creatures as your third party member whom you can use to perform a special attack (hearing a Chocobo screaming KWEH over and over was surprisingly satisfying). This added in a quick time event to break the monotony of spamming the Auto-Battle command. It's up to you to decide whether the story is going to be rich or the characters totally obnoxious, because you sure couldn't tell from the demo (aside from Serah squealing every other minute).
All over the Expo floor there were absolutely tons of games to see and try out, including some old classics in a Retro Replay area. Although most people had turned up to try out the releases of the next few months, it was no surprise to see how people flocked to try out the old Japanese arcade machines & of course Pacman! Eurogamer had also set up a flank of screens allowing you to play every single game in their Game of the Year hall of fame, ranging from Unreal Tournament to Mass Effect 2. It was really nice to still have the showing of these older titles to cut between all the 50" HDTVs, 3D glasses and surround sound system to relax with something a little more low key.
Although there were plenty of Developer Sessions with developers from Battlefield 3, Guild Wars 2, Hitman Absolution, Star Wars: The Old Republic, Assassin's Creed: Revelations (the list goes on), the highlight of the weekend by far, for myself and also a lot of other Naughty Dog fans, would have to be the one for Uncharted 3. I attended on both Friday & Saturday (battling 75 minute queues each time), meaning that I got a double dose of Nolan North. Friday's session was focused more on the exclusive piece of gameplay that showed some of the new features that have been added since the previous title. Richard Lemarchand, Naughty Dog's Lead Game Designer on the series, talked the audience through sand particle animations, new lighting effects and a cool new disarming motion in which Drake can beat down an enemy with a melee move, forcing them to drop their weapon, which he'll catch in mid-air (all in epic slow-mo, of course). Fan reaction was that this was kinda awesome. The Saturday session was more focused on Nolan North's work as an actor for the game, showing clips from motion capture recording for scenes and his general input into the series as a whole (listen out for the line "I worked my ass off today" in the game, folks... That was his son's input). Of course, I wouldn't be much of a fan girl if I didn't rush at the end of the session to get North's autograph & a photo taken. I have to admit, as much as I love the man already, I was super surprised at just how nice he was. He seemed to have plenty of time for every one of the fans, signing multiple things and chatting away whilst he did so. When the GU Unionites were there together, we all gathered round for a group photo, clearly meaning that North is actually one of us now.
All in all the Expo was so much fun, even though a bit damaging to the wallet. Although getting to play the new games and getting to listen to developers were what everyone came to see, I think that the general atmosphere of the show is what always has a lasting effect on those attending. Being surrounded by like minded people and making queuing buddies is always fun. Just be prepared to have your mind blown from awesomeness, your wallet emptied from merchandise, and your body to be wrecked from excitement and tiredness. That being said, the dates for next year have already been set and I recommend that everyone in the UK set aside the time to take the trip down to London. I will definitely be there for a third year in a row.
(Photos care of Laguz & myself with permission. Click any image to view larger.)
