Eurogamer Expo day 1: 22 September 2011

Eurogamer expo is the UK's biggest and bestest gamer convention. Last year was a huge hit and this year -keeping in mind with the amount of blockbuster games to be released- was bound to repeat that.
It's also the biggest event not to need signposts, since all you have to do really is just follow the nerds. Heck, you can already spot them in the tube going there. The tube btw, which is London's closest point to the depths of the Nine Hells itself. Mind the Gap? Mind the Chasm more like...

Still, I went with one single goal, to amass as much swag as humanly possible. And during the process I found out there's literally no limit to the weight I am willing to carry when it comes down to gaming swag.

Battlefield 3

The Battlefield 3 conference was presented by Karl Magnus Troedson, the VP of Dice itself who took us a brief look through some trailers and a live-played single-player demo.
We were also promised exclusive footage  but that turned out a bigger dissapointment than waiting 15 years for Duke Nukem Forever. Seriously, since when is rehashed trailer footage with some music exclusive?
The presentation was mostly about showcasing their new engine Frostbite 2, and the 5 pillars its built on. You can see it here for yourself, but don't ask me why they list SOUND as a pillar, and then only use a musical piece in the video...
Troedson began the session by putting the bar high, calling Battlefield 3 "All out war" and calling it the best "Battlefield game yet". I'll have to admit that from going by the footage of the live-played single-player demo, the game looked bloody slick. Graphics and animations were of a high-standard, and when the guns were shot you could actually hear it ricocheting off the walls in the room. Impressive as well to see the actual recoil of the weapons in action.

Troedson was hammering on innovation a lot, but ... As fancy and new the game looks, it's like with a car. Apart from the new engine, gameplay-wise there's litte new under the hood.


Btw, Mr. Troedson? Please don't compare a game ever again to the filmclassic Heat, .. ever .. again ...


Guild Wars 2

Of all the games on show I'd have to say Guild Wars 2 was defintitely one of the ones I *had* to try out. And there seems a pretty fanboyish following as well. There were multiple people who were trying the demo out for the second and even third time, and there was someone with probably the ugliest Charr teddy-bear I've seen
Yep, Guild Wars 2 booth definitely had its fair share of freaks ... me included.

Before you ask, nope we did not get to see the last class, it's still as of yet unannounced. I have already bought the biggest bucket I could find to harvest the tears of nerds that will be shed when it is revealed the last class is not mesmer. (it probably is though)

I played the Norn starting area with an engineer. A class where you could spec into goggles but those didn't seem active at the demo yet. The class itself seemed to much like a ranger with a blunderbuss, but as I only got to level 4 it's hard to fully judge a class at that stage.
The Norn area itself was of a nordic beauty, at first with thick blankets of fog, and then later in a greener area where you could see little currents of wind sweeping through the trees.
My neighbour was playing a high level Asura  guardian and I got to witness high-paced combat, and even a dragon boss who was of an absolute gargantuan size. There were bigger ones even I was told. Crikey.

Gone are also the days of dualclassing and putting your skill points in your class skills, it looked like you could dump your points only in class attributes as is usually the case in RPG's.

From what I played it was a beautiful and fun game, but do not expect a complete revolution of the genre. Because what I saw, I've already seen in many other games.

Skyrim


Last game I played was Skyrim, Bethesda's latest addition to The Elder Scrolls saga. Although the area was absolutely gorgeous, the distance was set at minimal resolution, which just contrasted a highly detailed surroundings, with a blurry horizon. That and some clunky animations made me see it more as Oblivion 2.0 than anything else. Of course it's an immense landslide of difference with Oblivion, a game whose graphcis have dated exceptionally badly. It was played on a console though, so hopefully on a PC we will be able to crank up the details and graphics.
Don't get me wrong, the landscape was wild and of a sublime beauty. In fact there were swooping rivers with waterfalls, and you can even feel it's harder going against the stream. On top of that, I was capable of catching a salmon while wading in it. I was told you will be able to cook them as well for buffs. Neat.

I got to try out the new dualwielding system. It worked great, especially the  conventional melee dualwielding, but also a literally "spells and sword" fighting style. Not completely seamless, but still quite smooth. Of course at that stage in the game it was impossible to try out multiple spell combinations, but if executed correctly this could bring a nice new dimension to the spellcasting gameplay, and fighting in general.
Also worth pointing out is that you'll get to a larger city, with an excellent nordic medieval architecture, including sculpted woodwork.
There was a giant nearby that even makes the screen shake from his walking.

Either not implemented yet, or discarded, but the persuasion-wheel mini-game was gone. There is only a Persuasion line available.

Interviews

I had the great opportunity to speaking directly with OnLive and the lead dev of Bossa Studios but those merit different articles.


Thanks for reading!