So it has been a
while since my last update, and while I have some rather major news to share, I
promised to finish my coverage of the Eurogamer expo first so here goes for
that; the other article will have to wait a little longer.
While for me the
biggest hit of the Eurogamer expo were the people I met, there were of course
the games too! The variety of electronic entertainment on hand was startling,
and I have to say I love the policy of Eurogamer where a studio may only
showcase their product if customers can actually play it, an important
distinction over simply showing off a cinematic trailer or worse just a concept.
The games then, were for most of the attendees the most important element, and
there was certainly no lack of choice of what to try, though some were near
impossible to play because of the outstanding queues leading up to them.
Thankfully, I tried most of the games I was interested in early on, knowing
from Rezzed that it would really get busy over the weekend.
Now, Eurogamer is
big, really big and I do not have the space here to comment on each and every
game, so instead I will bring up what were for me, the three highlights. Being
primarily a PC gamer, I will concentrate mostly on those and it is here that we
start with Company of Heroes II. Ever since it was announced that it was in
development, I have been looking forward to having the chance to give it a go,
and I was pleased to see it amply represented at Eurogamer. Thankfully it lived
up to expectations; a definite sequel to the first (great) game, with upgrades
such as the impact of the weather which had such a great impact to the Eastern
Front. I even got a T-shirt out of it, though I am not sure just how my
American father likes me wandering around with a hammer and sickle on my shirt!
Still it is worth remembering that this game seeks to commemorate the many men
and women who gave their lives on these far less appreciated battlefields,
regardless of ideology.
I think this is
actually one of the most important aspects to many of the games that I enjoy;
that they are not simply a mindless action-fest (though those are fun), but rather
they strive for something deeper. Some try to instil a sense of leadership or
provide soft skills such as in Football Manager, while others give a historic
overview. My current love of history was not brought through reeling off dates
in dry history lessons, but through the little clips that really made Age of
Empires alive, or the snippets of colonial background offered in Colonisation. That
said, I am well aware that history is often added after the core game play, Sid
Meier (Civilisation / Colonisation / Pirates) famously stated that they wrote
implemented the history that fit the setting. As such I am not asking games to
become the new educational tool, but instead that they can make the user
interested enough in a subject to delve more into it themselves. Europa
Universalis covers the Reformation very well for instance, and since then I
have begun to read up about it because it was an interesting period of history
which is only touched on (if at all) in schools.
Next up was Farcry
III, which I had high hopes for having been an avid fan of both the previous
titles. I am pleased that it is taking a similar route as Farcry 2, with a
large open map that basically invites you to just come in and play. There is
some deeper gameplay to it, for instance collecting items and craftables, plus
fighting the hostile bandit faction to clear bases for friendly native fighters
to move in. I don’t yet know much about how all this works together (I spent
far too much time just crashing cars into trees, running from tigers and
paragliding around the island), but I have a feeling that it will deliver
something special.
Finally was a game which surprised me; Assassins Creed. I’ve
spent a little time on the very first game, but not enough to call myself
properly attached or even a fan but what I saw of Assassins Creed III was
really very cool. Now, it has to be said I have a soft spot for the Colonial
era which the game is set in, however it was the detail which went into the
demo that I especially appreciated. Basically it was showing off the naval
combat element (I know, naval combat in a stealth assassination game! Firing a
broadside is hardly the epitome of sneakiness!) but what I saw looked like really
good fun. Starting out, you hug the coast in the bright sunshine of the Caribbean,
but as you venture out to sea the storm clouds come in as fast as the enemy
warships. Now normally this would sound extremely cliché, but actually they
pulled the transition off really nicely so that you probably wouldn’t even
notice until you lobbed a volley of chain shot into the increasingly sizable
waves instead of your enemies’ hull.
The last (but by no means least) paragraph goes for a very
honourable mention to the Indie Games Meetup organised by Zero Dependency and
others. This was an event for small developers like myself to essentially get
together and swap stories, and meet with other people including industry
professionals and journalists. It was a really cool experience actually, being
able to speak about things that we are passionate about with others who share
the same interests. At this event we were allowed to bring along laptops /
tablets, etc in order to showcase what we were working on, and Vinland received
quite a bit of interest, and I actually ran out of fliers to give to people.
Image courtesy of; http://www.eurogamer.net/expo/
