Eurogamer Expo 2011

[Flabio]

The website says that press passes are non-transferable as you need to produce ID that matches the name on the pass?

[Brad]

You can email Eurogamer and they'll transfer them for you before the day.

[Flabio]

Ah cool. Look forward to seeing some of you about on the Friday then. Although there's little chance we'll actually recognise each other is there? Hehe.

What are people most interested in having a look at? Not fussed about facing the queues for BF3 or MW3 as I think I'm going to sit both of those out anyway. Skyrim I'll look at if I can, but again, expecting big queues.

Hoping to get a bit of time with UMvC3 to see if I want to upgrade to it or not, and I really hope Street Fighter X Tekken doesn't have much queuing so I can have a decent bash on it.

Not there in any official capacity, but out of professional courtesy I'm going to have to at least try and have a go on the Star Wars Kinect game if it's playable...

Other than that, I'm just looking to be pleasantly surprised by the 3DS and Vita line ups. And if I'm lucky, get some photo fodder for our various cosplay threads... (I always feel a bit uncomfortable taking photos of people though, even though I know most cosplayers like to be photographed)

[ItsThere]

I'll be there on Friday

[Shozuki]

so considering theres a bulk of us going on Friday - any plans for some sort of NTSC-UK meet?

[Brad]

In terms of cosplay don't expect to find anything that belongs in the good cosplay thread. Should be plenty of stuff for the other one though! If you get in early (e.g. with a press pass) then RUN to the stands with the big hitters on and you should get a game. Then when the masses come in you can take a look at the smaller stuff. Also check out the developer sessions. I've been to a few good ones in the past.

[ItsThere]

I'd be up for a meet - will wear a red carnation and carry a copy of the FT for identification purposes ;p

[Shozuki]

In terms of cosplay don't expect to find anything that belongs in the good cosplay thread. Should be plenty of stuff for the other one though! If you get in early (e.g. with a press pass) then RUN to the stands with the big hitters on and you should get a game. Then when the masses come in you can take a look at the smaller stuff. Also check out the developer sessions. I've been to a few good ones in the past.

Cool man, with that pass you've kindly donated to me I'll get there early then - earliest is 10AM isn't it?

Looking at the meet-ups from eurogamers website theres a liquid lunch meet up around 12:30 I think - will people be going there?

[endo]

Where's that? I'm meeting mates in the pub, but not the one closest to the venue- went there last year for a lunchtime pint and unsurprisingly it was utterly packed.

[Flabio]

Never seemed like a decent area to go for a drink to me. The ones closest to the place are rammed, and the ones a little further out are, well, in Knightsbridge and Kensington.

[Brad]

Awww such a shame they're putting the wedding show on the following weekend at Earls Court this year. Last year it was hilarious being in a queue to see and play all the latest videogames and watching these poor blokes walk past our queue to attend a show comprising wedding dresses and flowers

[Richie_uk]

Awww such a shame they're putting the wedding show on the following weekend at Earls Court this year. Last year it was hilarious being in a queue to see and play all the latest videogames and watching these poor blokes walk past our queue to attend a show comprising wedding dresses and flowers

That was comedy gold last year, even a few blokes asked me how to get in when I was waiting in the que poor sods :-)

[Flabio]

So, this is a long one, and I'm fairly trollied after meeting up with people I used to work with afterwards for beer so...

It was a fun show to visit, but I'm used to trade only shows like E3 so having to queue for half an hour to spend 5 minutes playing something puts me in an off mood to start with.

The only real outright complaint I had is that so many of the games I wanted to have a go on were demoing ONLY in their multiplayer modes. I don't really care how Uncharted 3 is in MP on a swish 3D tv, I want to see a bit of the campaign, for example. And SO many games were like that. Interested in seeing a bit of AssCreedRev in SP? Tough luck. What about Ace Combat? Or Ghost Recon? Nope, MP or nothing.

Didn't get a lot of time on the various fighting games, as for some reason Ultimate Marvel v Capcom 3, Soul Calibur 5, Streetfigher X Tekken and Tekken tag 2 were all crammed into a tiny space (2 pods for each) with less room than the setup they had for The ICO and Metal Gear HD remakes.

(Nice to see that even though there was a large UK fighting games community prescence there, they didn't take over all the pods, instead making sure that if a random casual player and their mate wanted a go they got one. These are probably the only games these guys came to play, so it's awesome to see that they don't hog the machines, and generally act like the gentlemen a UK scene deserves and should be all about).

Other random, game specific, notes:

The new Ridge Racer is not great. It lacks the crazy neon visuals, happy hardcore music and drift happy gameplay. Instead it seems to want to be Burnout Takedown, only it handles weirdly and misses what actually made Takedown work. They still have time to sort it, but right now it's not even close to being on my list.

Silent Hill Downpour had a really odd demo. It was very puzzle heavy, and quite fiddly to work out. I saw dozens of people walk away after a couple of minutes because there was no real action there.

Soul Calibur 5 is basically a prettier version of Soul Calibur 4. Still too early a build to tell though.

UMvC3 does feel looser and less combo-centric than the original. Watched a lot of decent MvC3 players on it, and they were all saying that the changes to stun scale etc... have taken a lot of the focus off 'nail your 30 second combo to win' gameplay of the original.

Street Fighter X Tekken looks an *awful* lot better in the flesh than it does in any of the videos they've put out. Didn't get a go as the queue for it was insane, but I think I'll be liking it as it seems to sit between SF4 and MvC3 in terms of gameplay.

There were an awful lot of third person cover shooters knocking about. And given most of them were in the same area of the show floor as Gears 3, they were all looking pretty lame in comparison.

Skyrim, running on 360, was by miles the prettiest thing I saw.

[MrMarbles]

The Vita area was an exercise in annoyance. Just twelve units on display, constantly accompanied by a half-interested rep watching you play a game you don't get to choose (you have to pick a random card that states which one game you can look at after an hour of waiting).

My observations:

Mario Kart 7 was excellent - the glider stuff was actually really well done and added something pretty worthwhile to the formula.

Mario Land 3D was surprisingly dull.

Kid Icarus is borderline unplayable for a lefty but looks lovely.

Wielding a dong and beating down civilians in Saints Row 3 is childishly satisfying.

Rage looks lovely.

Joe Danger is great.

Ridge Racer is awful (drift mapped to a button? Buuuuh?)

The Feisar lady by the Vita area is corrrr.

Also: Ace Combat was single-player - you get a t-shirt if you successfully finish the demo. There was a massive amount of multiplayer stuff on show, though - too much for my liking.

[Silvergun X]

Anarchy Reigns.

That was my star of the show by FAR. What an excellent game!

Tried Ridge Racer unbounded... It isn't Ridge Racer at all. It's a completely different game designed as a Burnout clone with the Ridge Racer name carelessly attached to it. That's how I felt coming away from it...

Had my go on the PS Vita - Echo the comments about the Feisar lady. Jeeeeeeeeesus Christ on a bike!

The console wasn't half bad either. I got my play on Uncharted and loved it to pieces, thought the way the touch screen was implemented was very clever. The console itself feels really weird, they actually are proper analog sticks and not some awkward slide pad.

Rayman Origins was kinda cool. Trying to take the awesome art direction and apply it to Super Mario Bros
Wii and it pulls it off quite nicely.

Ninja Gaiden 3 just wasn't Ninja Gaiden at all. It was fun but.... Meh..

Dark Souls owned me. Instantly and repeatedly. I want it based on this very fact.

Final Fantasy XIII-2, showing a lot of promise but what the hell was up with the framerate? Jeeeeeez. Also no menus or customisation so i couldn't set up the paradigms I wanted. Pah!!

Kid Icarus was fun as hell. Definitely a purchase for me.

Nabbed my free onlive box.

I think I played Anarchy Reigns about 6-7 times though. Hype meter completely over the top, can't wait at all.