Gamescom - 2013

[Uli]

if anyone is interested in a forum member meeting at gamescom please pm me for exchange of phone numbers. i will be there tomorrow and friday, maybe sunday too.

[Family Fry]

You got your eye on any specific games Uli?

[EvilBoris]

Whichever ones have bullet penetration.

[kryss]

I saw those 12GB ps3 in bestbuy this afternoon.

[Uli]

You got your eye on any specific games Uli?

Destiny, Watch Dogs, Tom Clancy's The Division, AC Black Flag and Forza 5 are the ones i am most interested in.

you will be at the show too?

[Family Fry]

Not this year unfortunately but I am definitely down for next year, may even have a few days holiday there too.
Would be nice to hear some Division impressions, it looked awesome at E3. Ubi really are nailing it with some great titles.

[Uli]

Would be nice to hear some Division impressions, it looked awesome at E3. Ubi really are nailing it with some great titles.

yep, it's my most anticipated NG title, among Watch Dogs and Forza 5. i will be reporting back my impressions either here or in the dedicated news thread.

[Adam Stone]

Uli, I'm here too! Tomo is open for press so you interviewing?? Sadly my phone has no single but hope you have a great time man! It's going to be amazing - a lot of great games there.

[Uli]

Adam,

i've just made it back from day one.... seen and played some awesome games...

regarding the meeting i've messaged you my number and email. just in case.

[Adam Stone]

Awesome, I wonder if we managed to see each other today without knowing!
Ill reply tomo, off to bed now (just got back from after do)

Very quick impressions:
Thief is looking promising. Really nice video presentation showing off gameplay footage. Very staged but the potential for diverse play styles and ways to succeed we're very clear and evident. Looked gorgeous at times, but ultimately looked classically thief. I just don't like the main characters design, too young, too boyish.

Evil within looks amazing. Only gameplay video - but it's now an instant day one purchase for me. Personally my highlight of today. It looks like a true sequel to resident evil after resident evil 4. There's evidence of resident evil 1 in there too, because at times it did look a bit clunky to play - which I liked. Not silky smooth. Also clearly influenced but silent hill.
There were two areas shown, the first a police station (which ends up being quite an awesome escape sequence - very tense) and inside a cabin, which was straight from resi 4.
Will post more another time but for now I think it's looking very promising.

No game at the show looks "next gen" apart from destiny. I know the hardware and nothing is pushing it by any means yet, which is a shame. But doesn't overally matter.
Titanfall is a lot of fun. I'm not massively fussed about call of duty, however titanfall is evidently more fun .... I was surprised by how much I liked it. But definitely not a looker. Visually very current gen (not including streaming and scale).
Final fantasy x is actually a lot crisper than I originally thought - but it is a clear straight HD port visually, no added paint. Played the same, will be a nice treat.
Killer is dead is awesome fun - so pretty. More to come
Nice to play more rayman, is lovely but should have launched for Wii u when it was ready
Sonys floor is sadly hugely underwhelming.
Mario kart is fun - very mario kart. New racing on walls etc doesn't feel overally new in demo levels. Very pretty and solid to control - it's mario kart so yay
Donkey kong was a bit meh for me - love dk and love the Wii / 3ds versions and this feels/plays/looks almost exactly the same. Not a bad thing as such, but meh....
Mario 3d world looks and feels like a 3ds game. Great as a new 3ds title but feels a bit limp as a Wii u title .... Was fun if a bit boring (I'm referring to the demo)
Zelda 3ds looks amazing. Plays amazing. Wasn't too fussed before but now a first day purchase
Mad max - looks okay. Linear. Scripted. Poor animations, some lovely lighting but ultimately very generic.
Killer instinct is a solid fighter. It is instantly clear that it is a better fighter than the original classics - but not nearly as charming. Doesn't feel like killer instinct to me but that music.... Could be really cool
Spark is cool and seems pretty popular. Tonnes of potential - I know the guys working on it, lovely people very passionate. Bot exactly my kinda thing but it could be a huge hit. A solid demo
Skyrim online looks like turd but is fun to play.

Erm.... There is tonnes more but that's off the top of my head. Ill wrote detailed thoughts when not so sleepy and not on phone.
Oh yes! And the gamescom babes are hot. I was distracted more than I probably should have been.... They were definitely next gen

[85 78 73 81 85 69]

thechineseroom have announced today that Sony Santa Monica are now working on the game with so it's no longer getting a PC release. It's always a shame when games are limited to formats as people miss out but I suppose it does allow them to concentrate on the strengths of the machine they're using.

So the thinking went like this, we don’t have enough money or production expertise to make this game without help. We don’t think we can raise enough through Kickstarter or public alpha to make this happen. We could do with production support on a game this scale. We’ve always wanted to make a console game. Publishers have bad reputations all too often. Hey, Sony Santa Monica are great though. We’ve met them a few times and really like them and their attitude.

Also, PS4 is starting to look very cool as a platform. All eggs thrown into singular basket, Sony Santa Monica contacted, everybody likes each other, lots of love for the project. Long dark night of the soul mulling over implications of shifting across to console. Mix of pragmatism and excitement about the possibilities win out.

Dear Esther fans were very much in our thoughts, but enough of us are multi-platform gamers to make this work for us and we’re in this for the long game, so I can’t see us not returning to PC, or doing whatever we can to keep that fan base as we owe them a great deal.

But part of that is following our instincts about how we develop and find stability as a studio and this is going to be part of the process. And without sounding like a bought man, the PS4 is genuinely a really, really cool platform, and if people have never bought into console gaming before, this is the time.

Rock, Paper, Shotgun

[wakka]

Can we have more on the babes please Adam

[Uli]

nice impressions Adam. if you are into "next gen booth babes" you should have been at the gamescom when it was still located in Leipzig. because nothing matches saxon girls in terms of hotness. they are not only sexy but also extremely pretty.

btw: i didn't go today as i am still recovering form yesterday but tomorrow i will be there from 12 to finish i guess. would love to meet you there so drop me a line. my only fixed appointment will be at 3pm at the Activision business booth H5.2 for a CoD Ghosts demo. maybe we can meet there at 2.30?

[djtickle]

Sounds like a really good year to have gone! Thanks for the impressions. Hyped for titanfall, it's getting a lot of good feedback!

[Uli]

some quick impressions of my 2 days at gamescom:

- FHD next gen-console games? not at launch at least!
- some next gen launch titles are not even ready to be playable, e.g. Killzone and Watch Dogs, which baffled me
- some current gen version were absent, e.g. Watch Dogs, BF4 and CoD Ghosts, which says a lot about the quality of the so called "next gen" in my opinion (!)
- show highlights i played: AC4 and Titanfall, Lords of Shadow 2
- show letdowns i played: Forza 5 (looked underwhelming and had no wheel setup), Ryse (horrible camera and controls)
- surprises of the show: The Evil Within - looks very promising - and Wolfenstein, which just looked and played great

@ djtickle
sorry man, no luck with the t-shirt. you had to win a time consuming competition to get it as a price.