Managed to not get around to posting about this for almost a week. Shameful.
The event was probably bigger than last year’s, though not as much as I expected when I heard it was in Earl’s Court. Still, the event’s grown a lot in the last two years, long may it continue.
I was lucky enough to be able to attend RockPaperShotgun’s Brink session rather than be part of the highly-publicised queue for it. Their write-up, including my thoughts (that I really had no business offering on so little sleep) is here. Even though I was rubbish at it in the short time I had with it,the core SMART system traversal mechanic is really easy to understand, it seems to tick all the boxes, it’s fast-moving, accessible and balanced with objective-based gameplay that keeps things interesting. Really well presented and detailed, the product of much care and attention as revealed by Splash Damage’s Ed Stern later, when one character uses his radio the others will hear the sounds going on around him, and guns sound much louder in iron-sight mode as they are closer to the ear. Coupled with the interesting setting of the game, I think we can expect quite an immersive experience at the end. I came away wanting more, and unfortunately it will still be quite some time before I can get it.
Obviously I sampled a number of titles on the show floor. Enslaved was already sold to me for it’s presentation, though I was able to see that it also has really satisfying combat. Slow-motion kills may be overused nowadays, but the shots in this game look really good, showing the exertion on Monkey’s face peering through the hole he’s tearing through a robot. Also caught a presentation by Ninja Theory’s Tameem Antoniades with some very interesting insight into the games conception. It’s sometimes sad to know what cool and impressive things are made in the industry that can never be released for copyright reasons.
Got to try some Assassin’s Creed Brotherhood multiplayer, which I had not been paying much attention to in spite of how much I enjoyed the first two games. It is unlike any other multiplayer I can think of, and it’s very satisfying to get one over your target by walking by them and shanking them, or with a long-range pistol shot from a roof, and kills are well presented enough with a short enough downtime that you don’t find them frustrating (the victim sees them self being killed in slow motion whilst the killer remains in normal gameplay, a neat touch, I thought) I’m not sure there is much more to it than what I saw, but it is still simple but distinctive fun. I think some random variance should be applied to characters appearances though. There are eight recognisable character types with one model each, as best I can tell, each also colour-coded and of fairly distinct profile. I think with this they could in this way tell a player that their target is of the “Noble” class or some such, and have a good enough idea of what they were looking for, without needing to populate the city with just eight character models. Small thing that probably only really bothers me, an AC expansion is a sale to me, and this is a bonus.
Seemed little point in playing Fable III or Fallout New Vegas as 1) I don’t think you can get a feel for these sorts of games in the time I could reasonably take and 2) I’m buying them no matter what. Was still good to see them running though, Fallout looks like it deals with a lot of the issues its predecessor had, and is just a more interesting setting than the fairly generic post-apocalypse of Fallout 3. I don’t have much to say about Fable III right now, expect that to change once I get it on release day.
Vanquish may have just been the XBox Live demo that I haven’t had a chance to download yet, but it’s great fun to play. It’s a cover-based shooter for people who don’t necessarily play cover-based shooters, I think, enabling either conservative defensive play using cover, or a fast-moving attacking style, shooting on the move using the “bullet-time” effect brought when shooting whilst dashing. Didn’t catch much of the plot, if there really is one, but it seems like pretty, undemanding fun and excitement.
Rage is still I think over a year away yet but deserves a mention for the free t-shirt I got from them. Id Tech 5 is certainly impressive, and for now seems to be the focus of their presentations, don’t know much about the game itself besides being a shooter with RPG elements. Looks to me like the reverse of Fallout 3, a shooter first and and RPG very much second, maybe even third after being a driving game as well.
There was plenty more to see (in particular Crysis 2, which I’m kicking myself for not giving a closer look) but those were the main things I wanted to share. Plenty to look forward to this next year, I think.
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