Category Archives: Gaming

Egx Eurogamer London Expo – Earls Court

Went to the EGX Eurogamer Expo at Earls Court yesterday; think it was the busiest one I’ve attended over the years.

Heard some foreign languages and accents this year too; it really has grown from the rag tag collection of games several years ago that’s for sure.

That said, I was disappointed with the expo this year.

Dragon Age Inquisition had a 2.5 hour waiting time to play games, all because they only had 8 consoles; I have pre-ordered this game and was looking forward to a hands-on preview.  

From what I did see, the game looked amazing with great visuals and smooth gameplay.  Guess I’ll just have to wait…..

Bioware should have managed this better, especially when you look out from the balcony next to the Dragon Age section and spot the obscene use of space for Call Of Duty…..I wish that franchise would just die already.

Battlefield Hardline was a lot of fun to play, although it did feel like there was a an over balance of vehicle combat (just run people over in cars) and I hope they fix that.

Elite Dangerous looked amazing, would have liked to see a running demo where you could freelance as opposed to the dog fighting demo they were showcasing.  Still, that took me back to my BBC Acorn Electron days!

The Batman Arkham Knight preview was my first experience of being in a mini movie theatre watching video game footage; the guy providing commentary whipped up a frenzy amongst the fan boys, screaming about how Batman could remote control the Batmobile during the game. 

I might be a geek, but I’m not in the league of people who clap because Batman can daisy chain grapple hooks during his ascension of Arkham. 

I loved the look of the game; but there is something very annoying about the voice of the Arkham Knight and I can’t wait to smash his face in.

The cosplay twats were out in force again; I was told the scene was dying out when I visited Shibuya on a Sunday afternoon in October 2005.  Someone should tell all the idiots who turned up wearing the same Assassins Creed outfit…..uber fail cunts!

Nintendo had a pretty paltry showing considering the amount of new games they have coming out AND now that the WiiU is starting to get a little momentum going in the market.

I thought Yoshis Woolly World had plagiarised Little Big Planet (one console to try) a bit having a knitted character (like Sackboy) and wasn’t that impressed with the format;  whereas I can only praise the developers of Little Big Planet 3 (a dozen consoles to play) for their innovative game. 

I honestly think the organisers were greedy and sold far too many tickets compared to the amount of opportunities you had to play the games.

Why was the Indie section so tucked away this year; that was a shame? 

Why was the Nintendo stage limited to two tired geeky presenters who were stalling for time in between asking silly questions for prizes and organising Hula Hoop competions?  It was amateurish like being back at Pontins.

Why have security when they don’t read your ticket credentials or inspect your bags anymore?

Why do they let call of duty have so much exposure for such a small amount of product (think that sums up the Games too)?

Why do you allow Game to peddle their wares at such ridiculous prices?

Sort it out Eurogamer you flids!

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Mach Storm – Dome Screen Dogfight By Namco

Milton Keynes Holywood bowling has a Mach Storm arcade cabinet!!!

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Mach Storm is an air combat simulator with a cockpit-style cabinet to sit in; the unique dome screen gives players an almost 180 degree view of the high definition action in the sky.

Players have five different missions to choose from and all are set in real cities around the world. Each city has a set difficulty. 

The huge screen really pulls you into the game and the fast pace makes the game a truly immersed experience; not only do players see the action all around but they also feel the action through the force feedback in the joystick as well as the thundering bass installed in the flight seat.

I absolutely loved how old school Mach Storm felt, retro gameplay with state of the art projection.

Well worth a couple of quid!!!

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You can be my wingman!!!

Whittakers Ascot Gold Cup Horse Racing Arcade Game

Whittakers ‘Ascot Gold Cup’ Arcade Game! What a blast from the past!

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They had one of these machines down in Brighton Pier’s amusement arcade when I was a kid; I have many fond memories playing this little beauty for hours and hours!!!!

10p a go (just like your Mum!), you place a bet using the button on the console and select a horse between 1-5. The horses have increasingly higher wins as you run through the numbers:

1 – 10p
2 – 20p
3 – 40p
4 – 60p
5 – £2.50

The machine has each horse on a runner and randomly adjusts the speed of each neddy to try and outfox the punter. You can even decide to use the ‘double or quit’ feature if you are feeling particularly cocky!

They certainly don’t make them like this anymore!

Eurogamer 2012 – Part 2

Fuck!  Almost forgot to mention Aliens Colonial Marines.

Wow, what a game that’s looking!  Watched as a SEGA crew playing aliens took on teams of marines, I absolutely loved playing this game, fantastic!

Thought I’d also put up a random picture of a Force India F1 car (gotta love the irony of the Kingfisher advertising?), a sneaky picture that I took of the WiiU and a funky advertising cube for Resident Evil 6.

 

Eurogamer 2012 – Earls Court

Angelo and I attended Eurogamer Expo 2012 at Earls Court on Thursday; the expo is held once a year and lets you get a glimpse at forthcoming games releases weeks (sometimes months) before they go on general release.  Going to the expo has become something of a tradition for both of us and it made a refreshing change going midweek rather than at the weekend.

With all the casual gamers (who blatantly only turn up to play the latest Call of Duty game) waiting for the weekend, Earls Court was saturated with hardcore geeks!  Yes, I know that’s rich coming from me, but I felt positively ‘normal’ compared to some of the people there!

Eurogamer 2012 was a surprising improvement on the excellent expo last year; Call of Duty Black Ops 2 was the headline game along with Nintendo giving a sneak preview of  their impressive looking WiiU console.

Call of Duty Black Ops 2
Call of Duty Black Ops 2 is an exceptional FPS, the frame rate and textures look so clear and smooth compared to previous outings.  Personally, I’ve not enjoyed a COD game since World at War and am a little reluctant to invest in such a money grabbing franchise; I doubt I will buy a copy when it comes out, regardless of it being a very good game.  Battlefield 3 forever man!

WiiU
The WiiU stand was absolutely heaving with people and I did my best to peer in and have a look at the games rather than queue up.  The ZombieU game looks very atmospheric and the launch titles look like regurgitated N64 games.

Nintendo 3DS XL
I also had a quick look at the Nintendo 3DS XL console which I am thinking of buying, the screen is impressive and the clunky build feels a lot more reassuring than that of the PSP Vita; the Nintendo games catalogue looks WAY more appealing that paying £200 for a portable console just to play Fifa on?

My highlights of the expo included:

X-Com – Enemy Unknown
The remake of the ‘X-Com Enemy Unknown’ game looks brilliant, I absolutely can’t wait for this to come out as I still play the original game now.

I really enjoyed having a go on the PC version but a quick comparison shows that the Xbox conversion looks spot on as well;    Turn based games hark back to my days playing Warhammer 40k and I hope this breathes new life into the genre.

Strike Suit Zero
I found this little gem whilst Angelo jumped around with all the other prats on the rather good looking Halo 4.  Strike Suit Zero is a space based simulation which is clearly inspired by the the Wing Commander series and looks to fill another forgotten genre.   Shame it didn’t have a more prominent location as it was tucked just behind the Indie section.

I chatted to one of the developers for a while after getting my teeth into the game and I told him how much it reminded me of Colony Wars and Blast Radius (two games that I loved on the Playstation One).   Definitely one to watch.

Company of Heroes 2
PC gaming is definitely on the rise, Company of Heroes 2 is a gorgeous RTS game which reminded me a lot of Blitzkrieg.  You play the Russians during WW2 and you have to give the Nazi’s a good slap!  I did just that in the demo and thoroughly enjoyed using the flamethrower squad member to torch the racist scum.

Medal of Honor – Warfighter
This was the big shock for me, what a fucking toilet game this is.  It moves like a cardboard box, the badly rendered marine characters look like they’ve been snatched from ‘Pitfighter’  and the whole thing was just AWFUL.  No wonder they didn’t want me to film it.

MOH Warfighter is probably the worst FPS that I have ever seen; the hit detection is terrible (I watched time after time as Angelo put a full clip into someone for them to turn around and take him out with one shot).  Shocking, especially when you have something ‘perfect’ like COD BO2 to compare it to just down the hallway?

Retro Section
Absolutely loved how they expanded the Retro section this year to include a timeline of consoles and games throughout the 80’s, 90’s and 2000’s.  The MAME cabinets were a nice touch; I absolutely smashed up the retro section’s crew guy at Streetfighter before reminding Angelo who the fucking Daddy is (stop pulling that face Ang).

Chill out areas
The chill out zone was a sight for sore eyes after we’d walked around for about 5 hours.  Plush armchairs and mood lighting.  Perfect for when you’re almost 35 and you need to put your feet up after a hard days gaming.

18 years or over section
Makes Angelo laugh every time we go, especially when you see kids being turned away before they can play Call of Duty.  Waaaah waaaah!

So there we go, I have ordered the X-com game along with Resident Evil 6 and look forward to seeing a peek at next gen gaming in Expo 2013.

 

Diablo 3 – Whimsyshire – The Land Of The Killer Unicorns

I just logged back in to Diablo 3 for the first time in about a week; the Germany VS Italy game was so pants that I thought I’d log in and see how many times I could be killed by a ‘molten’ boss before I gave up!

It took me a bit to get into a game for some reason, perhaps everyone else is watching the football?  Anyway, I eventually found a full game with three other level 52 players, clicked a team mates banner and was immediately transported to……..WHIMSYSHIRE – LAND OF THE KILLER UNICORNS!

Whimsyshire is Diablo 3’s secret cow level, the developers must have been on LSD AND magic mushrooms when they put it together.

The secret level is absolutely hilarious and the level design reminds me of Toe Jam and Earl because it is so incredibly bright, vibrant  and cartoony.  There are smiley faced clouds, rainbows and lush looking presents scattered around the place (another reason it reminds me of TJ&E), all of which lull you into a false sense of security!

Whimsyshire is fucking evil!

Chubby unicorns speed towards you at the same sort of pace that the Cow King used to on D2 Hell setting with ‘Super Fast’ abilities.  One hit, dead. My Little Pony sucks ass!

The unicorns are absolutely hardcore but they are not the only inhabitants of the level.  They are also joined by big cuddle teddy bears (Care Bears anyone?) and twinkleroot flowers, both of which chase you around the map whilst you do your best to ‘hit and run’ them.

My character did bugger all damage to anything on the level and it made me want to go onto the marketplace and buy up a legendary wand to nuke the little bastards with!

Kudos to the developers though, what a fantastic level to hide in the game!

Whimsyshire, I shall return!

Diablo 3 – Nightmare mode beaten

I have just finished the Nightmare mode on Diablo 3.  Wang!

In my naivity, I didn’t stop to consider that the game would evolve beyond the ‘normal’ difficulty that I was already satisfied with and was really impressed on how the developers cranked the game up a notch when going from ‘normal’ to ‘nightmare’.

In ‘Nightmare’, the various enemies within the game have a greater array of attacks which focus upon your reduced resistance to cold, fire, lightning and plague (poison).  Furthermore, ‘boss’ badies have some seriously badass attacks like ‘molten’ (which does constant fire damage) and ‘shielding’ which can be a real bastard if you are attacked suddenly by a hoard of demons with big pointy weapons.  Slags!

Diablo 3 really shows it’s teeth in ‘nightmare’ and I found it a big challenge!  I know the ‘Hell’ mode is going to be a tremendous challenge and my cojones are on display in response!  Behold my Gulab Jamuns!!!

I also like how the ‘crafting’ aspects have evolved along with character development and all that jazz.  You really can really create a unique character within a class by tinkering with skills and runes that you unlock with each level, my Wizard is the Mohammad Ali the Arcane realm let me tell you!

Anyway, here are some more screenies of my time in ‘Nightmare’.

Diablo 3 – The end of big D

I’ve just completed the ‘normal’ difficult of the game; there’s nothing normal about it, Diablo is an absolute bastard to kill!

The final boss fight is incredibly tough, I was in a party with 3 other people and it only served to make big D even stronger (the bigger your party, the tougher the enemies!).

Diablo has a vast array of attacks and the old ‘Flash’ attach is back. that Diablo annoyed us all with in Diablo 1.    You know the one!?!  Where Diablo is constantly hitting you, regardless of where you are on the screen?  I really liked the ‘Realm Of Terror’ stage within the boss fight ; The ‘Shadow Diablo’ looked really cool!

To sum up, act 4 was fucking tough.  I feel a great sense of accomplishment having battled through the large amount of sub-bosses like Izual (The fallen Angel from Diablo 2) the Betrayer and all the other prime evil wannabes!

Ultimately, I got some nice rare items for my troubles and now I’m catapulted back to Act I again to face the same story in ‘Nightmare’ mode.  No doubt it’s going to be even harder due to the increased difficulty that justifies why it’s called ‘Nightmare’ in the first place!

I’m coming for you again Diablo!  You fuckface!

Diablo 3 – Act IV – The Light Of Hope

I have loved how the story has unfolded, the cut scenes are immense and seeing Diablo reborn was done to perfection.

I am now on Act IV, based in the heavens and right in the middle of the conflict between the celestial protectors and the forces of hell.

I’ve enjoyed taking my time with the game, playing through an act each night rather than trudging through and not absorbing everything.  I will hopefully try and complete Act IV over the weekend with any luck, watch this space!