While the USA gets the massive gaming extravaganza that is E3, the UK has to make do with several smaller shows based around London Games Week. First of all there's ECTS at Earl's Court, Europe's long-running annual trade show, which until now has been unchallenged. EGN is a second, similar trade show owned by ELSPA and new to the schedule this year, being held over at ExCeL. Alongside EGN at ExCeL is Game Stars Live, a public show featuring a host of major upcoming releases.
ECTS was a definite success last year, held at Earl's Court alongside the Playstation Experience. This year though, Sony's event has moved north to Alton Towers - a theme park - and into late September. EGN and Game Stars Live now pose direct competition to ECTS and it looks like publishers have firmly favoured the shows at ExCeL. We went to the first days of EGN and Game Stars Live, so here's our take on the events and the games that were there.
Game Stars Live (GSL) ~ Philip Morton
The morning of Game Stars Live was for press and trade only, so we had the chance to go round many of the exhibits without having to queue and fight the public for the controller. Halo 2 was nonetheless the most popular attraction and we had to wait an hour to play it, although when the public arrived in the afternoon, the queues became ridiculously long. Apart from that though, no other games had queues apart from the whole of the Nintendo section, where access was tightly controlled. All the major publishers were at Game Stars Live and it has an atmosphere that you would normally associate with E3; 'booth babes' handing out PR material everywhere, plenty of loud music and huge stands. We caught most of the action there and so many of our hands on reports are from our experience in GSL.
European Games Network (EGN) ~ Philip Morton
This was a strictly trade and press only event, with none of the loud music, towering stands and 'booth babes' that GSL had. Here was a place of business, somewhere for people to do interviews, conduct meetings and give talks.
Halo 2 ~ Philip Morton
As Microsoft's only main exhibit and a hugely popular one at that, it was a little strange to find that there were only 10 Halo 2 consoles, linked up in network games that started every 10 minutes. You were funneled in, told not to touch anything and then took up the controls when it launched. We played a team deathmatch on the Zanzibar level that was previously shown at E3, but everyone seemed to forget the teamplay aspect and it turned into a free-for-all. The gameplay was frantic and the carnage widespread, with many only surviving a few seconds before someone took them down. You could certainly see the potential for online play and from what we saw, it seems like it'll be a huge hit with the community. One thing I noticed was that the graphics were very similar to that of the first game. Maybe this is because we were playing multiplayer and the graphics have to be turned down to reduce lag, but it didn't look as crisp as some of the screenshots we've seen. The level was fairly large though and the game did run at a blistering rate though, with no signs of any glitching or slowdown.
The dual wielding was effective and fun, but only if you lasted long enough to pick up the necessary weapons. Although people went on rampages with the vehicles, the destructible nature of them soon brought a stop to that. The excellent musical score returns, with a high standard of sound effects to compliment it. On the whole, we were impressed, but it was more difficult to judge a game with such high expectations when you're only allowed to play it for ten minutes.
Dragon Ball: Budokai 3 ~ Sophie Cheshire
Evolution not Revolution was the order of the day for the demo of Atari's latest Dragon Ball based fighting game. Keeping the cel-shaded looks of the previous game and the capsule based fighting system of the series as a whole, anyone familiar with the first two games would have no trouble getting stuck into this one. The demo on show was a fairly basic two-player only one, with no information on what kind of story mode may be included this time around.
However the good news for fans is that finally a Dragon Ball game has arrived that looks outside Dragon Ball Z for characters. Included in the two-player demo were Piccolo, Goku, Teen Gohan and Majin Buu looking unchanged from Budokai 2, but additionally film only characters Broly and Cooler were included in the line-up. Atari's promotional posters also featured Super Saiyan 4 Goku from Dragon Ball: GT, so it seems likely that more characters will be drawn from that series as well as Dragon Ball Z. Needless to say, this has gone down immensely well with fans of the shows (myself included) and the proposed November UK release date can't come fast enough for those who want to see in Christmas with some Super Saiyan fighting action!
Xbox (Fable, Forza) ~ Philip Morton
Next to Halo 2 was a small cluster of about 20 Xboxes which had a range of upcoming releases on them. Because of Bungie's game next door, these were often free, so we jumped in and tried out a few. The Fable E3 demo was there, but because of the mission's linear nature, it didn't represent the game fully. What did impress me though was the scenery and the amount of activity that was going on in the game world; it felt alive, just like people actually lived there. The graphics were beautiful to say the least, with plenty of lush foliage bordering the levels and a noticeably better draw distance than similar games. Towns and villages were well detailed and those who inhabited them were well animated. I was very impressed, but with the game out soon though, we'll be able to judge it far better and give you a more definitive verdict.
Forza Motorsport was also present; the more realistic and customisable sequel to Project Gotham Racing. The handling was more unforgiving than PGR and had more in common with Gran Turismo with it's physics, but the way in which you can modify your cars mirrors Need For Speed Underground. The modified cars were all present, although we didn't get to customise our own unfortunately. The audio was just as good as they are in PGR, while the visuals kept up well with the action on-screen. It was hard to get a good feel for the game by simply playing a quick race though, so it'll be interesting to try it out on a more expansive basis.
Snowblind ~ Jim Smith
What is the point of developing a FPS in this day and age when we live in a market that's effectively saturated with them? I mean how can any developer hope to contend with the Halos or Timesplitters of this world? This is a question that had been troubling me recently before EGN and so was the very first question I asked the marketing guy on the Eidos stand as I had a go on a build of Snowblind, their latest franchise-in-the-making FPS. The answer he gave was simple, 'That's simple,' he said, 'we simply gave the developers free reign to do whatever they want - to make the game they want to make.' And it showed – the demo level on show dropped you straight into the a near-future Asian war ground (think Neo-Tokyo meets Blade Runner) where you're the bio-augmented leader of a crack team of commandos. You don't control your comrades directly, but it’s okay as they're smart enough to look after themselves and even help you out now and again. And help you will need – when you lose one of your ten-strong team that’s that – sayonara - so with only a finite amount of back-up who knows how hard the later levels will be.
But the demo level showed off a great many of the games strong features. To start with the controls were intuitive and the movement smooth (not as fast as Timesplitters, but certainly faster than Halo) with a great framerate even when there was a hell of a lot going on – remember you’re leading a ten strong team into an urban war zone here. You can climb into and drive vehicles (which should be pretty standard now), you have the usual selection of cool sci-fi weaponry and you also have the opportunity to augment yourself – much like in Deus Ex (no surprises really – this title started life as Deus Ex: Clan Wars before graduating into it’s own title). This means that by the end of the game you should be able to see through walls, turn invisible, give yourself a turbo boost and all manner of other things that I didn’t really have time to investigate, but I’m sure it’ll all be cool. Couple that with the cool 80s sci-fi backdrop and bearing in mind I played this 20 minutes after playing Halo 2, I was playing the PS2 version and the build on show was a good 6 months old, the future has to be bright for Snowblind.
Brothers in Arms ~ Philip Morton
This is one game that really impressed me. I've recently written a preview on the World War II shooter from several videos I've watched as well as various fact sheets and so on, but playing it really brought it to life. The command and control system works extremely well, with the complexity kept to a minimum. Using one squad to pin down the enemy, then flanking them with another is both exhilarating and simple to plan. The controls allow the player to fight and command at the same time, giving you a unique experience which feels far more real than the likes of Medal of Honor and Call of Duty. There have been a lot of games with squad gameplay recently, but this is easy the best team mechanic I've had the pleasure of using.
The graphics were gritty and atmospheric, in keeping with the rest of the game, while the audio effects and score did their job effectively. It was like playing the TV series Band of Brothers and it was refreshing to see a game that took what it was doing seriously. Crosshairs and health bars are completely absent, while getting hit is a stunning and disorientating experience. Although the demo was running on an Xbox, it was hard to believe that it wasn't the PC version, given the detail. Soldiers' faces are superbly animated, with their eyes following you around and each item of kit on their bodies swaying independently as they move around.
Playing the Brother in Arms demo confirmed what I had thought before the show; this is going to be one hell of a game come next spring. As long as the developer provides enough levels to keep the replay value up, then Call of Duty can kiss goodbye to its crown.
World of Warcraft ~ Sophie Cheshire
It seems ironic that the game that will probably outsell everything else premiered at EGN had such a low key showing. Even with big screens displaying the action to the small audience, Blizzard Entertainment's World of Warcraft stand was hampered by the fact that PC gaming's decidedly unsexy image does not translate well amongst the flashy displays of the console fraternity.
However for those who sat down, donned the headphones and got to grips with the mouse and keyboard a sumptuous gaming experience awaited, one so addictive that by the end of the day people were having to be thrown off the machines by the ever helpful Blizzard PR people to prevent them playing on into the night...
Warcraft is Blizzards long running real-time-strategy fantasy wargame franchise that pits various races, most notably Orcs and Humans against each other in huge battles. World of Warcraft takes this Universe and instead allows you to create a single character in the style of Blizzards other huge franchise, Diablo. The usual Elves, Dwarves, Orcs and Humans are on offer, but also the Minotaur like Taurans and the crumbly Zombie race. Each has their own special base abilities, before you factor in which job type you will assign them (Mage, Warrior, Thief etc).
Once you have chosen a name, gender, hair-type, skin colour and face for your character you spawn into the game world and immediately you are struck with the richness of the environments and the subtleties of the character control. Movement is done via the mouse and keyboard with hotkeys and menus cycling special abilities, quest logs and inventories. Combat is initiated via clicking on an enemy until they die, but unlike older titles running and dodging is a necessity and adds a more action packed element to the game. Experience is gained by killing enemies, but also by exploring new areas and completing quests.
The action also takes place within the context of an ongoing struggle between the various races, so as well your single-player quests, you will find yourself alerted to major skirmishes going on nearby which you may or may not decide to attend. It's this feeling of immersion in a dynamic and ever-changing world along with the unprecedented character customisation and control that gives World of Warcraft it's limitless appeal. A release date has not yet been confirmed, but with 100,000 lucky participants currently engaged in its first major online test it shouldn't be long to wait before the game hits the shelves and redefines PC role-playing games as we know them.
Sid Meier's Pirates! ~ Philip Morton
Now I'm a bit of a fan of pirates in general, so Atari's latest game was one of the titles I really wanted to see at the game. It didn't draw much of a crowd, so even at the busier times I was able to have a good, long session with the game and get a feel for it. It actually plays like a cross between Escape From Monkey Island and Civilization III, with the player given control over a pirate ship which can be sailed from port to port. The controls are kept to a minimum, with only the number pad and mouse needed in most situations. When you're navigating the game map, you simply press 5 to attack another ship, which then takes you to a close up viewpoint of the battle.
These engagements are surprisingly tactical, with three types of ammunition available and the utilisation of the wind crucial to success. You can keep your distance, obliterating the body of the enemy ship with cannonball, or sail in close and fire shot at your opponent's rigging, thus disabling their ship. Because of the speedy nature of the battles and the ship's over-exaggerated maneuverability, some smaller ships can turn to face a long range barrage, reducing their profile. Get close enough and you can actually board the enemy vessel. It's clear that these sea battles have been thought out well, making no victory impossible if the right tactics are used. Unfortunately, I didn't get to see some of the more intriguing features like sword fights, escaping from jail and dancing, but from what I saw of the sea battles and general navigation, it looks like Pirates! will be a very enjoyable game when it's released.
Star Wars Lego ~ Jim Smith
This is like something that wet dreams are made of for Star Wars fans worldwide. Upstairs at the Eidos stand were a few booths running various different console versions of Lego Star Wars, the up and coming Giant Interactive Entertainment title which Eidos have wisely snapped up to publish in all territories except Japan. The release won’t be until next April anywhere in order to catch the Episode III hype we’re all going to be suckered into in the run up to the May 2005 release of the movie so the developers have a long time to tweak what they have but, quite frankly, I really don’t think they need it. The build I played was simply amazing – I just couldn’t believe it. Admittedly I am a bit of a Star Wars and Lego nut (I readily accepted the Eidos man’s bribe of a Star Wars Lego stormtrooper key ring, err, to replace the one I already owned but was a little battered…) but I wasn’t the only one salivating over the title. The booth sure was crowded for a title aimed squarely at the younger audience, but mainly by late-20 and 30-something gamers who were ignoring the obvious looks of boredom on the faces of the various kids dotted around the outside who weren't getting a look in. Go figure.
Anyway, what you have is a two-player scrolling beat ‘em up designed with simple pick up and play mechanics where two players can dip in and out of the action whenever they like but with two heroes always on-screen, meaning the computer picks up the second player controls if need be and relinquishes them if someone joins in again later on. The story follows the major scenes in Episodes I through to III with a surprising level of detail (some random punter and I massively enjoyed teaming up and eventually beating Darth Maul – by cutting him in half no less!) but the number one draw is easily the graphics engine. Even on the lowly PS2 the smoothness of the animation is quite brilliant - on screen you can clearly witness walking talking Star Wars Lego characters and such a spectacle caused a fair amount of grins to spread across a fair amount of happy faces. The fact that underneath the obvious gloss lay a nicely thought out action title was just a bonus, and this is without telling you about how you can manipulate the force to magically deconstruct and reassemble Lego blocks in order to get up to high ledges or across tricky gaps. Let's just hope they don't ruin everything by making you play through any levels as that Jar Jar Binks fellow.
Gizmondo ~ Philip Morton
The Gizmondo is a bit like the Phantom in that some people know about it, but many aren't even aware that it exists. It surprised me to see that they had a large stand at Game Stars Live and that you could just try out the system there and then. I sat down with Bill Nisbet who handles the manufacture of the console and he went through a whole range of features on the handheld console. Although its name sounds like that of a Bond villain, the handheld sports a 400MHz processor, a 64 bit graphics chip, GPRS for multiplayer gaming, a camera, SMS messaging, Bluetooth, an MP3 player, MPEG 4 playback, a SD memory card slot, a Windows CE operating system, GPS and a 2.8" TFT screen. Oh, and it plays games.
We thought that the N-Gage was ambitious, but this thing takes the biscuit. It would probably boil an egg and clean your carpet for you if you asked it to. Surprisingly, all of this kit fits neatly into a device only a little bigger than the Nokia N-Gage QD. The buttons aren't quite so admirable though, with the feedback a little off and the four main buttons positioned too close together for my liking. The games I tried were simply, alpha-stage affairs, merely designed to be demonstration versions. The potential is certainly there though, as the screen is superior to that of the N-Gage and GBA.
The console is being launched this Christmas in limited numbers to test the water, with a more intense marketing campaign starting next year. This could be one underdog to watch, so keep your eyes peeled.
Evil Genius ~ Sophie Cheshire
It's such a great idea that it's hard to believe it's not been done before. Evil Genius on the PC casts you as a megalomaniac mastermind intent on taking over the world from your secret lairs. You begin with a handful of minions who you can train up by capturing local skilled workers and extracting the skills from them. With your minions and henchmen trained and armed you can start plotting to uncover acts of infamy you can perpetrate on the world map. The more infamous deeds you do the more you base becomes a target for James Bond style-do-gooder to try and infiltrate. Plenty of traps will keep them at bay, I'm holding out hope that Sharks with Laser Beams will be in the final game!
With a complex system of base building, training and skirmishing this appears to play very much like the Dungeon Keeper games, your lair is excavated by minions with dynamite rather than imps but the underlying mechanics are the same. As such its not particularly flashy and obviously requires much longer to really begin to see what it can do. With only a short time to get to grips with it, I only scratched the surface of what it has to offer. But it left me intrigued, amused and was definitely one of the hidden gems of the show.
Burnout 3 ~ James Frazer
Before even buying my coach ticket to Gamestars, Burnout 3 hadn’t warranted a large enough look from yours truly. Maybe it was the fact that I was still hooked on the second installment, not satisfied that I had caused enough destruction on its roads. Or maybe it was the feeling of disappointment that EA had begun to market the title so strongly; I have this pet hate of the company which seems to do sod all except concentrate on the most marketable assets, namely the crashes, and I had a big fears of being let down.
What did surprise me was how I actually found my way over the Burnout 3 ‘stand’, which was more of a row of TVs about knee height. In front of each large television was a weird seating arrangement which resembled more of a PG Tips Pyramid Teabag than something to sit and play games on. How impressed I was that my new found ‘I want, I want, I want’ item was a satisfying complement to the title lying in front of it. I was as comfortable as playing Burnout 3 as I was sitting there on the floor, with the flashy graphics, fast gameplay and overall fun of the title beaming out.
Each level has its own unique feel, so rather than it being just another race, you’ll actually be drawn in by the beauty of each course. There are tight mountain roads with blind corners to navigate, vast swooping highways to dodge through and quiet country bumpkin streets to rip up. Track side detail has also been revamped, with trees and fuel stations standing out rather than sinking back to let you race. They want to grab your attention, to take your eyes of the road so that you’ll slam into the front of an oncoming truck.
And as if looking at how great things are wasn’t putting you off racing, EA have really gone to town with your opponents. Whereas before you would just race against cars, this time you are battling against other cars. They attempt to nudge you into accidents, push you into corners and basically act as a huge pain in the arse. But not that it’s infuriating; this is great stuff.
Crashes are now more ‘on the side’ than before, with slow motion cameras catching to the delights of opponents tumbling down a hill side or crumpling into another vehicle, or the agony of you doing the exact same. The action doesn’t stop for an accident, acting more as a breather in between racing.
And as if that wasn’t enough, Burnout 3 is online enabled, so you can take on other countries and become the world’s worst driver. Yippee!
Pro Evolution Soccer 4 ~ James Frazer
“I would walk 500 miles and I would walk 500 more; just to be the guy who walked a 1000 miles to play Pro Evolution Soccer 4”
Well the 400 mile coach trip felt like near a thousand, but after playing a few bouts on Konami’s masterpiece it felt more than worth it.
A few weeks of play would be needed to really pinpoint where the changes have been made, but in a just a few 10 minute matches of frantic end-to-end action, it was clear that PES4 would be running laughing all the way to the title. For starters, time has clearly been spent on sprucing up the graphics and making decent looking visuals for the best gameplay around. Stadiums really look convincing, players far more lifelike and the fans….let's not mention the fans.
But it’s how the damned thing plays that matters most, and fans won’t be disappointed. Controlling players is a step up from before, it feels as if you have total control as you sidestep challenges, sprint through defences and track down the opposition. One feature I did like a lot is before receiving the ball; players do far more than just stop and attempt to trap it. Playing as England against France, I found Rooney backing into defenders when the ball came his way, trapping it with his left, turning round and flicking the ball to Owen with his right. And it was so simple; splitting defences had never been so much fun.
But before the word ‘easy’ makes you cringe, attacking techniques have been refined. Shooting is now a more complex affair than simply tapping the button; unfortunately I didn’t have enough time to fully understand how to make a sizzling shot at the keeper, and found myself merely tapping it wide on most occasions. Defenders seem to operate more as a unit too, as before a cross into the box would unleash utter mayhem, for players would disregard each other and all go for the ball. This time round a smart sidestep by Dyer on the left; a nice sprint to the touchline followed by a low cross was duly smashed into the stands by a centre back. How touching.
Away from the field we see that the English Premiership has all of this seasons teams, player names and transfers, which was pleasing to say the least. A fully functioning edit mode was also available should you decide to tinker with a few stats, and worthy of particular mention on the Xbox was Live play. We didn’t get to try it out, and the ‘guy’ looking after the stand didn’t seem keen to spill the beans, even when money was shown. What I did find out though was the PS2 version had no internet capabilities, which wasn’t surprising given Sony’s disregard to the service, and seeing as Microsoft covers the costs of such features.
Perhaps a minor concern, more down to preference than actual disappointment, was how difficult changing strategies and team mentality was with the Xbox controller. Taking thumb off of the buttons to change wasn’t particularly pleasant, as I like to change things whilst splitting defences, but like I say hopefully it should grow on people. And why shouldn’t it? This is the greatest football game to grace any consoles ever, and it’s Live for Christ’s sakes. All I can say is you won’t be disappointed.
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