Despite arriving nearly an hour early, there was already a huge queue outside London’s Old Billingsgate conference centre when I arrived at 10:15 on Saturday for the Eurogamer Expo 2009. Thankfully, my colleagues and I got press passes, which meant we were straight in at 11am sharp, and off to see all of the biggest games of 2009 and Q1 2010 before most of the public could!

 

Read on for my impressions of the hot titles that you’ve been waiting to play!

 

Whilst there were plenty of big publishers there in style, it was a little disappointing that some big players, like Activision decided not to make an appearance, despite the fact this kind of event would be perfect to showcase titles like Tony Hawk Ride or DJ Hero. Nevertheless, EA, Ubisoft, Microsoft, Sony and other were there in full force, and game me the chance to play titles including Mass Effect 2, Dragon Age, MAG, Bayonetta, AVP and Bad Company 2 months before release!

 

I have to say, I’m a little bit of an RPG nut, and whilst my review copy may be arriving in a day or two, I headed straight over to Dragon Age, where you could play the full retail code on either PS3 or PC. I opted for the console version, as we will be reviewing the 360 code. Anyone who’s played Baldur’s Gate will be familiar with the character creation process, and each of the different races includes a different prologue, which lasts around 2-3 hours, so there should be plenty of replay value! On the console, the game controls more like Mass Effect than Oblivion, as you do everything from a 3rd person perspective, and you can also pause combat to issue orders, and select skills or spells. Combat played out quite like a fantasy Mass Effect, although it seemed pretty tough to be honest. The graphics were fantastic, with great character models and loads and loads of well acted speech. After a 30 minute playthrough from the beginning as an Elven Mage, I can safely say that I’m really looking forwards to this adult-themed RPG when it hits shelves later on this week!

 

Staying with the adult-themed games, I then went off to see God of War 3, Left 4 Dead 2, and Assassin’s Creed 2. Unfortunately, as I spent way too much time on Dragon Age, there were huge queues for all three, so I only watched the titles being played. GoW3 seemed very much like the first two, although with the power of the PS3, the graphics were absolutely superb, and the sense of scale seemed even greater. L4D again looked like the original running on steroids- don’t expect too many changes for the sequel- but do expect a graphical upgrade and loads of new campaigns that will provide hours more entertainment. AC2 again looked like a promising upgrade, although there were some worrying graphical issues (particularly with water) with the game only being a month away from launch. Gameplay looks very similar, but the secondary missions have been really improved to make the non-story content more exciting.

 

I then played some more recent games- Forza 3 with the wireless wheel and three-screen setup- fantastic if you have the money! Brutal Legend- fun for metal-heads! And finally Uncharted 2- fantastic graphically.

 

Then, after a quick break, it was time to actually play some more games! I went off to see Heavy Rain, which is, without a doubt, the most fantastic looking game I’ve ever played. But then, it didn’t really seem like playing it. The game is very, very clunky to control, and whilst the story, animation and voice acting make the game feel like a film, the actual gameplay is a little too much like an interactive cut-scene for my liking- I think it will be a marmite release, to be honest.

 

Then it was time to try out Mass Effect 2. It was a great looking game, for sure- all of the graphical issues from the first title appear to be sorted- but otherwise it seemed a little bit similar to the first title, with the exception of new controls for your team and health recovery. Ultimately though, that will probably be enough to satisfy fans of the first game. The demo was pretty short, and combat focused, so hopefully there will be a good story to complement the gameplay and interactive cut-scenes.

 

Staying with EA, I then got to play a round of BF: Bad Company 2. Nearly five months out, the graphics still seem a little jaggy, but the art and level design is fantastic at the minute, and the gameplay already seems spot on, with balanced weapons and decent respawn times. It’s classic Battlefield in the multiplayer- so don’t expect too much new there at the minute, but hopefully this will be an update that fans have been looking for!

 

I then had a look in on a few other games without playing them. Lost Planet 2 seems pretty cool, although a little too much like the first, with the exception of a graphical update and some nice new animations for the mechs you can control. MAG is a strange one- with only bots available to play against it was difficult to get a feel of how a 256-player game may work, and it was certainly pretty rough around the edges graphically too. It also was, stylistically, very much the COD4 clone too, which wasn’t brilliant. However, if it’s well executed, the novelty of such large player counts alone may be enough to win me over. I then had very quick looks at The Saboteur, Split/Second, Dark Void and Avatar (a non playable demo I watched in 3D, which was interesting, although I don’t think the technology is quite there yet.) I also played NFS Shift in 3D with the Nvidia booth babes (better than the game, which, again, didn’t look quite right to be perfectly honest).

 

I finished off the day with three final previews: New Super Mario Bros Wii, Bayonetta, and AVP. All three I was pretty disappointed with, to be honest. Maybe I was tired after a hard day of playing games or something, but none of the three seemed to live up to expectations. Bayonetta was just another Japanese hack-and slash game, which seemed very, very similar to Devil May Cry. AVP, whilst a few months out, was initially fun to play in multiplayer, but the novelty soon wore off. By far the easiest way to rack up kills is to get behind people, which then activates a stealth kill. The problems with this were that sometimes it just wouldn’t work, and there are two few animations for the kills- whilst they looked awesome to start with, I was pretty bored of seeing them after just one match- testament to just how much they get used! It also has a Gears type flaw as a result as people just queue up to stealth kill the person who is still locked in the kill animation. Graphically, the game also seemed a bit lacking, although it is about five months out still. Mario seemed like it could be fun, although it is too similar to the DS version, and multiplayer, for me, was ruined by people not working together- way too many people just went for it, which then kills off the other players. The screen, in my opinion, should be locked until everyone is ready to move on. The game also didn’t seem to make good use of the wiimote at all, or at least not in the demo levels which I played.

 

Overall- it was a great day, and I felt pretty lucky to have played some great games- hopefully this short preview has whetted your appetite for some of these titles which you too will be playing before long!

 

Cheers!