So EGX15 is over for me again (I did Thursday to Friday). I guess this is my annual write up and thoughts.
Well this year was officially my 5 year anniversary of going to Eurogamer Expo, or EGX as they are now calling it. Gone is Earls Court, Jesus (a running joke from the last two years) and the city of London. Instead it's been replaced by the grey monolith that is the NEC.
I had mixed views initially on the relocation, we all know Earls Court as we know it has been bulldozed to make flats for some Chinese investment bankers who are going to price UK folks out of the capital. Lots of us have some amazing memories from London and the NEC will never replace them. But after Thursday night I welcomed the change, enjoyed it. I can't believe I'm saying this but: it is the superior location. Eurogamer had simply out grown Earls Court, while it felt more personal and the community behind the event had grown there it needs to mature to grow and change can't be denied.
It wasn't all roses though, wednesday night was a nightmare. Getting off at Birmingham International having no clue where to go for the hotel and quickly realising our choice of food consisted of Subway I wasn't too impressed. But learning that Birmingham International is literally 10 minutes away from Birmingham New Street station and is only £2.80 on the train opened a lot of doors for us. Not only does Birmingham offer more food locations in a more condensed area it also offers the Bullring, a huge shopping complex on the door of the station. Needless to say me and Lauren ate like fucking royalty the two days we were there (
Handmade Burger Co needs repping because that food was incredible). I understand people are protesting this year by not going, but fuck them, just because you live in London doesn't mean your entitled to every event in the country being held there. I've heard more accents from around the country this year than ever before. If this means more people are able to go, that's a good thing. Gaming is an accommodating hobby, so should any events around it.
So far so good, but about the event itself. The NEC felt like it had a much easier job of accommodating for everyone who comes to EGX. A job Earls Court staff met the challenge of but it wasn't the most elegant solution, putting us in the ant farm underground to queue. I got there at 8am for Thursday, Subway in hand and began queuing. Little disappointed we didn't get our usual programmes we are so accustomed to but I can see why they just gave us maps after that huge hour long video they played to keep us distracted.
Anyway inside we plodded and the first thing we ran like Usain Bolt towards was the HTC Vive, I had already won an appointment but the GF needed one for her self. After getting there the queue was closed immediately almost right behind us cutting off at 10:10am about 200 disappointed people. The communication about the appointment system was piss poor with myself only knowing because Mike(side) had told us about it. Anyway appointment booked off I went to look at Mirrors Edge. Not much I can say about Mirrors edge if you're played the last one it's well more of the same, a running theme with some games this year, the combat seems more realised and less like it was jury rigged to fit in the free running mechanic like last time. No doubt will be another amazing game.
This put me on track with my HTC Vive appointment. I have real difficulty articulating how
fucking astounding this piece of kit was. The tracking was 1:1, none of the difficulties I had with the Occulus and to top it off we were able to use the new remotes and walk around.
Let me start with the remotes. They felt like TV remotes to hold with a trigger on the bottom, much like a playstation move if you have that reference. The circle on the top had a lightly coarse texture like a very fine sand which you used for either selecting things by tapping it or you could use it to flick through menus (like you would do a phone) or used it to select radial options. It had haptic feedback built in so it would vibrate like your phone but the controller itself would also vibrate. So when you were selecting options you would feel a click each time it alternated. It felt great and the tracking was nailed down. No matter how much I tried to make it lag I couldn't. The thing followed me like I was using my own hands and felt like a natural extension to my body.
Moving on to the VR headset itself, at the moment, is a bit top heavy. After using it for 30 minutes I could really feel it's weight towards the end, but at the end of the day it is a development kit. With the level of accuracy they have already crammed in to this small box you can say they might be forgiven for making it as big as it is at the moment. As many of you know the big thing Valve is pushing is being able to move around your living room. As a person who lives in what can best be described as a wider coffin I put the question to the staff: what about me? I was told that the software will scale your movement to compensate for any changes in size so you don't miss out like the move or Kinect. The demos themselves made good use of the space, forcing you to go down on the floor to pick things up or really extend yourself to reach for things. It felt unusual from the more sedate way we've seen VR demonstrated so far but felt like a natural progression and evolution of the tech. I won't go in to much depth about the demos since you can see them all filed professionally on Youtube. What I will say is: while you can see the demo, you can't see the
depth. That whale you see on the underwater demo, is not only visually incredible, but also physically
huge. My brain was intimidated by the sheer size of the beast, when you move in to 3D and you can move around it adds a sense of scale you simply cannot get from a screen.
One thing which was unique for me to see was Laurens reaction to the Vive, she had watched me use the hardware and while impressed by the tech wasn't exactly ecstatic about trying it out, though after the thirty minute demo she was sold too. She isn't really a gamer, hell she's only really played Pillars of Eternity, but after the demo she was prompting me to buy one on release. The barrier to entry, the pad, had been removed from gaming and she could literally jump right in and enjoy her self. There wasn't any control scheme to learn she naturally pointed, picked and selected her way through the demos and really enjoyed herself. Like me, she is now a convert to the church of VR and ready for the sermon from HTC and Valve. If this is the future of gaming I'm ready for it and can't sign myself up quick enough.
Really need to say thanks for the HTC/Valve staff for coming along and showing the demo and being so god damn nice!
After our Vive demo, the rest of what we saw kind of paled in comparison and couldn't reach the same highs. Not to say there weren't any stand outs. In the interest of time I'll summarise some of them below.
Tomb Raider: As mentioned above, more of the same. The demo shown was more of a return of the tomb raiding we know returning to tombs solving jumping and adventure like puzzles, climbing about everything in site like a monkey who had devoured too many of those energy drinks given away at the show.
Just Cause 3: Very, very polished already it seems like much was learned from JC2 taking all the benefits the mods had given us and putting them inside the game. While it was freeroam the video shown to us before we played alluded to that there was going to be more of a structure to the game to accommodate for your rampant destruction of property.
Tom Clancys- 3rd Person Destiny: Oh sorry I mean, The Division. This desperately needed more booths, the queue was four hours on Friday afternoon. The game itself as I alluded to feels much like the controls of Splinter Cell meets Destiny. This isn't a bad thing mind you, the demo given was the PvP area. You entered the "Dark Zone" killed a couple of NPCs to steal some loot before trying to extract where you met two other teams of three trying to escape as well. This led to a unique situation of the three groups trying to outflank each other while using sam fisher esq technology to out wit each other. A solid game I'm now genuinely looking forward to.
Total War: Warhammer: There isn't much to be said about this, it does feel much like Total War with a Warhammer skin, I might be selling it sort with that description but it doesn't make the game any less entertaining. It's something I'll need to sit down with playing the campaign before I can make a proper judgement on.
Rainbow 6: Siege: I know the beta is out, but I still hadn't received my code so gave it a go anyway. It was a much slower game than I expected, very fatalistic with you dying very very quickly. I'm going to need to sit down at my PC to play it to really get an idea though.
To conclude this very long post: better venue, still has some new issues they need to work out and still suffers from some old ones. Mainly queues, they were MUCH worse this year leading to some awfully long waits which is usually only subject to one or two games maximum but this time effected 5+. The shops have finally began to sell some more interesting merch. I'm really happy with my
Yooka Laylee limited edition EGX print though they could do with diversifying more though. Good to see the video at the start of the event in the queue to keep us distracted from clock watching as well. Most criticisms are aimed at individual exhibitors than the event itself.
In short: Can't say we don't miss Earls Court, but change is good and should be welcomed. A good new start to a hopefully happy relationship with the NEC. Here is to another happy 5 years!