Some photos and thoughts from Eurogamer Expo 2014

Eurogamer Expo (or EGX) was two weeks ago and I had intended on writing a big proper blog about the show shortly after. Then I got distracted. I've just sorted through the photos I took at the show and deleted the really terrible ones (although they were all taken on my phone, so don't expect great quality from any of them), so I'm just going to post those and random thoughts that go along with them.

Firstly, the Oculus Rift:

I'd never tried an Oculus before and I was blown away. First I tried out SuperHot with the Oculus, which is odd because of the abstract art style, but it was still interesting. Seeing bullets fly past your head in slow motion was crazy. Also, I learned that I suck at SuperHot. But where the VR really shined was with EVE Valkyrie. Even just looking around your cockpit as you fly around looks stunning. But where it really shines is when you start taking damage and the sparks are flying in the cockpit. For half a second I freaked out, genuinely thought that sparks were flying at me. Completely amazing experience, I can't wait until this tech becomes commonplace.

Next up, Sunset Overdrive:

I mainly went to Sunset Overdrive because the queue looked relatively short, but I ended up really enjoying it. It is really tempting to just stay on the ground and play it like a normal shooter, but that really isn't the way to play it as the movement is very sluggish on the ground. Once you start experimenting and jumping up on the rails up the top it really becomes very fun. We were playing a six-man hoard mode style game, and I came top of my team (which surprised me since generally I suck at games). I think that was mostly because I experimented with the rails and things more than the other players.

Next some Indie games:

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I spend a lot of my time at the "Rezzed" indie area, because I like indie games and I dislike queueing. There were massive queues for all the AAA games and stuff like that (even things like Destiny which was already out. Why would you queue for an hour to play a game that you could walk into a shop and buy?). But the indie area was relatively queue free.

The standout indie games for me were Volume (by Mike Bithell of Thomas Was Alone) and Heat Signature (by Tom Francis of Gunpoint). I went to the "Developer Session" talks from both of those guys (along with one by Rami Ismail and another one from Jordan Thomas, a former Irrational guy now developing The Magic Circle) and they were super interesting. Volume is a 3D Stealth game that takes inspiration from things like Thief and MGS VR Missions. It has a great look to it, and it sounds like the story is going to be a really interesting story of the relationship between two characters. It is simple enough and accessible, but I can see those mechanics being used to make some really challenging levels too.

Heat Signature is a procedurally generated space exploration game from a top-down perspective. You play as a lone-wolf space-guy with his small ship. You have to sneak aboard randomly generated spaceships to either kill someone or steal something. You can then take control over the spaceship and use that for a while, or you can quietly sneak away and go steal/kill some more. It's currently pretty barebones, but It is definitely a great concept. It has a fantastic mechanic of being thrown out of an airlock if you get caught on an enemy ship. You can then use your remote controls to pilot your ship back to your body as it hurtles through space. If you catch it before you run out of blood/air, you can continue on your mission.

Also, I should probably mention that I'm currently the worlds number one Heat Signature player. They were keeping leaderboards (via pen & paper) of how many missions people survived without dying. I completed 14 missions (and felt terrible for hogging the one Heat Signature PC for so long) which put me top of the leaderboard at the end of the third day of the show, as evidenced by this tweet from the developers:

And considering they didn't tweet out an updated leaderboard after day 4, I'm just going to assume no one beat it and I'm the worlds number one Heat Signature player. I AM THE BEST HEAT SIGNATURE PLAYER IN THE WORLD!!!! I look forward to the game coming out so I can quit my day job and become a professional Heat Signature eSportser (eSportser is a word, right?).

Anyways, moving on, there was a retro area that had a ton of old games systems set up that was really cool to see at a thing like this. You expect it to all be new stuff, but having a little corner where I could play Zool for the Amiga was really cool. They also had some custom built arcade cabinets, but no original cabinets or anything cool like that:

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I got told off by an Ubisoft guy for taking a photo of the screens at the Far Cry 4 booth. He made me delete it and re-take it without getting the screens... But I still got the top pixel or two of the screens, so take that Ubisoft. I'm going to post this picture of a massive Far Cry 4 logo and the top few pixels of the game, and there's nothing you can do about it!!!

And here are a bunch of random photos of the show floor:

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That's about it. I played some other stuff, but not a lot stands out in my mind. Splatoon was cool. Elite: Dangerous seems OK but the demo was very basic (and it took a while to get used to the flightstick controls).

One last thing that I found funny. With queue's everywhere and crowds everywhere, this is what the stand for Hatsune Miku Project Diva F2 looked like:

That Hatsune Miku booth is a god damn travesty.

We were in the same Heat Signature and Nuclear Throne talks and I didn't realize! If I'd known you were there I would have said hi! :)

@gbrading: If you saw a really fat guy wearing a throwback BOMB shirt, that was me.

Ubisoft's PR is such a fucking mess. Forcing people to delete photos of your game is not how you win hearts and minds.

I really want to play Volume, everything I see of it makes it look awesome.

Yeah, I thought it was bizarre. If there was some massive game-breaking bug on the screen at the time I could understand them not wanting that to get out there, but it was just normal gameplay from areas that they've shown off in trailers already. If you're showing off your game at a public event, people are going to take photos. If you don't want photos of your game out there, don't show it off at a public event. Or at least have it in a properly enclosed booth, not out in the open.

I wanted to go back the next day with an old non-digital camera just to spite them. You want me to delete this photo? I can't, it's on film!!!!

Hah, wow. Dude really made you delete the photo? So silly.

That roundtable Elite setup looks pretty cool!

They would force you to eat it.

Yeah, it looked really awesome. I think it attracted more people than Elite normally would, purely because of the setup. It was right near the front of the hall, too. One of the first things you saw.

The demo itself was actually really basic. It was a simple combat training scenario to take out one unarmed ship. Obviously the demos have to be quick because the line needs to keep moving, and getting used to the flightstick controls took a good chunk of time, but taking out one basic ship hardly showed off the game very well.

The official photographer at the Elite booth was a Giant Bomb fan, too. He commented on my GBEAST shirt.

How was the Eurogamer Expo in terms of the amount of attendees? I went to the first two and they were relatively quiet with the longest queues being 20-30 minutes for God of War 3. I've not been since because they only do the London event whereas in their second year they also did an event in Leeds which was super helpful. Also lack of a buddy to go with is also a bummer.

Considering this has become THE big event in the UK I've been tempted to go back to it each year, maybe next year.

I'm surprised there isn't a Concept page for this yet, or maybe it just isn't coming up in search.

This year was the first year I attended, and it was packed. It was sold out and there were long queues for virtually everything. I'm pretty sure I saw the EGX people say there was 75,000 attendees over the four days, so that's a lot of people.

Next year they're not having the main EGX in London. They've outgrown Earls Court, so they're having it at the Birmingham NEC. That's a bit of a bummer because I really enjoyed it and want to go next year, but Birmingham is harder for me to get to than London (I live up north in Sunderland but I have family just outside London who I can stay with anytime I want). The smaller EGX Rezzed is in London in March which I plan on going to, but I'd love to be able to go to the main one again too. I dunno, I'll think about it nearer the time.

@mattyftm: That's cool to know, I live in the Manchester area so it's probably an easier trip for me. Also 75k is crazy no wonder they're expanding.

It looks like you had a good time, I would really like to try SuperHot in the near future.

A fish and chips stand....how cliche.

How fucking right, you mean?

It was ridiculously priced. £8.95 for the smallest piece of fish I've ever seen in my life, and a few chips. It was like a baby cod. It was tiny. On the second day I took sandwiches. Fuck paying nine quid for a tiny piece of fish.

@mattyftm

You need to reinsert that tweet into your OP for it to show up properly, Giant Bomb dot com doesn't like it when you edit a post you've made and don't re-input the links to tweets again.

Great snaps, by the way!

lol

I only ended up staying for around 4 hours. In my time there I got to play Far Cry 4, Alien: Isolation, Until Dawn and a bunch of games in the Rezzed area. I would loved to have played more games like Bloodbourne and 1884 but I didn't feel queuing up again despite being in the same area as Until Dawn. Weird system.

@mrcraggle: Yeah, the queues were off putting to me too. I only saw a small handful of games in the non-indie areas, and I chose most of them based on the queue length. I queued for Superhot, EVE Valkyrie, Sunset Overdrive, Splatoon and Elite Dangerous. I think that's it. That's over two days. I spent most of the rest of the time at the indie area and at developer sessions. Still enjoyed it, though.

YES

I went to EGX Rezzed at the NEC this year, it's a nice space (not to mention a 10-min train ride from where I live). Granted, the main EGX will probably attract more people than the Rezzed, but it felt like enough space for it to feel busy but not crowded.