I went to EGX in Birmingham at the weekend with some pals. As a 37 year old man who's never been to one of these things before I realised very quickly why I'd never been to one of these things before. Also, I've not been feeling great for a few weeks – one of those colds you get from a kid that seems to attack your immune system in ways that seem never ending – so probably should have stayed home in the first place.
Without being too curmudgeonly I don't really get it. Couldn't understand the huge queues to see Tomb Raider and Spiderman, a little bit more understanding of new Assassin's Creed and the Division 2 but only a little. Played and watched some cool indie games and saw a Hitman 2 session which was interesting. Overall though… It was hard to get away from the smell of fried food, Fortnite and the aimless sense of a day wasted.
I went to EGX in Birmingham at the weekend with some pals. As a 37 year old man who's never been to one of these things before I realised very quickly why I'd never been to one of these things before. Also, I've not been feeling great for a few weeks – one of those colds you get from a kid that seems to attack your immune system in ways that seem never ending – so probably should have stayed home in the first place.
Without being too curmudgeonly I don't really get it. Couldn't understand the huge queues to see Tomb Raider and Spiderman, a little bit more understanding of new Assassin's Creed and the Division 2 but only a little. Played and watched some cool indie games and saw a Hitman 2 session which was interesting. Overall though… It was hard to get away from the smell of fried food, Fortnite and the aimless sense of a day wasted.
Good god, thank you. I thought I was going mad.
I've worked several of these shows. The back areas, where they put almost all of the smaller games and developers/publishers, are normally really great. However, the majority of visitors just spend hours queuing up to play whatever big AAA game they're guaranteed to buy anyway for ten minutes (if that), which feels entirely pointless. The tat they give away these days isn't even that good either, so you're left carrying a plastic bag full of shit posters and postcards for something you don't care about. And Fortnite! Why the hell are people queuing to play a game that's already out?! I just don't get it.
Some shows are lovely. MCM is wonderful, even if it's becomes a tat-fest for selling stuff. Gamescom is nice, although it's hot as hell. PAX is always great, because it's rammed with stuff and everyone's nice. EGX, however, feels like a overly-dark warehouse with too much empty space and not enough to do. Bit of a shitshow. And these are proclaimed as the best we as an industry have to offer? What a mess.
MCM is wonderful, even if it's becomes a tat-fest for selling stuff.
I've not been to MCM for years, but my memory of it was always a tat-fest for selling stuff. Then again, I was there working the stand for a DVD company, so maybe that's coloured my perception.
I've not been to MCM for years, but my memory of it was always a tat-fest for selling stuff. Then again, I was there working the stand for a DVD company, so maybe that's coloured my perception.
When I worked it, I was always on the RSG stand - we sold stuff, but we were mainly there for people to play things. There used to be a lot more 'doing' stands; games companies, signing tables, gathering spots, things like that. I went as a punter last May though and it was disappointing how small it had become (they'd cut down the size by two whole blocks on either side of the hall) and how many of the interesting stuff had vanished. That's going to be because of the new owners - the people who run PAX in the US - coming in and massively increasing the costs of attending for companies, meaning lots of folk didn't bother going. I know we didn't, and it was notable how few other games companies bothered either this year. All I found wandering the aisles were the same retail outlets… it seemed like they had doubled up on booths, so everyone in the north hall was also in the south. Real shame. I won't be going back again, unless it's for work.
And as an additional to this:
PLAY
Hollow Knight - Started out a bit apprehensive about this, since I'd already played it on Steam and it didn't click. But I spent a bit of time on Friday playing the Switch version, got to the first boss and won, found the map and quill, and it's all starting to come together. I can see why some people might not like it, because it's very unhelpful and non-hand holdy in how you make progress. But it looks lovely and I think it's starting to get me in the way that Death's Gambit and Owlboy never did (the latter is sooooo dull). So that's nice.
I'm so hooked on this now, it's got me deep. It's so incredibly hard in places, but it's also not insurmountable if you know what you're doing. Every time I think I've reached the point where I don't know what I'm doing any more, I find a new place… so, last night, I totally stumbled on a large underground bee hive and tore through the place, ultimately squishing the bee knight inside. And yet there's STILL loads I haven't done. Only got one Dreamer left to find before I can technically finish the game, but I'll keep exploring before I do that. It also pulled at my heartstrings a few times because of characters that have surprising back stories… but I'll save discussion of that for later.
Additional Play
Bomberman R - it was free to play over the weekend so I availed myself of the opportunity and, well, it's bomberman; not quite sure what the point of it is though as it's exactly the same as any other version only massively more expensive and with an online mode that suffers from really laggy controls so it often feels rather unfair when you die, on the plus side there are actually people online (or were while it was free) and the kids loved all the different characters but I'm not sure that's enough of a draw to pony up for a full price game when the XBLA version is almost the same and at a fraction of the price - bit of a shame really
