GC is about over

SG_01 — Sun, 24 Aug 2008 16:59:15 GMT

And tomorrow, I'll be heading home. Definitely been a new experience for me, but I'm not sure if I'll just go ahead and do it again. If I do, I will definitely take a different approach to it.

Anyway, I have seen a good number of cool things at the GC and the GCDC. The sessions during the developers conference varied a lot in quality. Some were great, others not so. Most of only interesting to developers , so I will skip that for now.

The confention itself was huge. 3.5 halls filled with booths, and an outside area with even an impromtu-made "beach" (ie: a bunch of sand with a podium next to it). Each hall had it's own focus, and the booths varied in size from a small wouldn't-fit-ten-people area to huge booths where one could almost get lost in. (You could definitely get lost in the crowds though!)

Some of the games I played on the floor:

X-Blades

One to-watch. This is a fast-pased hack-and-slash game that definitely became one of my hidden gems. Due to a number of cancelations, the booth where they shown this was located all the way in the back, rather than in the center of the hall. Even worse: the entrance to the area where they were showing off this game was now facing a back-wall, which ensured very few people in this area.

Anyhow, on to the game itself. The gameplay feels very fast pased, and quite often requires you to beat a good number of enemies before continueing. With the heroine carrying two gunblades (havn't seen those since Final Fantasy 8!), you can slash your way through enemies, shoot them, or use some of your various magics to take them down. The magics in this game are fueled by a rage system, rather than your usual magic points. Your rage builds up through various means, such as slashing your enemies, getting hit, or just charging it manually. Magics are there in most of the usual forms: buffs to yourself, damaging one or multiple enemies, status-effects, and combinations here-of.

The art-style of this game is very anime-ish, which really comes forward in the cut-scenes. This does not take away from the fact that this is an HD title, and looks very good a big screen.

Try it out, I know I will!

Guitar Hero: World Tour

Pretty much Guitar Hero's answer to Rock Band, as they now too have the drum kit and the microphone in the package. It's definitely good, and the songs arn't shabby either (though they were only showing a small selection at this time. I played some drums for the first time, and some bass. If you like these types of games, you'll definitely like this one also :)

They also announced that the instruments from Rock Band and Guitar Hero would become fully compatible in the near future!

Mirror's Edge

This one leaves me kind of in a spot. On the one hand I have to say, yes it's a pretty good game. On the other hand, the level I played didn't feel all that spectacular. The style of the game is very clean, perhaps a bit too clean. The gameplay is interesting though, you run through the level, jumping, balancing and doing all sorts of acrobatics to get through to the end. Attempting to avoid enemies, especially in groups. That doesn't mean that you cannot go up against them, especially lone enemies can be taken on.

The level was only a first look, and I could not find much story behind it yet. The story, I think, can make or break this game from here on out.

Aion Online

Out of all the MMOs around the floor here, I thought this one had some good things going for it. It is a fantasy styles MMO that for once is not with elves, dwarves, halflings, humans, and the likes. Instead there are only two races, one dark, and one light. Both of them pretty much thinks the others are the bad guys (which directly forms a basis for PvP combat) at this point, even though they once where one people.

Now, the reason why I think this MMO was pretty good is because they had a couple of thing done very well. The graphics looked fantastic, the animations fluent, the gameplay natural, and flying. I have not yet taken an extensive look at the story, so I'll leave that one in the open space for now.

While the first two are easy to understand, the other two might need some explaining. The gameplay of this game is much like most other MMOs, however a good bit of it is reaction or chain based. When these come up, it is instantly recognizable on the UI, as the icons for the skills that can be used as reaction or follow up are marked in the center of the screen in a clear way. Mind you, not obnoxiously big, or hiding other parts of the UI, but clear, and once they are gone, they are fully gone.

In flight, you use a different (though similar) skill set than on ground. However you never really notice this until you start checking the skills themselves. They naturally switch over in your UI, without having to worry about sorting another skill bar. The flying in this game is not made for traveling, btw. It is made to add in a tactical element, and you can only fly for so long before your wings need a rest.

Sonic

There is a new Sonic game coming out, and it was playable at the GC. It's very fast pased, I'd say faster than any that I have played until now. They showed us one level that looked pretty sweet. As such, it looks like the little blue hedgehog isn't quite dead yet, and this 3D Platformer will show us all how fast he really can go.

Others

I played a lot more, but I couldn't possibly remember all of them. I did however want to mention Fairytale Fights, which I cannot truthfully say I am unbiassed about, but if you like a sarcastic look into various fairytails, feel free to check it out. It's a mature hack-and-slash game about fairytales, peaked your interest yet?

- SG_01

Monday of the GCDC

SG_01 — Mon, 18 Aug 2008 22:27:02 GMT

Well, today I was at the GCDC, and I must say I learend a lot, and saw a lot. I went through a bunch of sessions, which were mostly very interesting. Especially the keynotes about Gears of War 2 were great. Especially because we got to see a live demo of the game, which looked great! I also got a sneak peak at Lego Universe, which looks very nice as well.

I'm not going to be going into too much details about the developers side of things here, though I may publish some stuff on the convention itself.

Laters!

- SG

Heading off to Leipzig

SG_01 — Sat, 16 Aug 2008 22:44:38 GMT

Well, it's been a while since I last wrote. Things are going well, and I've been busy with work a lot. Tomorrow morning I depart for the Games Convention in Germany! Going to be a blast, I'm sure.

Aside from that, Selinye posted some neat quizzes I thought I'd take as well :)

What Planet Are You From?
this quiz was made by The Autist Formerly Known As Tim

What Be Your Nerd Type? Your Result: Gamer/Computer Nerd You enjoy the visual stimulants of a video game, chatting on AIM, or reading online comics. Most of these types of nerds are considered dirty who lack hygeine, of course they always end up being the ones who make a crapload of money. And don't worry, that's just a stereotype; I'm not calling you dirty. ^_~
Science/Math Nerd
Anime Nerd
Literature Nerd
Social Nerd
Musician
Drama Nerd
Artistic Nerd
What Be Your Nerd Type? Quizzes for MySpace

I'll post some stuff while I'm at the GC, if I can find some internet connection, and time around! - SG

GC '08