As some of you may be aware, some of us lucky people here from your favourite site ducktoid went along to the Eurogamer Expo at Earls Court on Friday to try out some of the latest games coming to a console and PC near you soon. I didn’t really know what to expect from a video game expo having never been to one before but all I can say is, I had a great day playing lots of video games, some which were always going to be good, some which could have gone either way and some which just flat out surprised me…

First of all I shall talk about some of the great people (and droids) I met, there was people there from all walks of life including some developers who were very interesting to talk to about what they think is going to be the next big thing in games not surprisingly (to me at least) none of them mentioned Xbox’s Kinect or Playstation’s Move systems citing them both really as gimmicks that don’t really bring anything new to gaming as much as refining already existing technology.

As you may expect from a gaming expo there was lots of cosplay going on, and during the day I saw Link from Zelda, Felica and Morrigan from Darkstalkers/Marvel vs Capcom 3 and an incredibly skinny girl dressed as a kind of speed racer character posing for photos with a guy dressed as a cross between the Punisher and Captain America…Weird I know but hey!…

One of the highlights of my day was finally completing a lifelong quest (yes I play my life like a video game! Haha) and meeting R2D2!!!!!!! and the first thing I did??….I ran up to him and gave him a great big hug!! (many of my facebook friends will have seen the photo already!)

My first love...R2D2!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I also got to meet a Sith Lord from the upcoming mmorpg game and sequel to Star Wars: Galaxies, Star Wars: The Old Republic which looks like a really good game, now I’m not a fan of MMORPG games normally but even I enjoyed the game and on the computer that I played it on at least, it ran very smoothly and looked very very good, I’m almost tempted to buy it when its out. It also looked extremely good with lightsabers looking and sounding just like they did in the movies, with the lightsaber fights between the Jedi and the Sith looking just as good too.

One of the first games I played was Battlefield 3 which I had to queue for a long while to play, was it worth the wait??…Yes it was!! It really is one of the best FPS games I have ever played and in my opinion…yes it does beat COD in every category,

One word...AWESOME!!

I played both the single player and the multiplayer and even though it was only a small part of the single player campaign, I just wanted to carry on!! The guns all sounded realistic and the controls were all very intuitive (much like previous battlefield games) but most of all..the new Frostbite game engine has to be one of the single best game engines I have ever seen running in all of my life! (and I’ve been around almost since the dawn of the home console). I also got to try out the multiplayer element of Battlefield 3 and I have to say that it was great, it just built on what was already a great multiplayer game on Battlefield 2 and made it better which is exactly what a sequel should do but so often doesn’t….I am not joking when I say that you MUST go out and pre order Battlefield 3 now and buy it on release!!!!!

I also got my gamer calloused thumbs on Tom Clancys Future Soldier, which will be the latest in the best selling and frankly brilliant and criminally under rated Ghost Recon games. I only got to play the multi player element of this game but even so, I was very very impressed, I mean it didn’t break any new grounds so far as shooter games were concerned but what it lacked in change it made up for in addictiveness and I could have quite happily stayed there all day playing the game, but then I do love FPS games and I also love all things Tom Clancy so maybe that’s why!…Anyway the multiplayer mode I played was basically a little like the domination games in the massively overrated COD series of games in so far as there was 2 teams and a single checkpoint, in this case a laptop which you had to hack, and keep control of while not being killed by the other team members so it really put the emphasis on working as a team and talking to each other to stop yourself and your team being killed. Look for Future Soldier to be released next year.

Putting the T's in fighting games

As I’m sure many of you are aware, there is a beat ‘em’ up coming out soon called Street Fighter X Tekken which is almost a ‘dead cert’ to be great, however, you may not be aware that there is also a new Tekken game coming out which will be a direct sequel to the original Tekken Tag Tournament and its going to be called…Tekken Tag 2! (original name I know) but aside from the dodgy name, is actually an incredibly good game, they only had the multiplayer mode available to play but it was very good, not much has changed since the original Tekken Tag except a few new characters to play as and better graphics (although graphics were always going to be better as its on the newer consoles!) I don’t know if there’s going to be any kind of story mode with this version of Tekken, but I wouldn’t be surprised if Namco carried on with the tradition of putting some sort of story mode in there.

Ace Combat Assault Horizon is another game I got to play. I’m already a huge fan of the Ace Combat series so I was looking forward to playing this game and it didn’t disappoint either! I played two levels, one of which was in the new helicopters they have put in for Assault Horizon!

You can be my wingman anytime!

The mission I had with the helicopter was having to take out 3 enemy ground bases filled with anti aircraft weapons, so I had to fly in low and fast and try and take them out with cannon fire and missiles and it was incredibly good fun (and in my head I couldn’t help but sing ride of the Valkyries from Apocalypse Now as I was playing!) I also got to try out a level flying what I think as an F16, an American Air force staple. As I sat down to play it the Top Gun theme tune popped into my head and before I knew it I was acting out scenes from the movie saying things like I feel the need, The need for speed! As I was involved in what turned out to be a very tense dogfight, trying to take out enemies again with cannon fire and missiles while trying not to get myself shot and having to eject saying things like “Help me goose – help me – I cant reach the ejector seat handles”. Anyway, back to the game, it was very addictive and the gameplay was very very good, so do yourself a favour and feel the need – the need for speed and pre order it.

Having never played any Saints Row game before, I’ve always wondered what all the fuss is about.

You can either look this cool, or you can look like an idiot...either way its still fun!

But after having played Saints Row The Third for quite a long time, it is possibly one of the funnest games I have ever played!! Now it obviously takes it’s influence from GTA but that’s not a bad thing. The first time I played it, I was a guy dressed in a cat outfit (a little strange I know) and I found a mission to go into a building and shoot all the bad guys and get out again within a certain time limit which was fun, I also got the chance to run around and do what I like with the game, so I decided to change into a cheerleader outfit (Hey! don’t judge okay, it was funny!) and I just thought I would attack people and get the police to chase me, and I attacked them with a bat made out of a sex toy just because I thought it would be funny…and it was. Then the police started chasing me (can’t think why) which was fun and hard as they used spike strips and tried to ram me off the road. I really can’t stress just how much fun the game was to play, in fact I may just go out and by Saints Row 1 and 2 and while I’m there pre order Saints Row The Third!

I also managed to get my hands on Assassins Creed Revelations multiplayer demo which really built on the already  great multiplayer from Assassins Creed Brotherhood and I found myself playing as an assassin trying not to get spotted by another player while all the time trying to find other people doing the same thing, I found the best tactic was just to sit down on a bench or walk around inconspicuously hoping for someone else less patient than me to make a mistake and then I pounced, but it was fun and should add an extra element to the game and make it well worth buying.

As I’m sure many of you are aware, Konami are re-releasing Metal Gear Solid 2, Metal Gear Solid 3 (the best in the series in my opinion) and Metal Gear Solid Peace Walker all in a single HD collection both on PS3 and Xbox, and I had a chance to play on MGS3.

Sneaky sneaky

I’m already a massive fan of all the Metal Gear Solid games, in fact I would put the last boss fight against Ocelot/Liquid Snake in MGS4 as one of my all time favourite moments on video games, so I really enjoyed it, and having not player it in years it was great to get back to it and sneak around a jungle, trying out different camouflage, trying not to get spotted by the guards and it brought back all the memories of just what a great game MGS is and in HD it just all looked stunning! And I for one, can’t wait for it to release.

As a nerd (the good kind) I am a huge fan of all things Lord Of The Rings, so I was excited to try out the new game called “Lord Of The Rings War Of The North” and I have to say that I was hugely disappointed by it, I thought it was going to be more like The Third Age which is the best every LOTR game ever made, but it was more like a bad version of Dragon Age, I was playing as a Dwarf in the demo version, and it just had incredibly clunky controls and didn’t look particularly good and I just didn’t like it, that’s probably why there was a very small queue for it.

At the top of this article, I mentioned that there were a few games that surprised me, so I am going to talk about those now.

I really was this surprised!

I’ve never really been a fan of any Silent Hill games before, having played Silent Hill 4 and more recently, Silent Hill Homecoming, I really haven’t been impressed by them preferring instead to play Resident Evil, But after playing a demo version of Silent Hill Downpour, due for release in November, I may be a changed man, I wasn’t expecting to like it, as I just thought it was going to be more of the same, and for all intents and purposes, it is, however something about it must have struck a nerve with me because I really really liked it. Now I think the main guy I was playing as was the same guy who was in Homecoming but I’m not sure. In the demo I had to work out how to get an elevator working by using water and levers and switches and it actually reminded me more of Resident Evil rather than Silent Hill, so maybe that’s why I enjoyed it so much. The enemies looked like deformed monsters of some kind but I don’t really know what they were. With only a Zippo style cigarette lighter to help light the way it was quite freaky and very atmospheric, but like I said really enjoyed it.

One other game that surprised me was TinTin the game of the upcoming Spielberg movie. I wasn’t expecting very much from it as most movie tie in games are usually not very good and released as more of a cash cow than a proper game, but I really enjoyed it and spent a long time playing it, it reminded me somewhat of classic Prince Of Persia with the side on view and jumping through traps and things and it was just fun to play, there was also a level where you could play as Snowy the dog which was also fun as he can run faster and jump higher than TinTin, the whole game had intuitive controls and it was just thoroughly enjoyable, although one of the best bits was flying a plane through a cave using the Playstation Move which worked really well and was easy to do. So yeah, it was a very good game.

At the Expo, I also got to play on a Nintendo 3DS for the first time which I have to say, I really didn’t like, now for those of you who visit this site often, you may have read my article called 3D, here to stay? If not, here is the link to find it http://ducktoid.com/3d-here-to-stay , if you have read it, you’ll know that I am not a fan of anything 3D and I have to say the 3DS didn’t change my view on it, it hurt my eyes looking at it and the picture quality was pretty poor and actually, I thought the 3DS was better when you turned the 3D off, which begs the question, what’s the point in having a 3DS? But aside from that, the games were fun, I played Mario Kart 7 and the new Driver game on the 3DS albeit with the 3D turned off, but the games were fun to play, I mean you can’t go far wrong with Mario and lets face it they’ve been making the same game for years and its definitely a contender for the if it ain’t broke don’t fix it award, but you know…its fun!

The Driver game was also fun, I had to drive my car to a set location within a certain time limit while being chased by someone and it was pretty good, there was no surprises with the game but it was fun.

This makes me feel old!

I also got to travel back to my childhood at Eurogamer, by going to what was sadly called the retro area, which was all games of my childhood basically, on all the old consoles ranging from the Sega Master System right up to the Nintendo 64. I played Space Harrier for the first time in about 20 years and it was still a great game, better even and certainly more addictive then a lot of newer games that have come out recently! Not bad for an old game!! I also played the original Mortal Kombat on the Sega Megadrive and I even remembered the old cheat code to turn the blood on (it was turned off on the home console release as it was deemed to be too violent for people in the 80′s, although its rather tame by today’s standards!) I had to reset the console when no one was looking to do it but I still remembered it, so it was great! And I even remembered Sub Zero’s fatality so that was even better!

So all in all, it was a great day, with some great games there and like I said, even a few surprises! But by the time I left my feet felt like they were made of stone and like they had been through a blender but even so it was good!

Thank you for reading, and feel free to leave any comments or questions below.