My Pick of Other Games from Gamescom

So I’ve been at Gamescom for the last few days – showing Eat Them! to gamers and press.  But I fortunately did get a chance to go and check out the rest of the show. Highlights for me (other than basking in the warm glow of feedback for Eat Them!) were..

Killzone 3 – I played a single player demo that sees you in a flyer taking pot-shots at a helghast ice-rig thing before being shot down and having to contine the fight on foot. The icy-sea graphics look amazing and the gameplay have been solidly incremented since Killzone 2.  For example the controls were subtly improved in a number of ways.  I liked the bit when you pass a crate of ammo and opt to re-supply there is a cool graphic of your character grabbing clips and grenades.  Small touch, but builds the whole vibe.  The flying Helghast as great fun to fight against – hit thier packs and they shoot off into the sky.  Great fun and I wanted more when the demo ended.  (Disclosure – I went drinking with some of the developers from the Killzone 3 team on the Wednesday night and they are a really nice, funny bunch of people – from several different nations too!)

Killzone 3 combat

Crysis 2 (spot a theme here?) – I did my grunt duty and queued for a bit to get in to play this one.  I’d seen, but not played, the demo at E3.  We got to see Crysis 2 3D demo video in a mini cinema – which was the same content as E3 but impressive in 3D.  The parallax of the HUD worked really well.  Then we got to play it – I think it was a huge multiplayer game with about 30 of us playing (but it was all in German so not sure) and I played on xbox360 (judging by the controller) though I think others had PC versions.  As you’d expect the console version is not as smooth and full-on as the PC demo I’d seen – but it was still impressive.  The controls are solid and the game seemed good.  A nice touch was the death anim – when shot you got to see your death replayed but with a cool slo-mo bullet effect wrapped onto it as the final killing projectile zaps your head.  Still on my list to buy!

R.U.S.E looks interesting.  Its an RTS that adds a deception layer into the gameplay.  I also saw Star Wars: The Old Republic.  The trailer was amazing and the gameplay had this really nice cover system that allowed you to see other cover positions near you.  The Deus Ex trailer is also cyber-lovely!

And then it’s back to Blighty.