EGX 2015 – Adam’s Friday Report

While people who consider London to be the centre of the universe were no doubt appalled by the decision to move the Eurogamer Expo to Birmingham. I, however, welcomed it with open arms. Purely because it’s a lot easier for me to reach. I’m selfish like that. So, Friday and Saturday I braved the crowds and played as many games as I possibly could.

There are some big AAA games that I failed to get around to. Purely because queues became ridiculous as the day went on. The Division and Mirror’s Edge were always rammed with The Division almost constantly having a queue at the three hour mark. Queues so large it was actually hard to find out where each line ended, like someone played Theme Park and decided to make some sort of nightmare creation.

As soon as I entered the NEC, once I got my free Tornado drink (which I have yet to taste for fear of death), I went straight to the brightly coloured area that could only belong to Nintendo. So first up was Starfox Zero. An odd choice of first game, but I’ve always been a Nintendo guy and I needed to see if it was more Starfox 64 and less Starfox: Assault.

I was a bit wary of the game, after all the recent delay to 2016 doesn’t fill me with confidence, but I came away pleasantly surprised. The demo level is Corneria, and starts off almost like a remake of the opening level of the N64 game. An on rails shooter that stays true to its roots before you enter an all range mode (free roaming section) where you need to defend buildings from enemy ships and giant mechanical spiders. The gamepad is used as a first person mode as you look through the crosshairs, which becomes imperative during the final boss battle. It doesn’t feel gimmicky and, at least in the level I played, adds to the experience.

There is also a button you can press to turn into that weird chicken thing seen in the original trailer, but it’s not needed so I didn’t bother. There didn’t see much of a point seeing as I was blowing up everything quite easily. That was probably my biggest gripe – it was a very short demo and I do worry that they’re going to try and add in a bunch of other gameplay mechanics that turns it into a muddled mess. However, my expectations have been raised.

Next up was the biggest queue I stood in at EGX – Rise of the Tomb Raider. I think I stood waiting for over two hours. I was desperate for a drink, but not desperate enough to open the can of Tornado stashed in my bag. When I finally reached the demo pod I can say it was worth the wait and probably my highlight of EGX.

Initially starting off with a puzzle it took me a while to actually get used to the controls and figure out what I was supposed to do. My incompetence soon subsided however and I finally worked out what to do with the rather devilish water puzzle. A puzzle which, people should note, took place inside a tomb. I know it’s a short demo, but from this it seems the developers have taken on board the criticism of the previous game and actually feature more meaningful tombs in their tomb raiding game. After the puzzle section there was a short shooting bit (which felt identical to the last game) before the inevitable run away from everything blowing up section that was popularised by Uncharted. Very impressive graphically and a definite must-buy when it’s released in November.

So what did I do after Tomb Raider? Well, I went and played the game that you could say inspired the new direction of the series – Uncharted: The Nathan Drake Collection. After the madness of queuing, I only went to this because it was only a five-minute wait. The demo shown was of Uncharted 2 (the best in the series) and took place from the moment our hero Nathan Drake is chased by a truck (the run and gun section) to the end of the shootout in the town. What can I say? It’s Uncharted! One of the best games ever made, and two pretty good ones also. It’s going to be interesting to see how the original has aged considering it was a PS3 launch title. It’s worth noting that it looks stunning as well, some considerable effort has gone into making this look like a PS4 title. Unless something goes catastrophically wrong at launch then if you’ve never experienced the Uncharted series before then this is a must before Uncharted 4 hits shelves next year.

And that was Friday! A busy day spent with some great games. Nothing was disappointing, some things were surprising and the queues were insane. Stay tuned for my Saturday report.