Finally, after six or seven long, dull weeks of summer, another blog post! My urge to write has been dampened not only by my beloved Tropico 4 being put back to September 30 but also a metric shitload of university work to be completed before any gaming could occur. (For those wondering, I'm with the Open University, we don't get holidays!) Other little diversions such as the release of the ten NES games promised to the Ambassador Scheme participants proved to be fairly short lived, as I received a harsh reminder that games used to be MUCH harder, Back In The Day.(TM)
So around rolled GAMEfest, a three day event at the NEC in Birmingham showcasing the best that this Christmas would have to offer, and promising a first play of such favourites (can you hear me rolling my eyes? That's unintentional, I apologise) as Modern Warfare 3, Battlefield 3 and Gears of War 3. Considering that its UK release was approximately 72 hours away, a staggering amount of people queued to get a first glimpse of Gears of War 3 (to which I say, should have gone to Gadget Show!) and to the right is a quick snapshot I took of the Battlefield 3 queue, which I could almost not believe, despite it being there in front of my face.
So, not wanting to spend my afternoon queueing to get my ass kicked by some spotty teen at CoD, we went for a wander and started playing the first of many 3DS games we would try that day: Mario and Sonic at the London Olympics. Now I must admit to having a bit of a soft spot for the Mario and Sonic Olympics franchise - from the time I first played the Wii version and hurt myself breaking the world rowing record to the time I borrowed the Winter Olympics game on the DS and spent a very silly week playing the adventure mode, I've considered this game a harmless and enjoyable bundle of fun. Technically, I hate minigame collections, but these seem to have more of a purpose behind them and hold my attention by always promising that I might just do a little better than last time if I try again.
The next game we looked at was Sonic Generations. The 3DS and the 360 versions looked quite different, at least from the demo versions we looked at, and the word on the grapevine is that the 3DS version is going to contain different levels from the big console versions. One thing that they will have in common however is that they will contain a mix of classic levels from throughout Sonic's history, and the feeling of absolute speed is back, and stronger than ever. I wasn't feeling 100% when I played it, and felt my eyes weren't quite refreshing fast enough, but The Husband was absolutely stoked to be playing a new Sonic game, and was only dissapointed when the screen he was playing on decided to overheat and turn itself off... true story!
After swinging by the Metal Gear Solid stand to check out the port of Peace Walker, we went for a bit of a wander around the rest of QUEUEfest, and decided that an awful lot of things weren't worth standing around for, a good look over someone's shoulder was enough to remind ourselves that certain titles were coming. After a narrow escape by the Dance Central 2 stand, we wrung our hands in despair at all the new dance titles, (ABBA: You Can Dance anyone? The Black Eyed Peas game? Obviously they will make millions, but not in our house, thankyou.) stopped for a quick squizz on Soul Calibur V (looks very shiny indeed) and Pacman Championship on 3DS (shiny in a rather different way) and then headed to the Nintendo stand.
I've not really got a whole bunch to say about Mario Kart 7. I played a couple of levels lifted from the latest Wii incarnation, and yes, it plays like a dream, yes, there's customisable karts now, yes, there's all your favourite characters and yes, it's a good deal of fun. But there's nothing new to report. This in itself is not necessarily a bad thing, afterall, if they changed it too much, it just wouldn't be Mariokart, and then I'd be slating it for that. I'll definitely buy Mario Kart 7, but somewhere in my mind I'll be conscious of the fact that I've already been there, done that, and literally got the t-shirt. Super Mario 3D Land looked a bit more interesting, even if I was having major brain fail at that point and couldn't do it. The 3D adds some tricky puzzles in, like platforms not appearing where you think they should until you rotate the scene. Not one to play with a hangover!
And finally, to the overall wonderful surprise of the day. I was tired, had a headache you could split rocks on and ready to go home, when The Husband spotted the WWE '12 stand. I've never played a wrestling game, and had no intentions of after seeing the floaty mess that was Allstars. After a short queue (part of which was spent sitting on chairs, thank god!) his Miz thoroughly kicked the arse of my Zack Ryder (WWWYKI) and I laughed hysterically. Out of everything I played that day, who'd have thought I'd now be looking forward to this the most?
So that's all over for another year now. What are you most looking forward to for Christmas?
So that's all over for another year now. What are you most looking forward to for Christmas?
