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Eurogamer gamescom Awards Article
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458 exhibitors, 120,000 square metres, 17,000 trade visitors, 4000 hacks and 245,000 people later, the first annual gamescom show in Cologne is over, and while it was less showbiz than the E3 that preceded it by two months, it put more new games in front of more gamers than any other show worldwide.
We were among those in attendance, and having overcome our torturous one-hour jetlag (Tom slept on the plane both ways, fact fans), we put our heads together this morning to come up with our game of the show. What's more, we had agreed in advance to put our heads together with our friends all around the Eurogamer Network, so, once you've decided our decision is rubbish, you can skip to page two and get fed up with lots of people whose work is only available in languages you can't read, too. On with the shame!
Best of the Nation: Star Wars: The Old Republic
Eurogamer's favourite game of gamescom 2009 might have won for any of many reasons - the fact that it's not only the first MMO to be fully voiced, but will be localised into French and German; the inclusion of persistent NPC or companion death, threatening to inject some risk and consequence into questing; or just the fact the presentation was held in a Jedi Temple (or the inherent MMO bias of the Eurogamer gamescom Awards voting panel).
Good year for the PC! Not that any of these games have release dates.
But the Sith Warrior made a particular impression. Boarding an Imperial ship, he has to deal with an Imperial captain who disobeyed an order. Canon suggests it's goodnight windpipe, but he can also be spared. Keeping him alive means you gain the benefit of his experience and the respect of the crew, which helps in dealing with boarders later on. Dark side classes can be light-side positive, and vice versa - a difficult thing to get right, but then BioWare doesn't do the path of least resistance.
Nominees
FIFA 10 - Peter Moore can (and does) say what he wants, but FIFA 09 didn't just fail to make our Top 50 last year because sports fans are few and far between at Eurogamer; it fell by the wayside because it was only nearly brilliant, over-reliant on sprinting and open to exploits online. But FIFA 10 is brilliant. 360-degree dribbling is the banner headline, but artful tweaks across the board breed variety and realism in subtle but important ways. We might have expected it to be the best sports game at gamescom by the distance of several football pitches, but it was only a few yards off best game, too.
New class. Pure class.
Diablo III - Gorgeous, visceral and impossible to walk away from, Diablo III currently doesn't exist as much more than three character classes (four, if you weren't at gamescom at all, but over in California for the BlizzCon unveiling of the Monk). That's enough to be going on with, though; each one is a game in itself, full of personality, power, mechanical sophistication and its own special brand of knife-edge risk. Diablo was always this quick, but it's never been this clever before.
Borderlands - Games are all so serious these days. Once upon a time we used to run around green hills grabbing floating rings and jumping on robots which had poor defenceless bunnies inside them. These days it's all moral relativism this and Randian objectivism that. Borderlands, meanwhile, is about getting together with three of your friends, or two or one or none, and rumbling around a weirdo planet called Pandora setting fire to midgets, beating up giant gash-faced dogs named after heroin, and then looting corpses for randomly generated guns. It's Diablo meets Fallout, assuming they both came for a good time, and it looks brilliant.
Assassin's Creed II - For us (although not, we accept, for nine million other people), Assassin's Creed was a 'nearly' game, pregnant with potential that the midwives of the 13th century ultimately failed to deliver. For all we know, Assassin's Creed II may also be flattering to deceive, but it's certainly very flattering, and the linear sub-level idea implemented for the gamescom demo, along with the ambitious Renaissance setting and hooks into the Pazzi conspiracy, is sufficient to suggest that 2007's most mysterious action-adventure may be bettered in 2009.
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Comments: 1-34 of 34 in total
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+9
I don't quite understand all this Heavy Rain hype. Sure it's pretty to look at, but to me it mostly just seems like a an old fashioned adventure game with heavy use of quick time events.
But I guess that since I was never really a particularly big fan of the former and hate the latter, I'm naturally biased against this game. |
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JohnnyWashnGo
24/08/09 @ 14:42
+18
@Nick185
10 hours of QTE huh? You know, some people enjoy a good story when they play games. Regardless of whether the game is short or long, is full of QTE or not, if it has a good story to tell and involves you in that story, its a winner in my book. On the other hand, games that have no real story, no real conclusion or goal to reach tend to be akin to another job in my view. When I play a game, I like it to tell a story, have me take part in that story and come to a satisfying conclusion without requiring me to give up the day job/missus/other hobbies to do so. So, in summary, 10 hours of QTE is fine with me as long as I enjoy the story. |
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Physically_Insane
24/08/09 @ 14:59
0
@rauper
Not saying it won't be a good game. It probably will be. But, come on. Game of the show. It looks like an exact port from the DS. And no online multiplayer even though the game is all about playing with other people. /Cartman Lame.
Edited 1 times,
most recently on 24/08/09 @ 15:59
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0
"I don't quite understand all this Heavy Rain hype. Sure it's pretty to look at"
Is it? I really don't think it's very pretty, at all. Though I enjoyed the first chapter of Fahrenheit and it appears to be trying something a little bit different. I just hope it doesn't disappear up it's own arse, though I fear it might. |
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Eighthours
24/08/09 @ 15:18
-1
Still trying to justify the non-inclusion of FIFA in last year's EG Top 50, guys? For shame. :)
Heavy Rain is going to succeed or fail based on the quality of its writing and voice acting. Unfortunately, both look pretty shaky at this point. |
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+6
I programmed a game on my school's laptops. It was called "Qlickquest". Little sprites ran around the player, who clicked to move and attack. Killing enemies garnered gold.
This just went on and on forever until the gold field overran and clicked back to 0. Is Diablo 3 any different to my decade old game this time? |
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Bigglesworth
24/08/09 @ 17:10
+1
...all this Heavy Rain hype...
Is it really getting much more coverage than any other upcoming game? I don't see it, but then I don't slavishly follow all the sites. Regardless, there's an easy way to nullify hype: don't buy into it. |
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curtlikesmeat
24/08/09 @ 17:52
0
Eurogamer has a network? What other sites are in it?
Edit: oh wait it comes in different langauges - sorry didn't realise.
Edited 1 times,
most recently on 24/08/09 @ 18:52
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makeamazing
24/08/09 @ 18:30
+1
Heavy rain isnt being hyped really, especially when you look at titles such as COD and AC2, or in fact any other video game that has lots of money spent on it. Usually the "Hype" complaint is from people who decide to read/make comments about every post about a game they could easily ignore.
Also as others have commented, Story adds alot to a game. If you have a poor story in a game then this can really effect how much you enjoy it. I have no idea if HR is going to be a good game, but I will reserve judgement until I have played it... of course I am looking forward to Diablo 3 also. |
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-2
"10 hours of QTE huh? You know, some people enjoy a good story when they play games. Regardless of whether the game is short or long, is full of QTE or not, if it has a good story to tell and involves you in that story, its a winner in my book. "
You mean games like Diablo 3, from blizzard, masters of epic storytelling? |
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0
Heavy Rain is certainly very pretty, but everything I've seen (especially that creepy "slowly-slut-your-charatcter-up-with-QTEs" demo at E3) has not made me especially interested in the title as a game . . .
**note: I'm an "out and proud" 360 fanadult, so feel free to consider my opinion partisan bias if you like*** . . . but I've been obsessively following it's development for one reason only -- Cage. I can't get enough of his interviews. He's an absolute riot. There's just no possible way the game is going to be able to deliver on his vision, but he's so passionate and suave in his delivery that if he said 2+2=5 you'd feel like it could be true for a few minutes. The PS3 family has certainly achieved parity with the 360 . . . they've got their own Molyneux now. |
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+2
Dear Eurogamer Staff,
maybe, if a game that you wouldn't have chosen wins top honours in the network-wide awards, you could let someone who voted in favour of it write the text? I mean, I'm all for speaking your mind in videogame journalism (it's why I read Eurogamer instead of other game sites), but immediately condemning the selection of your own network reeks of disrespect for your colleagues on other Eurogamer websites. You know, just a thought. |
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