Euro Gamer Expo 2010 Experience

I went to the Euro Gamer Expo 2010 in London a few days ago with my fellow classmates. The event was a convention to show the "exciting" new video game titles that were due to be released soon and were available to be played by the public before it hit the game shops. As well as the chance to play these new games, some of the games industry was there to give advice and even recruit new team members for their studios, such as Sega Europe.

Personally? After arriving there later than expected, the event was a major disappointment through to the end. Most new game titles were in fact just sequels in the most popular series such as Fable, Assasin's Creed and Fallout; not exactly the most original idea. Waiting in line to play some of these games was a tedious task as many of the best titles such as the awaited Nintendo game, The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword was overflowing with people and I didn't particularly want to wait for more than an hour to play it, which left me sulking.

With the lack of great games to play, I thought taking a detour of the gaming industry section at the back of the convention would be informative. Was it? No not really, I did however take part in a competition to win a prize of some sort. In the end I lost, but I was really happy to be given an Enslaved: Odyssey To The West poster for being so nice. In fact I played the exact same game earlier, which was entertaining. After getting my poster, I went on a freebies spree and managed to enter into a few more contests and get free little badges.

In the late afternoon, I got to speak with a games designer for a career talk, I've forgotten his name but he wasn't very helpful. I discussed my interest in character design/storyboarding, to me it was slightly intimidating as I was surrounded by about five young men including two who were already in their own business for 3D modeling. When I spoke I felt like a rodent being looked down upon by a vulture. Personally, I'm not sure how everyone else felt, but I felt I was being spoken to asif I was rather dumb and clueless about the games industry. Perhaps it was because I was female? It's often rare that females work in video game design. I didn't leave very satisified to be honest, it was the overall impression I got which left me feeling let down. I've gotten better and much stronger advice from my tutors at NUCA university believe it or not.

In the end, I got to play:
Kirby's Epic Yarn
Enslaved: Odyssey To The West
Metroid: Other M

What I REALLY wanted to play but never got a chance:
The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword (LoZ fan here).

I also got to play several indie games for the PC and get some photos of the event. Overall it was "okay", but as I mentioned beforehand, it was a disappointment. I was hoping for more appealing games, but they seriously lacked.