It was… packed. Absolutely bloody rammed with people and not really designed to cope with such a high level of interest. Check out the queue for people with standard tickets, as of 10:30 am.

And the VIP queue.

We were in this queue :)

The Games

Once inside, we discovered quite how poorly-laid-out the venue was:

Guitar Hero III and Lego Indiana Jones were probably two of the most-anticipated family-friendly games at the show. What did the organisers do? They put Lego Indiana Jones in a tiny, enclosed booth so that you could neither spectate, nor queue properly to have a go. I couldn’t even get near Guitar Hero III which, as you can see above, was squashed into the corner behind Kung Fu Panda. On the left is the green and white competition stage which is, again, enclosed so you can’t really see what’s going on.

Upstairs was slightly more spacious but didn’t have a whole lot of playable games. The Square Enix section was four TVs showing the same video montage loop. The Mac stand was nice but didn’t garner much interest. Haze and Gran Turismo 5 were popular, the latter having a very nice set of Recaro chairs hooked up to PS3s. Rock Band had a good following. I can only assume that playing it is a lot more fun than spectating. The contrast between a real band and Rock Band was just too obvious in that public setting. It was very much like watching a bunch of school kids playing an unknown piece of music for the first time – all furrowed brows and fervent reading, yet no sense of passion or enjoyment.

The other thing we noticed (and Xino pointed out) was that a lot of the games weren’t exactly new. The 18-only section had such gems as Kane and Lynch (demo already available on Xbox Live), Gears of War (ditto), Oblivion (on PS3, okay) and Halo 3 (being monopolised by people who have clearly played it before). We were amused to find a 360 proudly displaying the Red Ring of Death. ButtonBandits also had a good giggle.

There was some new stuff like Far Cry 2 Condemned 2 and Dynasty Warriors 6 (released in early March) but the most exciting games were barely represented. Here’s everything I could find for Star Wars: Force Unleashed.

Yup, it’s a poster. A large poster. A well-designed poster in 5 parts. But ultimately, a poster. Ghostbusters fared marginally better with a video. Very disappointing.

I did like the look of PDC World Championship Darts on the Wii but it was right up against the tables for the eating area. I’ve played a review copy of the PS2 version but so far have held back from reviewing it on grounds of “If you have nothing nice to say…” I really wanted to try the Wii version for comparison but it was far too much trouble to join the queue without constantly being jostled by people carrying ketchup-laden hot dogs. Speaking of which… a cheeseburger, chips and coke set me back £7.50! A beer was £4.30! I was expecting the prices to be high, but holy crap! On top of the £16 VIP tickets for a show that wasn’t big enough to justify visiting on both days, it was an expensive weekend.

Outside the stadium was a giant Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man and one of those moving pod ride things that you get for simulating roller-coasters and the like. The queue was short so we hopped inside for a wobbly preview of the Iron Man game. Don’t buy it! It looks shabby and plays like the cheap movie tie-in that it is. I hope the film is better, because the trailer looks very promising.

There were some good things about the show. The Bourne Conspiracy demo was fun. Combat was a bit simplistic – block, punch, alternate until the finishing move icon appears, then hit B to (hopefully) finish off the assailant on a handy bit of scenery – but it worked for a ten minute trial. The Quick-Time-Events were even appropriate. They appeared mainly at points where you’d have to react very quickly, like being spotted by a sniper, and the reaction time was very, very short. I would have preferred more direct control, being given the choice of where to run, for example, but I suppose if you’re designing for morons who just want to twitch on buttons and not have to think, then at least they had a good premise for QTEs.

(Yes, I am being uncharitable. Quick Time Events are godawful, lazy game design and anyone who enjoys them should be thrown in a stinking pit with a continuous loop of Uwe Boll films for company.)

The other enjoyable game was Army of Two. This had its own small-yet-roomy booth with two PS3 and two Xbox 360 versions. Even though the game is already out and I was already interested (I really enjoyed co-op Gears of War), I’m not about to drop £40 on a game without having played a demo first. It’s a good co-operative shooter with a not-really-necessary USP, known as the aggrometer. Whenever you shoot or otherwise cause mayhem, you raise the aggro level of the bad guys. If one of you keeps the aggro for a while, they tend to focus entirely on you and forget about your partner, who then turns “invisible” and can run around the behind them and do his murderous thing. As far as I could see, having this visually represented on the HUD was entirely redundant. The ubiquitous tracer rounds used by the enemy do a perfectly good job of indicating who has their attention. Army of Two would be a much more immersive game if aggro was simply a hidden property and TBH, I don’t see how it makes the gameplay significantly different from the enemies’ behaviour in Gears of War. Sure, there are a couple of visual effects and “Overkill” mode but this sort of teamworking and distraction technique has been a staple of shooters for years, no? No matter, there were other fun features that made it enjoyable, despite the overwhelmingly white male cast (with token hot radio female). Co-op parachuting is a nice change from driving+shooting sequences and the back-to-back slow-motion fighting technique is a laugh.

The Shows

I was there for the games. I didn’t care about the shows, which is just as well because there wasn’t a whole lot of space to watch them. I suppose other people might have enjoyed the bands or the obnoxious MC who kept shouting “Xbox 360 is better than PS3 yeah?” despite getting no response, but to me they were oppresive noise. We got a good view of the dancing Vegas showgirls by virtue of being upstairs at the time. Their shows seemed rather pointless to me, having very little to do with Rainbow 6 Vegas, but in a 95% male crowd, there was probably enough of an audience to convince some marketing exec that it was a worthwhile idea.

In summary:

The show was disappointing for those of us who remember the spaciousness of PlayStation Experience or Game Stars Live. It was awkward to queue for the few games we wanted to try. In swag terms, it was dreadful. The great thing about Game Stars Live (2004) and PlayStation Experience (2003) was coming home with a bunch of extra demo discs to play at my leisure from the comfort of my bed. At Play.com Live we got a bunch of flyers, DVDs of Ice Age and Knocked Up (WTF? truly awful film), a fake Stuntman Ignition license plate, some keychains and lanyards, a cheaply printed Fifa Street baseball cap, a pen that lights up and an EA drawstring bag. TheFluffyFist managed to bag himself a 4GB MicroSD card from the SanDisk lucky dip and we breathed the same air as Tom Baker, for those of you who might be impressed by such things.

We thought that having VIP tickets would mean that we could get some time on the more popular games during the “shift-change”, when they booted out the 10am-2pm ticket holders and let the 2pm-6pm ticket holders in. Nope, they kicked everyone out and then let us back in after ten minutes of standing around in the rain. Really crappy treatment and just served to underline how much of a rip-off the “VIP” tickets were.

OTOH, we bought Army of Two from HMV on the way home so we could spend Sunday playing it. Score 1 for the EA booth.

Age rating: 12+

What is it?

Adventure, action, but not really enough puzzles.

Is it fun?

Yes, for the most part.

Is it worth the money? £29.99 (from Play.com)

Yes, but the game is a little short (…I am seeing a theme recurring here)

Why?

Now Tomb Raider Legend has been released, the first Tomb Raider game in a long time. I heard Angel of Darkness (the most recent TR title before this) was utter pants, and was even blamed for the poor box office showing of the second film (which was a tad harsh, I wasn’t keen on either of the films) – I never played it though, having mostly given up on the franchise after playing TR3 (too much mucking about with flares for my liking).

I was really keen to see the new game regain the franchise’s former glory, and have just played through the PS2 version. How does it fare then?

My first Tomb Raider experience was playing TR2 on my old Playstation1 – it was the first PS1 game I bought (released a month after I bought the console – so I had to endure the games on the demo disk in the mean time). When it finally arrived I thought it was faaaan- flippin – tastic! A real 3D game that made you look in all directions, back in the days when many games were still only 2 dimensional in actual gameplay (although the art was 3D).

At the time of its release some would fault its choice to allow you to save at any place and reliance on urban locations, but I really didn’t understand until I played the original TR game. In that you had to find and stand in save crystals located within the levels, they asked you to take more of a risk – “Do I save now, or leave the crystal for later in case I cross back this way?”, much more fun than just saving anywhere at anytime. Also as I remember the locations were mostly outdoors, raiding tombs (as a tomb raider should do) which is something the sequels forgot as time went on. Shooting angry killer animals and mummies is always more fun than facing up against faceless swat teams – it’s part of what helps to make the game stand out from the competition. Half-Life 2 went down that same path to some degree. I found taking on the Combine (in their various iterations) far less fun than the huge range of unique enemies that the original delivered. Anyway, on to the review!

The controls are very good once you get used to them (I kept wanting to press R1 to look about), you now have a commando-style grapple wire to help you swing about and some binoculars with a built-in hint mode (for dummies only really). You also get a torch, but it’s rarely used.

PRETTY
On the art front the game delivers 100% – This is a very pretty PS2 game. Lara’s climbing and acrobatic animations are far more organic than ever before (with great tiny details like the falling dust and rock fragments coming from your hands as you shimmy along a rock crevice). Everything is generally very polished and detailed. The enemy agents you tackle look a bit bland, sadly, like nondescript James Bond baddies – and there are only two real animals in the game, leopards. They look wimpy and unthreatening, I even ran past the first one hoping for some sort of bonus for not hurting endangered animals. More animals in the next games please – piranhas/dinosaurs etc – bring it on!

EAR PIECE
You have a 2-man support team now back at base – always chatting into your ear, giving hints and encouragement. I wasn’t too keen at first, being a purest who enjoyed all the lone trekking about of the first two games – but I see how they help let things tick along, and stop less hard-core gamers getting stuck.

BANG BANG FIZZLE
The combat is a real let down. Very boring, and never feels that threatening (apart from when they start flinging grenades at you). Enemies in this sort game work best when they chuck visible projectiles at you that are then dodgeable, or need to get close to take a bite out of you – that way you have a real challenge of trying to tackle the enemy whilst dodging. Enemies with guns are no fun as their bullets can’t be dodged in the same manner, so when you beat them you don’t feel as rewarded.

HOME SWEET HOME
The old Croft manor is one of the best bits of the game. With no help from people chatting into your earpiece you need to work out the puzzles on your own – it feels most like the original games and is a real challenge. The manor space isn’t that large overall, probably so they can scale it up in games to come (there is no outdoor assault course and no hedge maze – but the new indoor gym is fantastic).

MAKE ME THINK!
The game is not as long as the old ones – levels feel very short, but they are solidly constructed. There just aren’t enough puzzles for my liking, and most that are there are just far too easy. On the penultimate level things just start to get more interesting from a puzzley point of view, but it’s a bit too late. This game is very much aimed as modern day mass market entertainment, not terribly taxing or long, something you can switch on and off quite easily. This isn’t a terrible thing but had they kept things a bit more puzzley then I think it would have been a better-rounded product.

DRAGON’S LAIR?
There are reaction-based sections of the game that I really didn’t like one bit. Resident Evil 4 did them well; they always felt relevant and never too annoying.

Here’s and example of one in TR Legend – you walk into a large room. In front of you the floor is made of large tiles. Some have fallen away leaving gaping holes – I thought “This will be fun – I’ll have to traverse the floor and it’ll be like a puzzle where certain tiles will fall away” – but just as I get near a cutscene takes over and Lara navigates the floor space by herself – only requesting the odd button press at specific moments. Very dull. At least Resi Evil changed the button sequences on each attempt, but here they ask you to press the same ones for each replay of these reaction-based events.

I think the big problem they made is that in most of these sequences Lara creates her own peril, so you feel less concerned for her safety (making it a chore instead, having to save her dumb neck rather than feeling like you are along on the ride). Only two really work well as they are direct consequences of the players actions – the one with the water creature and the other when you are in the crashed plane. If they use these reaction-based sections in future they really need to put more work into them.

HOLLYWOOD INFLUENCES
It feels like they wanted to make it play out more like a short TV movie. After completing the game it does all feel a bit like absorbing a 1 hour TV special. By that I don’t mean it had cheap production values, rather that the gaming sections were a bit like interludes to the story – which is in contrast to TR1 and 2 where back then the FMV sections were the interludes to the game. They probably wanted this game to re-ignite interest in the film franchise too, which no doubt affected how it has turned out (the inclusion of the support team chatting into your ear from back at base and so on).

GET BONUS!
By collecting items hidden throughout the levels you can unlock bonus concept art, 3D models to view (no zoom function sadly) as well as new outfits for Lara. Apparently by collecting everything you get to unlock a swimsuit outfit (woopidoo) but that will take you some time, as finding them all can be quite tricky. There is also a time attack mode to try out on each level, which is pretty tough and adds value to the product (as long as you want to go replay the game again that is).

IN CONCLUSION
Very nicely made relaunch to the game franchise, if a little short. Hopefully to be expanded in future sequels with more puzzles and improved combat.