As you may or may not know, three of us (Jeroen, Liënne and myself) went to the GamesCom on friday and saturday. For those of you who might find this interesting, here are some highlights of the experience.
Arrival
We travelled to Cologne by train and arrived in the afternoon. The Kölnmesse (the gigantic complex of enormous halls where the event took place) is at walking distance from the train station, to the east. But for some reason we decided to go west and soon found ourselves a bit lost. It was a hot day, so I blame the blazing German sun for frying our brains and temporarily disabling our otherwise impeccable sense of direction.
So we arrived at the south entrance of the Kölnmesse a bit later than planned. Time for some more confusion. Our entrance passes had already been reserved by redspotgames, and the ticket service seemed like a logical place to ask about them. So we did, and we were subsequently asked to each fill in a form with some basic questions about our company. After filling in the form, we were told that the ticket service people couldn't actually help us at all and we should turn to the info desk. The girls from the info desk didn't know about our tickets, but helpfully started making phone calls to resolve the matter. Sadly it turned out that the phone was only connected to an internal phone line, so they couldn't actually contact anyone useful. Smashing!
Realising the futility of trying to work through what one would assume to be the proper channels, we gave Max from redspotgames a call and sure enough, within minutes he appeared with our passes. Problem solved? Not quite yet! Few people outside of Germany know this, but access to the Kölnmesse is controlled by an evil computer. The evil computer said that we were already inside. Therefore, it would not allow us to enter. And none of the evil computer's human minions dared to disobey it. They remained completely loyal to their electronic overlord and stated that "these people are already inside", even though it was plain to see that we were standing outside. Marvellous!
The solution was to walk around the planet-size Kölnmesse to the north entrance, where the evil computer's influence was less severe and we were allowed entrance.
Inside
The redspotgames boothOnce inside, things got a lot better. We got to meet the guys from
redspotgames (obviously), we talked to
KonTechs (the programmers of
Dux), fans and interviewers, we signed some copies of Rush Rush Rally Racing, and of course looked around and played some games.
The redspotgames booth looked good and sounded loud. It had some Xbox demostations running Solar Struggle, 2 Dreamcast demostations running Wind & Water and Rush Rush Rally Racing, and 3 Wii demostations running Rush Rush Rally Racing. Unfortunately there was a problem installing the most recent build of Rush Rush Rally Racing on the Wiis, so a very old build was used instead. That's a shame of course, because the latest build is more stable, looks better and has more features. But still, an old build is better than none at all so things could have been much worse.
Many Wii users had some trouble getting used to the the game's controls, though. Not because there's anything wrong with them, but because they expected waggle controls! Maybe next time someone should put up a big sign that says "no waggle" or something.
Our passes also allowed us to enter the business area of the GamesCom. But apart from making us feel important, it didn't do us much good. There wasn't a lot going on there.
A visit to the Kinect demo booths made us realise that we were not the only ones dealing with an evil computer that never does what you want it to do. Compared to the trouble some people were having to simply select an option in a menu using Kinect, getting into the GamesCom was a piece of cake.
90% of the games present looked identical (including the Kinect ones, they were mostly only controlled in a different way) so we ignored them. The welcome exceptions were Scott Pilgrim Versus The World and Super Scribblenauts.
Question of the day:
"what happened to Age of the Beast?"
Breakfast Bureaucracy
The next morning we were in for another adventure. We wanted to have breakfast at a nearby restaurant, but we were too early. Breakfast wasn't served there until ten. Since it was only about nine o'clock at that time, we decided not to wait. Instead we went back to the hotel's kitchen, but were stopped at the door. An angry female voice informed us that "das ist keine Eingang!" Despite our failure to understand the importance of not entering through that particular door, we obediently went to the hotel's main entrance, through the lobby, around the kitchen and entered via the designated "Eingang". Now that we had managed to enter the kitchen correctly, we were entitled to the information that breakfast is not served past nine. Lovely!
Our stomachs still empty, we retreated for a moment to investigate the kitchen's schedule and menu, and hatched a cunning plan. We would beat the system by ordering lunch and eating it for breakfast instead! Brilliant! The kitchen lady wasn't about to go down without a fight, though. "Kein Lunchpaket!" What is with this woman? Is she even human? Fortunately we came well-prepared this time. Armed with the knowledge that "das kleine Lunchpaket" (the small lunch pack) was available according to kitchen law, we managed to get the cyborg kitchen lady to admit defeat. All that was left to do now was return to the reception, pay for a coupon, return to the kitchen and exchange the coupon for the lunch-to-be-breakfast. Nothing tastes like German "Brötchen" with a topping of sweet victory.
Inside, part 2
Life tip: never go to the GamesCom on a saturday. It was so crowded that the inside of each hall resembled a game of human Tetris. Of course if human Tetris is your thing, feel free to ignore the aforementioned tip. But I'm sure you'll understand that waiting in line for four hours to catch a glimpse of yet another identical modern game is no thing of ours. Fortunately we were "lucky" enough to have received a priority pass from a friendly journalist, which allowed us to skip (most of) the line at the Kinect booth.
Our Kinect instructor (yes, we had an instructor. Whatever happened to pick up and play?) taught us how to be our own controller. "Don't stand in front of this line or it won't recognise your movements. Lift your knees really high or it won't see that you're running. Run without moving or you'll cross the line." Aren't there easier ways to make oneself look like an idiot?
We also played a demo of Sonic 4. The line was about 2 persons long.
Question of the day:
"I'm from General Motors. Would you like to discuss the possibility of using our cars in your game?"
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