Every morning will consist of me eating waffles before anything because I still have an entire package of Eggo waffles for breakfast! Yesterday was me feeling out the convention but today I was all business since I really wanted to try a lot of the games on the show floor instead of fooling around. If anyone was following my twitter, I was a bit colorful today before and after the show. Tomorrow will be more of the same thing but expect A LOT more photos of the event.
Skipping over how much K-Pop I listened to and how many dances I actually know and did before heading down to the wonderfully polluted city of downtown Los Angeles, I am just going to give you guys a few photos of what it looked like, it will not be all the photos because I am saving that for the last report but I want to give you all a glimpse of what was at the event and how many people were actually lining up to try certain products. I will also tell you what games I tried along with products that I demonstrated in front of small groups of people.
All those pictures were taking outside of West Hall. There are more photos but because most of today takes place in West Hall, I will only show the outside of it. I have other pictures as well but my friend has not uploaded all of them yet since he did a lot more picture taking than I did but I will upload everything tomorrow (Hopefully it doesn't crash anything!)
After walking into West Hall I just had to step back and take a picture because the stairs were different from the last time I was there.
I know one year they did it with Final Fantasy XIII, this year they did it with Street Fighter vs Tekken. After taking that picture I decided to head over to Sony's booth since I had some unfinished business to attend to. That unfinished business was to play the hell out of every game possible that did not need a level 2 pass and I am proud to announce that after standing and playing for two and a half hours, I did it.
The first game I played was the new Ace Combat: Assault Horizon which is being released for both the Xbox 360 and the PlayStation 3. This game is really nice graphically but some of the game play really irked me. For example, they added a new "dog fight" feature that lets the computer automatically chase down their enemy like a real pilot in the Air Force but the thing is that the chase can be so hectic, the player might get confused because of the rapid pace of the sequence.
In the older editions of Ace Combat, the player had to just manually just chase their enemy which sounds bad when reading this but it was actually a lot easier that way. The demo I tried was just shooting down enemy airplanes and I was doing that for maybe twenty or thirty minutes after a guy finally told me that the demo never ends. Another interesting aspect about the game is that it is not exclusively flying jets but there are also helicopters as well which makes for a more dynamic game. I did not get a chance to try the helicopter but my friend ended up telling me that it was a fun experience.
Staying in Sony's booth, I decided to try another multiplatform title called Dark Souls. The game is supposed to be the spiritual successor to Demon's Souls which was released exclusively for the Playstation 3. I'm going to tell you now that if you played Demon's Souls, it is the exact same thing except a little bit harder and a little bit sunnier but other than that it is pretty much the same game. For those of you who haven't played Demon's Souls, it is similar to the combat of Elder Scrolls and those types of games, just a lot harder and more punishing. It was fun until this giant dragon came out of nowhere and completely stomped me ending the demo.
For the next game, this was one of the most requested games ever and I am proud to say that I did try Deus Ex: Human Revolution and it was a hell of an experience. The game takes place before the first game so it is a prequel but the interesting thing about this particular demo was that it let me choose between doing a non-lethal or a lethal run and letting me pick my style of weaponry as well. For people new to the series, it is open ended in the way that the player chooses how to deal with their enemies, whether or not they want to kill, sneak past, or disable and knock out in any way they like. It is an interesting game and I hope people pick up the first two games (although the first one is one of the best game ever made).
After playing in Sony's booth for awhile, I decided to walk over to a booth called "Perfect World". The reason I walked over here was because every year I have gone, they always give out godly bags since the convention always seemed to have lacked bags for people to carry stuff in.
This game is called "Raiderz" which looks like it's a pure Player vs. Environment type of MMORPG from what I was told and what my friends and I tried. Basics of this game are player runs and kills things and then finds bigger things to kill. Sound familiar? The game was fun but it just didn't seem like it could stand out from the other MMORPGs out there.
After an hour, I went to try some products, notably some Snakebyte ones. They are a smaller company based in Europe that has not broke into the North American scene yet but they are trying their hardest. I bring this to attention because last year I was asked to review one of their products which was their take on the Playstation 3 controller (in US pricing it is actually better than the first party one Sony one gives and it is much cheaper, if anyone wants the review I'll post it in comments). Now, they are back with a new Wii controller that has rechargeable batteries and Wii Motion Plus technology built into the controller at an even more affordable cost. It was interesting because I have never seen a third party accessories company rival the quality of the first party maker ever. Their pricing also seems to be a lot lower than the first party brands as well. For a small company, I hope they go far.
Now for the biggest game of today, if Deus Ex: Human Revolution was not enough for you, well yours truly got to try out Assassin's Creed: Revelations in front of a small gathering of people. I will be honest and say that I hated the first Assassin's Creed game but after playing one of the last ones and demoing this one, that mindset has changed. This game is one to watch for. Everyone has seen the trailers and demos for it but for me to tell you from gamer to game, it is a remarkable game. I only got try out the part in Constantinople with the ships but using the hook blade was probably the most hilarious thing I could have done for everyone watching.
Anyway guys, tomorrow is the last day and I will be writing a report and then posting some pictures. Oh yeah, I will end with a picture of myself posing with the Hello Kitty (for those of you who have me on Facebook) that I saw a year ago and it decided to show up again this year.
Oh yeah, if you guys wanted to know the line for certain products.
That is the line to try Playstation Vita and I didn't even catch all of it.
Also, tomorrow I will provide a live update on my Twitter: @GenoCast