2009-08-22

The gamescom 2009 - Games can be great!

I were at the gamescom 2009 in Cologne, Germany. Together with almost any important company of the games sector. It was quite big, and very good organized. But there were some caveats, too. You can get a glimpse at the photo gallery.

The biggest gaming trade fair in Europe, and one of the biggest in the world had some TV-Stars on the stages, big names like Hideo Kojima, Tony Hawks, and many more appeared at the booth. And they were great. I gave up on some with a big line. Blizzard e.g. placed a sign saying "Don't wait in this line anymore. 4 hours from this point". Well I had to do something better, than to wait 4 hours. Ubisoft waited for me, and the new Rabbids stuff, we are going to see, will be fun. Also Red Steel 2 and a new, funny soccer game "Academy of Champions", all for the Nintendo Wii, will be coming soon. One of the developer of "Raving Rabbids - Go Home", showed some stuff live and created a "Mario Rabbid". Genius!
Talking Nintendo. It was probably the most stingy company on the whole event. They almost lost me as a customer of Nintendo. I'm really pissed that you have to beg for a T-Shirt as a long year customer, and get rejected. Tim Feldner (from the former Giga-TV team) and his helpers saved Nintendo's ass and handed me over a Shirt, but you know, I probably won't wear this for some time, I'm really furious about this. Speaking of GIGA-TV, Not only Tim, but Michael Neudert, Vio and Susi were all there, and I'm glad I saw them all in action. I missed Florian at the "Runes of Magic" booth.
Runes of Magic, the free-2-play, MMORPG is now a real contender. It looks good and is very playable. I played it as a beta, and it did improve unbelievable. Also, they had a great show, and a quite big booth. They gave out Paysafe Cards preloaded with money for buying in-game stuff. The competition is numerous on the other hand. NCSoft showed Guild Wars 2 and Aion also made a good impression. Also Bounty Online is now free-2-play, too. Especially pirate fans will be satisfied with this.
One of the biggest surprises to me was "Fairytale Fights" from Playlogic. The booth was so cute, I thought it's a game for children. Until I saw a sign saying "18+". Now that made me curious. So I took the wait and I saw a cute looking game, with small graphic chars. Then up to the first enemy, a lumberjack. Got that axe and... part the guy into 2 pieces. The head fell over and gallons of blodd spilled on the floor :) Okay, so that's why it's 18+. Innovative level design, smooth gameplay, multiplayer on the same screen, and other great stuff made this game one of the best I found. It's not epic, but it's a game for having a lot of fun alone or with friends. And that's what I badly miss these times.
The gamescom 2009 showed how good a game fair might be. Cologne is the right place, and for me, it's a huge success. I'm sure the numbers will prove that. I was there on Thursday, the first official day, and it was well visited. Saturday will be hell ;). So many big names, and all of the important game companies were there. It was fun, and I really got that "gamer-feeling" from the Amiga shows in 1989, which were held in Cologne, too. It was great! I can't wait for gamescom 2010. 


Link: Photo Gallery

Videos:

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