Gamescom 2010 : General Discussion

@Arwin: I came from the south east highway #3/4 and it`s pretty much next to it. Took me 15min max in busy traffic from the highway to one of the parking lots. From there it`s a free shuttle bus service that takes about 5 minutes right to the entrance.

It was a pretty exhausting day, long drive , very hot , loud as hell and lots of people. In my younger days I would have enjoyed it much more I guess. I spent most of the time at Sony`s where the wait wasn`t too long and you could play the games more relaxed.
I had the same experience as Billy with Socom and move. The guy next to me seemed to handle it very well while I struggled with the controls and looked like a total noob. The game looked not bad beside that and might play better for me with a dual shock , too bad I couldn`t try that. My buddy played the time crisis demo and said it controlled much better but not as good as the old light gun stuff though.
KZ3 and GT5 are must haves for me and the demos prooved it.

Seeing Gothic 4 was nice as well , the main stuff and the humor seemed to be there , didn`t look all that better than 3 but still very nice. Don`t know if there will be console versions ? There was one screen with a Xbox controller that seemed to run with lower res textures but maybe that was PC as well.

I really would have liked to see Diablo 3 but the crowd waiting there (together with Warcraft cataclysm) was insanely huge. A 5 row serpentine into the booth !
 
Shifty, I was at WB, but they said that it is not shown to public yet!?
Okay. Their PR is screwed. On the official website they said, "See us at E3!" and "we're off to GamesCom," but evidently they weren't. Edit : Actually checking the website again, it was a select-press showing only at GamesCom.

They also have shown it to the public at E3 as there's a snip of gameplay footage on YouTube.
 
Hi Billy,

Thanks for your impressions so far. So how's parking there? Is it easy to go there? I'm still kind of thinking about going, it's only an hour's drive away, but I'm rather worried about the city being too busy with traffic, taking forever to get in etc.

How's your experience been?

Parking is generally very good - no problem it seemed yesterday?! I cannot say for sure as we where there rather early...but traffic seems to be a non-issue (cannot promise!).
The problem is that Saturday (and I heard Sunday of corse as well) is very crowded! Friday was great and I heard Thursday even better. So if you are interested in SONY and MS booth, I think I had to wait yesterday about 45 min to get in....those booth are very well organized and you could visit them. If you are interested in Crysis 2...forget it 4hours+, if you are interested in RAGE, Dragons Age 2, Brink, Black Ops and some other brutals...forget it 4hours+ waiting time!
Hard decision....some of the booth for instance close at 6-7 pm, so not much time either...
 
@Arwin: I came from the south east highway #3/4 and it`s pretty much next to it. Took me 15min max in busy traffic from the highway to one of the parking lots. From there it`s a free shuttle bus service that takes about 5 minutes right to the entrance.

It was a pretty exhausting day, long drive , very hot , loud as hell and lots of people. In my younger days I would have enjoyed it much more I guess. I spent most of the time at Sony`s where the wait wasn`t too long and you could play the games more relaxed.
I had the same experience as Billy with Socom and move. The guy next to me seemed to handle it very well while I struggled with the controls and looked like a total noob. The game looked not bad beside that and might play better for me with a dual shock , too bad I couldn`t try that. My buddy played the time crisis demo and said it controlled much better but not as good as the old light gun stuff though.
KZ3 and GT5 are must haves for me and the demos prooved it.

Seeing Gothic 4 was nice as well , the main stuff and the humor seemed to be there , didn`t look all that better than 3 but still very nice. Don`t know if there will be console versions ? There was one screen with a Xbox controller that seemed to run with lower res textures but maybe that was PC as well.

I really would have liked to see Diablo 3 but the crowd waiting there (together with Warcraft cataclysm) was insanely huge. A 5 row serpentine into the booth !

Yeah, I wanted to check out Diablo as well...but the crowd was to brutal, although I think that Crysis 2 was the king with respect to waiting.
 
If you are interested in Crysis 2...forget it 4hours+, if you are interested in RAGE, Dragons Age 2, Brink, Black Ops and some other brutals...forget it 4hours+ waiting time!
What's the point in even going then?! That's plain ridiculous. Is it like that at E3?
 
What's the point in even going then?! That's plain ridiculous. Is it like that at E3?

I wonder myself! Mind you that you typically get only a live demo presentation!!! But I think a big motivation for those guys is getting a T-Shirt!

That is why I state that Thursday and Friday is better. There I waited for Rage 15min only for instance (ok, I was a bit lucky to be honest!).

That is why I stated: MS and SONY booth are the best. Wait for 30-45 min, and you can check out a million games as long as you want (Except HALO:Reach, which is 10min only)!
 
Imo it would be better to have the 3 halls set up by age , like a -12 , a -17 and a 18+ hall with open booths. The 4th is mainly for hardware anyway.
That would mean the content would be a bit scattered and more hassle for the exhibitors and booth personel , but would be much better for the visitors.
 
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Most of the (interesting) booth where 18+
Even HALO:Reach was 18+!!
SONY and MS booth was 18+

But this is cool, so you don' have to wait and share with the kids :devilish:
 
At the MS booth, I also had the chance to check out Force Unleashed 2. For the record: I liked Force Unleashed 1 a lot. And the demo I played was great too. Super cool action, lot's of cool skills from the start. Graphics was great to...overall a very positive impression!

Oh, and I had to check out the new Need for Speed game at the ...Need for Speed booth. I think I played the PC version, as the controller was a Logitech controller. The other screens had either PS3 or Xbox360 controller there.
I could only play one race: game looked great, played very well. The interaction with the police is kind of interesting and kind of mixed the otherwise pure racing a little bit - cool!

I also checked out KungFu Live again (just watching others fighting): this time, 'normal' people played it....and it looked good to be honest! I wonder how they do this: the avatar really looks like the player (with all the cloth details and stuff) and the animations look ok. I would like to see if the avater always has the same size and stature (all players looked rather 'similar'). Looks fun, but seems to be like doing a major work out in the gym...
 
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I also checked out KungFu Live again (just watching others fighting): this time, 'normal' people played it....and it looked good to be honest! I wonder how they do this: the avatar really looks like the player (with all the cloth details and stuff) and the animations look ok. I would like to see if the avater always has the same size and stature (all players looked rather 'similar'). Looks fun, but seems to be like doing a major work out in the gym...

Yes ! I've been waiting for it. Score 1 for standalone PSEye vs PSMove. :devilish:
 
I also checked out KungFu Live again (just watching others fighting): this time, 'normal' people played it....and it looked good to be honest! I wonder how they do this: the avatar really looks like the player...
That's because it's using the video from the camera. They use background removal to cut out whatever in the video isn't the player, which works surprisingly well although you can see errors like fringing or the ocassional chunk taken out of the player. This also allows them to use props, so you can fight armed with a badminton racquet or favourite novel if your super-identity calls for that! It's interesting that their tech existed on PC for a while but you bought a greenscreen background to do the background removal. I wonder how this new library is dependent on faster hardware and how much is improved techniques? someone at Sony involved with EyeToy (Richard Marks?) questioned MS's background removal in "You're in the Movies" as something very hard to pull off such that they believed MS couldn't pull it off, and they were right, with YinM being severely criticised for it's broken background removal. Virtual Air Guitar have actually pulled it off!
 
That's because it's using the video from the camera. They use background removal to cut out whatever in the video isn't the player, which works surprisingly well although you can see errors like fringing or the ocassional chunk taken out of the player. This also allows them to use props, so you can fight armed with a badminton racquet or favourite novel if your super-identity calls for that! It's interesting that their tech existed on PC for a while but you bought a greenscreen background to do the background removal. I wonder how this new library is dependent on faster hardware and how much is improved techniques? someone at Sony involved with EyeToy (Richard Marks?) questioned MS's background removal in "You're in the Movies" as something very hard to pull off such that they believed MS couldn't pull it off, and they were right, with YinM being severely criticised for it's broken background removal. Virtual Air Guitar have actually pulled it off!

It's very interesting ... background removal on 360 is now generally done by having the depth image help out, but on the PS3 this is not avialable. They say as much in an interview that the PS3 version requires much more complicated tech. However, now there are a few games that use the tech and it appears that background removal may have found its way into the PS3's SDK. I'm wondering if Sony helped out developing the tech for the PS3 version of Kung Fu Live using some kind of SPE processing and offer it now as part of the SDK.

Personally, though, I have little faith in this game, though it's probably going to be good fun at least as a party affair. This is going to be a good winter. I read in another interview that the optimal distance for Move games like those in Sports Champions though appears to be 2.5 meters. That's not to say it doesn't work at other distances, but that's the distance it works best with according to devs talking in the Move live chat last Thursday. The best I can do off-the-bat in my livingroom is 1.6 meters, so I may be in some trouble for games like table tennis, especially since I'm a tall fellow. Fortunately I can turn and swivel the TV away from the wall in case of emergency, but I'm hoping it won't be necessary too often.
 
It's very interesting ... background removal on 360 is now generally done by having the depth image help out, but on the PS3 this is not avialable. They say as much in an interview that the PS3 version requires much more complicated tech. However, now there are a few games that use the tech and it appears that background removal may have found its way into the PS3's SDK. I'm wondering if Sony helped out developing the tech for the PS3 version of Kung Fu Live using some kind of SPE processing and offer it now as part of the SDK.
I was wondering about the libs so checked out their website, and it seems it's all proprietary and I doubt it's included in the PS3 SDK at all. Looks like VirtualAirGuitar license the tech although they don't have a specific licensing page in their website, but they say it's been integrated with various game engines. They have it available for XB360, so they say, which makes you wonder, though of course that's pretty moot with Kinect!

Fortunately I can turn and swivel the TV away from the wall in case of emergency, but I'm hoping it won't be necessary too often.
Don't you just love pokey little European architecture?! :( I'm fortunate to have plenty enough space to swing props around, not least due to a clear-out and room 'defragmentation'! I might well get this as it's a PSN title. Which goes to show the advantages of downloads.
 
I love internet hyperbole. I'm not sure ~3.7% is significantly more people. Although I suppose ~10% more exhibitors could be considered somewhat significant. :)

Regards,
SB
 
They mentioned "significantly more than 459 exhibitors and 245,000 guests". I didn't think it was a lot, having returned from China -- until I realized that E3 2010 attracted 45,000 - 46,000 guests and 300 exhibitors.
 
They mentioned "significantly more than 459 exhibitors and 245,000 guests". I didn't think it was a lot, having returned from China -- until I realized that E3 2010 attracted 45,000 - 46,000 guests and 300 exhibitors.

E3 is also limited to the press and industry. Regular people can't normally get access, so it's not very comparable.

Regards,
SB
 
Sure, Gamescom is a significant platform nonetheless, relative to other events in the industry. E3 (300 exhibitors), PAX (61,000) and Comic Con (140,000+) are all smaller than the two year old (?) Gamescom.
 
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