Little off topic, but every now and again I'll be posting stuff on gaming, a favourite hobby of mine.

Today, I had the pleasure of once again of going to the Eurogamer Expo in London, this year accompanied by @tnolde (Tim Nolde) and @gingoreilly (Chris Janes) both of them game devs. This post is just a summary of what was seen and done!

Assassin's Creed Brotherhood

I'm a big fan of the AC series, but I have to say I was a little worried about this one. Whilst I love romping around the glorious settings of the previous two games, for me the most interesting part was the overarching plot of Desmond Miles. So a game about Ezio, a character we were told had played his part, didn't pike my interest as much as it could.

Well, I can't say my fears are allayed, because Ubisoft was showing off the new multiplayer functionality at Eurogamer.

But the multiplayer itself is good!

This was a gamble, with Assassin's being lonely, solitary creatures, so the idea of you careering around a map stabbing other players seemed a little off, but it's fun! You're randomly (as far as I could tell) assigned a target to find (another human player), and using a compass type device at the bottom of the screen, you track them down and try to kill them. All this should be done before the person assigned to kill you skewers you in the back. And it works well, you're encouraged to be stealthy and not just sprint at opponents, and the nagging feeling that someone is about to land on your head with a hidden blade keeps you on your toes.

My only slight gripe is that it's kinda hard to tell when someone who is hunting you is close by, there's no visible warning, and more often than not I'd pull off a perfect kill, only to be killed immediately afterwards by the dude behind me.

Little Big Planet 2

The sackboys are back and doing much the same as before! The levels look great and seem quite varied, and I'm informed that the toolkit for making your own has improved vastly. All in all we had fun playing it!

Kinect vs Move

Both Microsoft and Sony were showing off their new motion control toys, so me and Tim decided to conduct a little experiment. Both had table-tennis style games running, so we played both to see how they compared.

Kinect went first, and to be brutally honest, we weren't that impressed. Partly this was due to the hardware, 1-1 tracking it is not. The shadow of ourselves on the screen had trouble keeping up sometimes, and on occasion wouldn't register the movement at all. However, considering it was set against a background of milling people, we were impressed with the tech. The game itself however was dire, no matter what frantic flailing you did, there was no control over the ball at all, and me and Tim resorted to making vaguely misogynistic 'spanking' gestures in front of ourselves to play.

Move however was much more impressive. The paddles on the screen seemed to keep up with our movements much more cleanly and quickly, and the game was realistic enough for us both to bugger up the first few shots as we got accustomed. It did however start to wander into uncanny-valley, because the movements we're making are so close to the real movements made to play ping-pong, my eyes were expecting to get a proper read of depth so as to time the swing correctly. With a 2D display, I didn't get this, and found timing very difficult. Maybe coupling up with a 3D display this will improve, but read on about my thoughts on that.

Gran Turismo 5 (in 3D!)

The game that has been in development for goodness knows how long was playable, and like you'd expect, very pretty. The cars are modelled to within an inch of their lives, and the tracks are realistic looking enough (though Chris was keen to point out what he termed 'billboard trees'). Again though, being brutally honest, it looked like any other racer you've played recently, except that judging by the number of crashes, it's got a steeper learning curve.

The kicker however was playing this game in 3D. Sony were showing off their new 3D TV's, and Gran Turismo was a good candidate (the game has 3D support baked in). Our verdict?

Meh.

Sure it made the HUD pop out a bit more, and the depth of field increased a bit, but it didn't aide immersion anywhere near as much as it should have. In fact, it made you feel faintly dizzy after a while. Definitely not worth the £3k or so for the kit.

We played a few other bits and pieces and watched a fair few more (Gears of War 3, Fallout, Killzone 3 just to name a few), and overall enjoyed the day. Getting to grips with the motion controllers was fascinating, and in this first round, it seems like Playstation Move is the one to watch, but who knows what will happen when the big studios unveil their masterpieces.

So thanks Eurogamer, we shall be returning next year, as long as the crazy-hot Train to Game girl will be there wandering around again!