Game Stars Live

[James]

Wow, I just got back from Game Stars Live in London, and it was amazing. All the major gaming companies had their stalls, with their latest games open to test. Here's my summary of the event. All the different game reports are in bold, so you can skip to the game you are intrested in if you want.

When we got off the train with about 100 other people who were all going to Game Stars Live aswell, we joined a long que to get in. It didn't move for about 5 minutes, but then at 10:00 it started to move quickly, and within minutes we were inside. It was amazing. There were flashing lights, huge posters, stalls and games everywhere.

Infront of us was the EA stall, with lots of machines lined up beside each other. The game the first row had was The Sims 2. There were a few machines free so i got on one. It was in the menu where you choose what neighbourhood you wanted to play in. I chose one. After it had loaded there were lots of different houses, which all had Sims in. I chose the first one infront of me. It was pretty small, but i just wanted to play. The game loaded.

The Sim was in the Living room, sitting on a sofa reading the news paper. The graphics were amazing, and there was so much detail everywhere. I could easily and smoothly move the camera around the house, zoom in and out, and see him. The way you play is pretty much the same as The Sims. I could click anywhere on the floor, and it would come up with a list of actions (only go to for the floor). Then I pressed space to switch which sim I was controlling, and it took control of one of his friends. I couldn't see the Sim I was controlling, so I clicked on the floor in the house, and got her to go there. After I while she came in the house. I watched them for a bit, and the guy seemed pretty stinky (due to the green mist appearing above him), so I made him have a shower. While he was there his friend started dancing to some music.

Then I decided to look for the game I was most anxious to play: RollerCoaster Tycoon 3. I went to the Atari booth, and found RCT3. I got onto it and loaded it up. I was at the main menu, which had a movie of a park in the background, and some buttons in the foreground. There were three main buttons: Play, Tools and Options. Under 'Play', there was Tutorial Mode, Career Mode and Sandbox mode. Under tools, the working ones were Peep creator and Scenario creator. There were also coaster designer and something else designer, but they weren't implemented yet.

I chose Career mode, and there were a list of scenarios, about 6 of which were unclocked. I chose one of them, which was a Wild West syle themed park. While it was loading I looked at the controls on the wall infront of me. W,A,S and D were to navigate the camera, Q and E were rotate, Home and End were vertical tilt, and the mouse wheel was scroll (the mouse could also be used to look around). When it loaded the park was infront of me. There were some guests wondering around the park, which had a few flat land rides and one big rollercoaster. I clicked on one of the flat land rides, and pressed the camera button. This let me ride it. I found out that nearly any flat land ride is rideable. You can even sit down and watch the wild west show. I clicked on one of the RollerCoasters, but for some reason it didn't have the camera option to ride it. This confused me, becuase, I knew you could ride them. But then I read the controls list again, and it said Ctrl + C was to switch to CoasterCam mode, and shift + n and shift + m switch between rollercoasters. I rode the RollerCoaster for a bit, which was fun.

Then I looked at the land editing tools. There were the origional tools from RCT1 and 2, which allow you to grab the edges of land in sections of a grid and shape it. But there was also a hill and a ditch creator, and a land smoother.

I then started to build some rides. There were loads to choose from. It was very easy to place, and very much like RCT2, all rides had an entrance and exit, and needed path being put to them. When you highlight a ride or are working on it, there is a little control panel in the bottom right of the screen for that ride.

Most of the stuff I had been finding out about RCT3 was for rct2.com (a rct fansite). The other question they had was "What rides are avaliable in the game". So I went to the sandbox mode (which was just a bit flat area of land, with no visible entrance), and went to the ride menu, and clicked on Rollercoasters, and I was amazed. There must have been atleast 40 different types. There were too many to write down, but don't worry, there are definetly enough rides.

I went to tutorial mode, and there was only one tutorial there, "Placing rides". It has notes coming up on the screen telling you how to do it, and also explaining how you can repaint a ride.

Then I went and watched the Atari guy for a bit, and he was explaining to some people about it. The first thing he showed was how good the groups of people are. They go round together in their groups. And he showed us a mother holding her two sons' hands. He then said something like "You need to make some rides suitable for all the family, so that they can all go on something together". Then he clicked on one of the people in the park, and clicked on a button in the cpanel of that park guest. It showed the names of the members of that peep's family, and let you go to them. There was also a crown or something by one of the family members' names. Don't know what it meant though.

Then he went to one of the rollercoasters, closed it, and started editing the track. He took a section out of it, and reopened it, and said "And now some stupid peeps will go on the ride, and die", then it showed them going up, flying down, and up off the track, and the train going into a burning wreck.

So I went back on one of the computers and tried some more of the tools. I did the peep creator. You add a family and then add members to that family. There are different hats, shirts and trousers avaliable for each member, and 3 different ages and male or female. Each clothing item also has different colours.

Then I went back to the park mode, and tried crashing a RollerCoaster. I deleted some pieces of one of the tracks, and tried to open the ride, but instead of crashing the rollercoaster, it crashed the game . I started it up again, and looked around a few of the scenarios in the sandbox editor (yes, you can load up the scenarios in sandbox mode). I then built a Rollercoaster, which was fun. There are loads more pieces this time, and there are more banking types. There is now one for each 45 degrees of a circle. But I was making a looping rollercoaster, and only up to a 90 degrees tilt could be used. I started making one, and had done quite a lot of twists and turns, until it said "Sorry, you have insufficient funds to build this piece". I found this strange since I'm pretty sure it said that Sandbox mode had no money limits. So I rode what there was of my coaster for a bit, then left.

I looked round a bit more. There were so many new games, it was amazing. I saw a virtual reality fighting game, which looked pretty cool. It was like Tekken, but first person, and you put on some gloves, which would sense where your hands were, and very accurately put the hands of the character you were controlling into the correct place. You could defend by putting your hands infront of your face, or punch. But this had a pretty big que to I went on.

Then I saw some clans playing Counter Strike 1.6. They were all on their rows of computers. I saw some clans I'd heard of, including "The 4 Kings", and "Tag (AMD)". There was a huge screen and some commentry talking through the matches. They played amazingly.

Then I went to the Activision stall, and saw Tony Hawk's UnderGround 2. I got a free THUG 2 bag, and started playing. It was pretty much the same as THUG. The level I was playing on (Boston), was really nice though. People tried to change levels every so ofter, but one of the helpers came and reset them to Boston. I saw someone trying to paly Barcelona. The menu had some random guy spinning a gameshow wheel with the different gameplay modes on. The main differences i noticed were better graphics, the ability to spray graffiti on walls by pressing triangle (PS2) while in caveman mode. And also, wallplants slapped stickers on the walls. But the gameplay was great fun, smooth as usual.

Then I went to the stall for a game called Flatout. There were some cars and girls and games there. I was walking by, becuase I didn't think it would be that good, but then I saw the trailer on a plasma scren TV, and i was amazed. It was a racing game with probably the best damage engine I had seen, with the cars getting amazingly crumpled. And then I saw a stadium mode which had the guy flying out of the front of the car and going all ragdoll when he hit a wall.

So I started playing, and the racing mode was great fun. The damage was really realistic, and a head-on crash into a wall would send your driver flying out of the windscreen.

Then I found out how you can do the stadium mode. So I did high jump. When it loaded, it was an arena with loads of ramps and stuff in it. So I followed the arrows, and there was a big slope infront of me. I drove up it at full speed, and then pressed B (xbox), and my driver went flying out of the front windscreen. Then there was a 100m tall ladder type thing, which the driver goes flying through. I got to 60 metres or something, as i hit one of the bars, I went flying down the ground, and missed the safety mats. It was a lot of fun, and I played it loads. I eventually got 90m or something, and did land on the mats in the end .

I saw Burnout 3, and it looked fun, but the que was very long, so unfortunately I didn't play it.

Then I went and playing DRIV3R. I know it's out already, but it's still a great game. The reviews on the internet say it isn't very good, but I completely disagree. The driving was great, really smooth and fun. The graphics were outstanding. It looked so real. And the gameplay was fun. They were doing a comptetions aswell to see how many cones you could knock down in one of the mini games. I got 62, but cba to wait for the final. I played "Take a Ride" mode for a while though, and it was great fun. Here's one of my first attempts:

I started off in a sports car, and went speeding down the road really fast, then suddenly a van came out infront of me from a side road. I quickly tapped Square (PS2), and my character dived out of the side of the car and rolled along the road. I got another car, and drove round for a bit, but then the police started chasing me. A police officer got out of one of the cars, so I ran him over, then I jumped out of my car, pulled my rifle out and started shooting the police car like crazy. It was terribly damaged, then one of the policemen came out, and I killed him (it is very hard on a console, but i imagine it would be easy on a PC). Then I got in the car, and as soon as I was in it exploded, and I was dead. The other neat things I found out you can do are: swim, drive boats, shoot tires to pop them and make cars slower and harded to control.

Well, those are all the games I remember for now. When I remember more later I'll add them to the topic on dotagame.com. Hope you enjoyed reading my report .
_________________

[Michaelz]

That's so cool it must have been great! Did u need a ticket or anything 2 get in?
_________________
Screw you suckers!!!!

[James]

Yeah, I saw adverts in magazines weeks ago, and booked tickets on the website. But, it may be on tommorow, and you may be able to get tickets on the door. Check the site: http://www.gamestarslive.co.uk .
_________________

[Michaelz]

hello why aren't u ppl replying 2 anything where r u gone!
_________________
Screw you suckers!!!!

[James]

You need to help get people posting more on the forums .
_________________

[Guest]

[James]

_________________

[Pacific]

That is wicked how many games were actually on show there?

[James]

Well, a lot of the main titles that were coming out soon were there, and there were a lot I didn't even play (either because the que was too long or i wasn't intrested), but it was a lot of fun. There were definetly enough games there to keep anyone occupied for the day
_________________

[Pacific]

cool, how long were you playing each game for?

[James]

Well, it differed from game to game... e.g. people were staying on RCT3 for ages, but THUG2 was only about 1 minute goes each...
_________________

[Pacific]

So they timed how long you were allowed on each game?

[James]

No, you just have to use your common sense for how long to stay on, and there are usually people monitoring it who will tell you to get off if you stay on for too long.
_________________