Eurogamer Expo 2011 - An Unmissable Event!

5am, Saturday October 2^nd, 2010. A small, converted farmhouse in West Yorkshire. I awake to the gentle sounds of my iPhone alarm, and immediately, a wide grin manifests itself across my face. Why am I so cheerful at this most ungodly hour of the morning? Because today is a special day. Today is the Eurogamer Expo.

England is different to America in many ways. One disadvantage of living on the British Isles is the relative lack of geeky conventions. To all intents and purposes, there is only one such event in the UK: Eurogamer Expo.

I had never been before, so I did not know what to expect. All I knew was that the event had a lot of hype surrounding it; posts on forums referring to it as “The British E3” and “The most important time of year for a British gamer”. The internet was ablaze with excitement – stories of people planning to fly in from Ireland, Scotland, even France. Most people were travelling by train, as one of the few advantages of living in Britain is that everywhere is in range of a train journey. That was the plan for myself and my cousin, who had slept at my house the night before.

In the Queue

We headed through the dead countryside streets of the local village, and made the hour-long drive to the nearest big city: Leeds. From there we promptly secured a McDonalds breakfast, and then caught a 6:30 train to London.

We slept most of the way down, and were glad when we finally arrived at Kings Cross Station. After a quick ride on the Underground, we emerged at Earl’s Court, and unleashed ourselves on the Expo. Well, on the Queue anyway.

If you plan on coming to the 2011 Expo, here’s my first piece of advice: get an early ticket. And if you can’t get hold of one, make sure you get there early to beat the queue (9am ish). And bring a Nintendo DS or an iPad to keep yourself entertained.

GT5 Booth

So after about 35 minutes of queuing, we were given our wristbands and entered the facility. And what a sight it was! It was my first Expo, so just taking in the view amazed me. My eyes were assaulted with glowing pillars reaching to the roof, colourful banners and flashing lights.

I won’t spend too much time talking about the individual games, as this was 6 months ago, and pretty much every game we saw has since been released. But there were some standout displays; GT5 was a good example. At the GT5 booth, you could play the game in 3D and 2D, and you could even get inside a pod and play as if you were in a simulator!

There was an over-18 area for Gears 3 and Killzone, in which several PS3s were hooked up to play a 3D team-death match, which  as you can imagine was great fun.

The Gears 3 set-up had a linked horde mode, where players sat in a circle and played a cooperative session together. As you can imagine this was one of the most in-demand games, so I only got to watch, but that was still a lot of fun. the game looked stunning and just seemed to run a lot slicker than its predecessors.

This booth also housed other "mature" FPS titles which were all playable.

One thing that really came across to me at the Expo was the community spirit. Usually, in Britain, people really don’t like talking to each other, and group experiences (such as cinema trips) remain essentially an isolated affair. This was not the case at Eurogamer-the queues for the games were very orderly, but there was a great spirit of camaraderie. Everyone got a turn on the game, and the banter remained civilised but entertaining and engaging. I strongly recommend attending the Expo if for nothing else than to feel the buzz of associating with your fellow gamers.

Gamers face-off on PS Move

I must say that I did not see a lot of cos-play, but I think that we can put it down to the British reserve, and to be honest I didn’t really miss it.  We’ll get there eventually. But there was a lot of media there; BBC Radio 1 (who interviewed yours truly), Sky News, and multiple podcast and gaming website representatives.

Being Interviewed on Radio 1

As well as the media there were a few recognisable faces; a few TV presenters and footballers, including the familiar 'SuperKaylo' and 'MrPointyHead' (well-known to 360 gamers).

The developer booths were also a highlight. I got to sit down with a Project Manager from Crytek, and we reminisced about the Timesplitters franchise. We spoke (off the record) about the possibility of a fourth game, and had a great back-and-forth about motion gaming.

Food at the Expo is, of course, over-priced and under-cooked, so I would suggest eating a hearty breakfast, then taking advantage of the nearby KFC for lunch, as the queue disappears at about 12 and you will be free to come and go at your leisure.

As you'd expect there were plenty of opportunities to get gaming merchandise, both paid and free. I didn't spend a penny in the Expo, yet I came away with a Crytek t-shirt, a Rare bottle-opener key-chain, a few pens and badges, and an NBA Elite 11 t-shirt.

We left the Expo a little early, as we had to catch a train back to Leeds at 6:30pm, and wanted to see some other London sights before we departed. It was truly sad to leave the convention centre, but the experience was amazing and there was no question about us returning the following year.

If you want to attend the 2011 Expo on September 22^nd - 25^th, you’ll need to go to http://www.eurogamer.net/expo/ to secure your tickets. If you are British, and a gamer, I cannot recommend it enough!