GamesCom

Here are some more impressions from Gamescom 2010 to while away the time waiting for CivV.
...

Just returned from last my trip to the halls of the Gamescom and at the Firaxis booth I met with a surprise:
...

Imagine yourself entering this huge hall in Cologne. You know that the Civilization V stand you're looking for is overthere, somewhere in Hall 6 B40. But your entire sight is blocked by this huge Blizzard stand. Gigantic screens screaming at you. It's early in the morning. Around you are all kinds of 'game characters' walking by. Barely dressed Babes wearing futuristic weapons. 8 feet tall mech warriors. Noise, flashes and flesh. And then suddenly it's there. Your eye falls on it. An oases of rest. It spreads this classic style. No screaming, no flashing lights. Just decently dressed woman, classical pictures of Washington showing his authority. Victoria and Cleopatra walking between the many screens, showing dignity and majesty. An isle of Civilization in the sea of Decadency and Barbarism of GamesCom.

...

Today Rutger, Peter, Tobias and me spent a lot of time again on the Firaxis stands on GamesCom in Cologne Germany. We were able to interview some fair visitors who were playing Civilization hands on the first time themselves. We even got Napoleon Bonaparte on tape himself, commenting on this games business, picturing him in fancy forms of entertainment.
...

Guild Wars 2 World Premiere


I got the opportunity to play the first publicly playable version of Guild Wars 2 the successor of ArenaNet´s very successful, fee-free action RPG. Its publisher NCSoft provided a 45 Minutes Demo Version of the starting area with 4 available classes. Already on the character screen there was something new: You are asked how you master difficult situations, weather you are from a noble family or from the countryside etc. Depending on what you choose there are different introduction movies and people behave differently towards you, so it already feels like an interesting option for individualizing your character.
Combined with great graphics, a very natural environment (the way NPCs run around, events take place and your character moves) and a lot of story in the first 30 minutes this leads to a game drawing you into its world right away.

WoW Cataclysm



A similar test was possible for the next WoW expansion Cataclysm featuring the return of the dragon Deathwing. Unfortunately with Cataclysm being an expansion with no new classes available the starting areas of the new races, Worgen and Goblin, weren´t really what I wanted to see. Still the little impressions I got confirm a continuation of the constant improvement during the last years, that kept WoW in business with uncharacteristically ...

The first day of Gamescom has just begun. Today is press day, from tomorrow on till Sunday public visitors will be able to take a look. The list of exhibitors covers almost any known publisher and a lot of developers. Among them are 2k and Firaxis, who entertain a Civilization 5 booth, where the game can be playtested.

Alternatively it´s possible to have a chat with Napoleon, Catherine and a couple other civ leaders...

During the upcoming days our coverage will be mostly around Civ5. That includes the game itself as well as a video interview with Jon Shafer, which is scheduled to take place tomorrow in the morning. We´ll be trying to catch other developers, too, maybe get them to reveal a bit of information that isn´t public knowledge, yet .
...