Eurogamer 2012

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Arriving at Eurogamer 2012

Had a great weekend in London. Our main aim was to attend Eurogamer 2012 - all three days of it!

With Nathan being in the business then it is important to go and find out what is happening in the gaming industry - or that's what he tells me anyway! :-) Laura (my daughter) came along too - as a big fan of Skyrim and so did Mr M - friend of N's and another keen gamer who plays everything!

It is interesting to see what new games are coming out on all the different consoles and systems and have a go before anyone else. What I find more interesting though at the "Developer Sessions" where you can go and listen to the people behind the games who give presentations on how they came up  with the ideas, made the games themselves or found backers to finance and market them. So although it was lovely and sunny in London over the three days - we spent a lot of the time in the dark inside Earl's Court.



N taking it seriously :-)




L and M contemplate Assassin's Creed III

















I saw quite an intriguing one - called Unfinished Swan which looked very arty and cool - and was a pretty unusual game. It involved a completely blank screen and you had to fire paintballs at various parts of it - and only then could you see what was there. Sadly it was so busy - and thee were only two screens with this one on that I didn't get to have a go. So - I am not sure what the aim of the game was - but it might be fun.



Beautiful - but what's it all about?

 My favourite one that I DID get to play was called Hell Yeah! and involved a dead rabbit that was out to get his photos back from the paparazzi. Sounds pretty mad - and it was - and very funny. It was cartoonish and clever - I couldn't really get into realistic killing games where you see people/aliens/animals being blown to bits in a shower of red.

Those are the most popular games though (with blokes)  - and the biggest queue every day was for Call Of Duty Black Ops - a graphic war game. I think the ratio of the sexes was 10 to 1. Ten males for every female. That's definitely more than last year though.




A friendly alien and I'm not sure who else...

 One of the most fun aspects was the CosPlay - where people turned up dressed as their favourite character from a game. There were quite a few Marios and Luigis as well as some very impressive Etzios and Altairs from Assassin's Creed. The costumes were so intricate and detailed - amazing! Shame I didn't get a photo of one of those!







Food and beer gets the thumbs-up at Belgos



In the evenings we did something different. The first night we went to an old favourite (and a place we visited at the beginning of this blog before my big operation) Belgos. I had my honey beer - I feel it has life-giving properties :-) Had lovely roast chicken with beer and apple sauce and it was delicious as ever. Served by waiters dressed as monks. What is it about London that everyone likes dressing up??

Hilarious night at the comedy club

The second night we went over to the beautiful area of Little Venice - via Warwick Avenue tube station (made famous by the song by Duffy) to the Canal Cafe Theatre. We had food in the pub underneath - The Bridge House - which was yummy. I had some of their salmon fishcakes with little gem and beetroot salad - accompanied by some of their rustic bread and oil/balsamic dip. Very, very nice :-) Then we popped upstairs to see the comedy -  The News Revue. It was four very talented actors - who from their bios spend a lot of their time doing Shakespeare. In fact one of them played Paris in the ill-fated weather-blighted production at Stafford Castle that we nearly saw. (It was rained off before Romeo and Juliet even met!)

Two blokes and two girls who did an amazing show of singing dancing and sketches all based on recent news. Extremely funny - we had a blast! I can't recommend it enough. They do this ever-changing show with an ever changing cast every Friday and Saturday night. A great time was had by all!

The tardis outside Earl's Court tube station

It is a tiny little theatre so we were sat right up by the stage. Don't worry though - it's not one of those shows where they pick on the audience - although Laura was worried that they might!

The hotel was pretty nice in Kensington and only a few minutes walk from Earl's Court - and even closer to the tube station. Although the room we had was the smallest I have stayed in. Only just room for a double bed - we could hardly walk round it. Was fine though - as we were out all the days and evenings. The two singles rooms were pretty spacious though.

Outside Earl's Court tube there was an actual Police Box - with a blue light on top! An actual working one where you could go in and use the phone to call them. It was a very handy meeting place whenever we went back to the hotel before the boys.



Fish and Chips p- Brown styleee



On our last evening there we met up with London friends Si and Heidi. In fact Si spent the day with us at the Expo. Heidi joined us for dinner at Browns down at Canary Wharf. We had a good night catching up - and enjoyed a couple of bottles of wine. I had fish and chips, the cod in tempura, with tatar sauce, tomato sauce and crushed minted peas. Tasty but not quite as nice as the meal at the comedy club - but a lot more pricey! N enjoyed his Boar Burger and M loved his venison - and although there was nothing vegan on the menu they did make a special pasta dish for Laura.

So it is a pretty good place - in a lovely waterside location in the docklands. I guess they mainly cater for those pesky bankers - so like to charge them a lot!



Heading back to the hotel after a fun evening



It was a really nice last evening in London though. Can't wait to go back.

Hmm - what should we go for next time?





Back to reality now we're home. I am off for my monthly visit to the consultant tomorrow. I'll let you know how it goes...