Australian Gamer Game Event :: eGames and Entertainment Expo 2007

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eGames and Entertainment Expo 2007

A comprehensive report of the event that was the eGames & Entertainment Expo 2007 in Melbourne, as told by various AustralianGamer members who attended the event.

Preface (Brett) | Friday (Oracle) | Saturday (Yug) | Sunday (Samo) | Closing (Brett)

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It’s no surprise to me that such a fantastic event would be held in such a beautiful city, I don’t care what the other Sydneysiders say, I love Melbourne. Arriving the night before with hardly any sleep (I was too excited to be in the same room as Brett) Yug, Matt, Brett and I managed to walk 2 and a half bloody k’s to the convention centre. Who was the retard who decided we could walk it? Oh, Yug. Ok never mined.

Stepping foot into the convention centre you notice two things within the first second. 1) God bless the man who invented Air Con and 2) Sexpo! How could you avoid it? Sexpo ad’s were pasted all over the convention centre, but if you cared to look close enough you’d notice the eGames banner underneath and if you held up a magnifying glass you’d see the Australian Gamer website being one of the proud supporters for the event. It felt good to be a recognised geek.

Special thanks for Samo, Anna, AJ and anyone else who contributed into setting up the Australian Gamer booth the night before. The last time I filled up the beanbags at Game1 in Sydney last year Matt was ready to drive me to hospital for swallowing large amounts of beans, they should really put a warning on them. After crashing on one of the newly setup beanbags I dropped the heavy beast of a bag which I carried from the hotel (most of the way) which was packed with the entire family of old school consoles. I then did my bid and helped watched Yug or someone who has the same ass crack as Yug setup the consoles for some awesome old school gaming which later on proved to be a huge success, who could ever stop loving Golden Eye.

Yug and Brett setup the SNES Sega MegaDrive Saturn N64 at eGames 2007

Yug and Brett toil away to setup the old school consoles

With only a few minutes to go before the doors open to the public I took this opportunity to adventure around the expo and check out the remaining booths. I first took a peek at Sony’s fancy black & blue booth, who could blame me? It was right across from us, plus it had the pimped out storage crate. Some of the games Sony had on show were Gran Turismo 5 Prologue, Guitar Hero III, Ratchet and Clank: Tools of Destruction, God of War for the PSP, Wipe Out, Pain, Call of Duty 4 and some other non important games to me. I gotta hand it to Sony, they did a fantastic job presenting their booth, they even had the family living room smack bang in the centre.

Luckily enough I happened to catch the Media Conference for Ratchet and Clank: Tools of Destruction. The conference was held by two of the creators of the game, Brian Allgeier and Ryan Schneider. They did a quick demonstration of one of the levels and it looked interesting enough although it was a shame they couldn’t turn God Mode on because Ryan kept dying which prevented us from seeing the rest of the level. Getting Ratchet to put on a Pirate disguise was possibly the funniest thing I saw in a video game during the expo.

Brian Allgeier and Ryan Schneider from Insomniac Games at eGames 2007

Brian Allgeier and Ryan Schneider from Insomniac Games showcase Ratchet and Clank at the Sony booth

Shortly after I crossed over to Sony’s other booth which was done up with camouflage nets, ammo boxes and sexy commando men and women to go with it for the Resistance: Fall of Man tournament. I think it was Yug who tagged along with me and manage to grab a seat to play some early network matches. What was my favourite part of the game? Having the commando chicks cheer you on, it’s another shame that they’re sold separately. Enough with Sony, let’s head over to EA’s booth.

Now the tricky thing with EA’s booth was that you had to really pay attention, there weren’t anything that screamed at you ‘Hey! We’re EA!’ you had to look closely at the games being played on the dull layout of TV’s which were scattered around the floor. Seriously EA, couldn’t you just hire some chicks to dress up like the bimbos from NFS: ProStreet and put up a few large banners? Oh well, that didn’t matter. What did matter was Crysis and I guarantee you that any PC located within the expo had Crysis playable.

Oracle at the EA Games booth eGames 2007

Oracle visibly frightened at the EA booth

It was very dishonourable of EA not to have any high end PC’s to really show the game off, and I want to apologise in advance to the EA booth babe who I horribly jinxed. As soon as I asked her if she had anyone complaints about the games on show this yobbo stands up and starts insulting her for lying about Crysis having pretty graphics. I suppose it’s a good thing that I happened to be around because I reminded the silly man that these weren’t high speced PC’s also brushing your teeth will help women smile at you instead of pulling a face that your girlfriend makes when you fart in their face.

Moving onto Microsoft’s booth, can you spell disappointment with a giant Master Chief helmet? Seriously there were only three plasma TV’s displayed in front of the giant bouncy helmet. Two out of the three Plasmas were showcasing Halo 3, which is so two months ago. Now this is what bugs me, a non playable game of Mass Effect. When I say ‘non playable’ I mean a fat, obnoxious guy in a red T-shirt sitting in front of the screen playing the game who goes by the name of Scotty.

‘Excuse me kind sir, could I please have a go at this magnificent game?’... ‘no’. Well Scotty, I got something for you! I had sex with your girlfriend in Master Chief’s Helmet. That’s right bitch!

Scotty doesn’t know that Fiona and me, do
it in Master Chief’s Helmet every Sunday!

Next was Ubisoft’s Booth which was showcasing Assassins Creed on the Xbox 360 and Haze for the PS3. I don’t want to turn this into a review (or do I..) but Haze so far is looking pretty bland, now when I say bland I mean really bland, like Halo 3 bland. Ubisoft were also showing off Rayman Raving Rabbids 2 on the Wii and Beowulf again on the 360. Overall, Ubisoft had a snazzy booth, the Haze car was oh so very cool, and the Haze booth babe was kind enough to admit that only dorks and dweebs enjoy video games. This is where I admit that I was really at the expo for my mentally challenge cousin, Samo.

Again moving on, this time I happen to visit the happy go lucky Nintendo booth! Ok let’s see, we’ve got bright shit everywhere, Wii Sports (sigh), Link’s Crossbow Training, Resident Evil: Umbrella Chronicles (Hell yeah!), Super Mario Galaxy (*screams like a little girl*) and a bunch of unknown DS titles huddled up on a table (Sight Training, seriously WTF). Nintendo again was the King of the Booths, neatly presented with the highest amount of visitors (it helps being 4 meters away from the main entrance). I’ve got to mention when Nintendo got up on centre stage the audience went nuts. The girls love Mario, the kids love anything you can pop into a DS and the blokes can’t get enough of Metroid. To add further insults to injury Nintendo also had a giant Mario walking around, I nearly wet my pants when I saw him, perfect photo opportunity for the kids.

Mario playing Mario Galaxy at eGames 2007

Surprising no-one, Nintendo is extremely popular showing off Mario Galaxy on the Wii

Nearing the end of the day we were all pretty much buggered and ready to head off for some Friday night drinks. We all formed into one giant geek group and headed towards the Wah Wah Bar situated in some dodgy alley somewhere in Melbourne. We were in and out of that place faster than you can say Zoolander and decided to grab some Macca’s for dinner and continue our quest for a new drinking hole. Samo gained ring leader privileges and we all followed that tall and lanky bastard to a relaxing Irish pub up the road from our hotel (bonus!). The only downside to this so called Irish pub was that they didn’t sell jugs, they must be bloody northerners (I like to pretend to know something about the Irish).

Australian Gamer forum members at eGames 2007

The AustralianGamer mob of contributors and forum members.

As time flew by so did the consumption of drinks and a certain AG forum member happen to get a little too carried away. I don’t want to embarrass this certain person so let’s call him Furious. Furious mate, I gotta hand it to you. It takes a lot to freak me out and you happened to achieve it that night within 2 and a half hours. Congratulations. I’d like to make a public note to myself to never leave it up to Yug to rescue me from very awkward and gay conversations in the near future, not if anything is wrong with that.

It was an absolute pleasure to meet all our forum members and especially our fellow Melbourne AG team members, and Brett too.. you think he’s cool on the net? You should meet him in person. This is Oracle signing out for eGames Day 1 – Friday.

CLICK HERE TO CONTINUE TO YUGS SATURDAY COVERAGE

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