Be Excellent To Each Other

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/eurog ... ed-article

Earl's Court, October 1st-3rd. Could be a laugh if we turned up mob-handed on the same day?

I've always wanted to go to Pax and this is about as close as we can get to that without flying to the US. Worth pointing out -- it's much more a consumer orientated event. I thought it was more of a trade show, but I was wrong. Tickets were a fiver last year.

Will Barratt be there?

I may well be up for this - never been to something like this and always fancied it. Will there be free stuff? Or would I have to pretend to be Lewie?

I'll be going, as will my Mum probably. And Mr Willeth.


She will be out of the country by then.

MOST SINISTER POST EVER.

Oi!
\

I thought that as I typed it, but decided to let someone else have that gag.

Talking of gags, back to Barratt.

Nah, she is doing a volunteer exchange thing.

It's part of her "make myself a better person, because I know I am a shit" program.

Just to bring it back on topic... This sounds like something I'd be interested in!

I went to something like this years ago when I worked at GAME. That was great... they clearly hated giving freebies away to mere retail staff but I still came away with tons of crap that's probably been thrown away since.

I also got to see No Mercy on the N64 for the first time.. but I digress... yes, I'd like to go!

Oh, the old "she's gone off overseas to do charity work" cover-up, eh?

Meanwhile, somewhere in Dover, a dock worker pauses, cocks his head, and thinks to himself "I swear I heard some faint scremaing coming from one of those shipping containers", shrugs, and keeps walking.

There isn't too many freebies at E2, but there is lots of games to play, and lots of interesting developer sessions.

I can probably get a couple of spare tickets too, and there are sometimes events with free bars that are "Invite only" but then actually you can just turn up to if you know where they are. Like one was just in a separate section of a bar, and all you had to do was say you were supposed to be there and you were allowed in.

I'll deffo be going. I've been to both previous Eurogamer Expos and this one promises to be a lot bigger, so it's a no brainer for me. There's not much in the way of free stuff though and it's still nothing like the old Future Entertainment Shows I used to love going to in the 90's, but they do always have lots of great games to play and you normally don't get too many arsholes hogging the machines, you should be able to give everything a whirl while you're there.

I personally think this would make a great Beex meet, especially if we go somewhere for eats and drinks afterwards.

Can we make it the Saturday?

Saturday would be good for me! (Assuming I'm in the UK of course... no promises on that regard)

I personally don't mind what day we go. I have in the past booked a day off for it and gone in the week, just in case it's too busy at the weekend, but it seems to me it'll be busy whatever day you go.

Vaguely interested. I'd need doss space and grilled meat.

I think I've reached Beex meet saturation point - not enough time or money to do everything, sadly.

Hmmm, I could be tempted by this. Yeah. Saturday would work best.

Still in October I could be dead. So hesitant yes.

I'm not proposing to do any organisation or anything for this one, beyond "well, we'd all like to go anyway so let's go on the same day".

If so, can I have your MacBook?

Yeah, thats all the organising we need really.

Bar maybe scheduling a couple of chances to meet up at certain times.

Piffle. People can swap mobile numbers and wing it.

I thought that, too.

I am worried that you live in my head now. Like Calvin and Hobbes, or Fight Club.

Or something.

I'll piff you in a minute. (That would work)

1) Who are you, Jonathon Ross?

2) If we swap numbers then someone will end up chatting to Mummy Afterthought and, also, no one would know who was calling who.

I have a few friends who might be interested in coming but don't frequent the forum. I'd come down with them and then we can all meet up for a bit and go our seperate ways to look at the games.

Sounds like an ideal plan to me... and if it means I can appear more popular by having tons more names in my phone, than so be it!

I don't have a phone.

That's fine. MrsA can communicate with us about your whereabouts like last time.

I'd be interested in this.

We can take it in turns to kick Dan Whitehead in the nuts!

Why take turns?

I won't be coming to this, for reasons involving money and a general antipathy towards video game conferences. After being bored out of my mind at E3, even London is too far.

I went to Live 98 (Future expo) and it was shit. And before that I went to some computer shows in Canandada years and years ago (I remember a presentation for the new amazing IBM PS/1)

...and so this different thing by different people 12 years later must also be shit?

Do you seriously think I was trying to make that connection?

E3's a trade event though, isn't it? Every trade event I've ever been to has been boring as fuck. The Eurogamer Expo is literally a very large room with hundreds of consoles, wired to hundreds of TVs upon which every big game that's either been recently released or is about to be released can be played by simply strolling over and picking up a controller. Multiplayer games often get a big link-up thing going as well and there were huge multiplayer games of Left 4 Dead 2 and Aliens Vs Predator at last year's expo.

I did wonder!

It is, technically, but the main floors seem to be aimed entirely at consumers. There were consoles everywhere with demos, PCs networked together for massive multiplayer sessions, competitions, freebies, fairly attractive models, game demonstrations etc. There are the trade talks you can't get into without the right papers, but it's very much a consumer exhibition for the most part from what I could gather.

The best part was the Mountain Dew on tap. Queue up outside in the blistering heat for a few minutes at one of many points, and you got a free iced bottle of Slurm with E3-specific competitions under the labels. I won an Xbox controller and handful of games, for example. Excellent stuff. Rinse and repeat.

Okay, that does sound better than the Eurogamer Expo.

The developer sessions are really great at Eurogamer too, and the indie section usually has all the developers there to show you their games. Twas were I met hello games and Terry Cavanagh.

can;t we go somewhere near here?

I'm over a couple of times a year to see friends, I'll give you a shout next time I'm heading over (probably Koninginnedag)

The tickets for this are now on sale. Me and a few friends are going on the Saturday.

If anyone wants to meet up, give me a shout!

It'll be nice!

Hey, hey! I'll come to this!