So, I've returned from Firstlook 2012, and I had a pretty good time.
Here's the line to get in at 12:30, it goes all the way around and through that passage on the right.
30 minutes later, I've gotten near the entrance, yay.
Once inside I walk around to see where everything is at and settle on trying to get some hands-on action with Hitman Absolution. Pretty short line, three people ahead of me who ended up dead pretty quick.
Next I see there's a very short line in front of this Dragonball Z game, so I drop by to kick some kid's ass.
The line in front of the Halo 4 theatre seemed somewhat intimidating, so I thought I'd see if there was a shorter line elsewhere first.
X-Com caught my eye, I'd seen a playthrough of the demo on YouTube. The same demo was playable here, so after gawking at some players' screens I figured I'd download the demo if I wanted to play, rather than idly stand there for a while.
(I always notice there's only right-handed setups, of course. Not that I'm insulted, it's logical.)
Behind me (while facing X-Com) was the Borderlands 2 bus. The line didn't seem all too long, so I figured I'd get in line there.
I might have made a slight judgement error, this cool bus could only hold 7 players at once at 15 minute intervals, which made me have to wait for an hour to play some Borderlands 2. They did keep us entertained throwing goodies around. Sadly all I got was a button.
Said button:
Then it was time for a 'broodje unox' (pretty much a hotdog) and a free can of coke zero. Woo.
I dropped by the Ubisoft stand to catch a glimpse of some AC3 gameplay.
There was a stage in the middle they were tossing goodies off of and four hands-on sections, two for AC3, two for Farcry 3. They had pretty long play-sessions (20 minutes?) and the lines were endless. But I did get a pretty good impression of the gameplay.
Next I got in line for Halo 4, having seen the theatre could take a fair amount of people, I figured the line would move much faster than the Bordlands 2 one. I was right about that and within 30 minutes of standing in a pretty long line I got in. Of course VIPs could go in 4 at a time to get some hands-on, while us normal ticket folk were handed happy and unhappy faces. The four with the unhappy faces got the play Halo 4 with the VIPs while the rest of us could sit and watch them play King on their 'biggest map'. We did get goodies on the way out, but I'd seen nothing new.
There was also this stubby Master Chief you could take your picture with. Look at how short he is next to that child!
A hung around a while longer looking at some stuff and eventually went home to open up my Halo 4 goodies. For some reason I automatically put the pistol in his left hand.
Now for some more text, who doesn't love reading?
Here's some impressions of the games I saw and/or played.
Hitman Absolution
It seems pretty true to its predecessors and looks amazing. It was on the 360, so I can only imagine how good it might look on PC. Though I found it a little hard to find out where to go or what to do after I killed the target without getting noticed (though everyone panicked and the police was put on alert). But there was a lot of explore in ways of taking down the targets, but I had no idea what the target was going to do. I ended up gunning down some policemen till my ultimate demise, showing why it's best to remain hidden. I think Hitman Absolution will be pretty damn awesome.
Assassin's Creed 3
Ubisoft had this playable on the PS3, but I didn't get to play it. Combined with what I'd seen and heard about this game before I'm pretty impressed. In previous AC games you could take on endless armies of soldiers no problem, even though you're an assassin, but in AC3 the player I saw had trouble even with small groups of 3 or 4 soldiers and had to flee before they died. I think that's a pretty cool improvement on the franchise. It looked awesome and the woodlands and towns are gorgeous. Though I only played Brotherhood, I loved it and AC3 seems to blow away everything every AC before it had to offer. I have high hopes for this game.
Halo 4
Somehow, the franchise I've loved since it brought Halo: CE to the PC, is the game I'm fearing will be awful the more I hear about it. This will be longer than the other two simply because Halo is a franchise I own every game of and is within my favourite genre (sci-fi FPS). Anyone is yet to explain to me why you're still fighting Covenant (or even more so Elites). Of course, that's far from my biggest issue. Having seen multiplayer footage from different sources (and now live at Firstlook) it's changed from previous games in a way I'm not liking. Time for a list.
- Player loadouts
- Unlockable weapons for said loadouts
- Small maps
- Only about 3 (non-loadout) weapons on these maps
- Everyone uses the same weapons
So let's go over this carefully. Halo Reach had loadouts, but everyone had the same choices and they were changeable with the gametype. Now each player has their own available loadouts they can use in games and weapons and abilities to put in them as they rank up.
Next there's the small maps. The map I saw them play on 343 called Halo 4's biggest map, even though it seems much smaller than Blood Gulch in the original Halo, a map that, to me, is iconic to the game.
The weapons on the map at this time were the Rocket Launcher, Spartan Laser and Sniper Rifle, which makes me assume you can't get these in loadouts. And all these 'desirable' weapons were clearly indicated with HUD-markers.
Despite their clear indication no one seemed interested in picking up these weapons. They always stuck with the usual DMR/Battlerifle/Pistol and one guy picked up the Spartan Laser for two seconds before getting blaster in the face with a DMR. No one gets in a Warthog or Mongoose during FFA, so there was only very minor Ghost action.
To me it seems like the CoDification of Halo, and I don't like it. I'm not saying change is bad or taking elements from other games is bad. Halo Reach was different and I loved it. Of course there are upsides:
Spartan Ops in Halo 4 sound pretty cool, I love playing co-op, and they seem to be story-driven and different as time goes by.
The sounds are amazing and it looks pretty good for something that will only release on shitty super-outdated hardware.
Grifball will apparently be in the menu, and who doesn't love Grifball?
What will be the deciding factor for me will be details on Forge and Gametype customizability. User created content is just about my favourite thing in gaming ever. In Halo: Custom Edition on the PC I spent countless hours with custom maps, weapons, vehicles. All that in multiplayer with a decent community. Halo Reach offers a great level of customizability through Forge and gametype customization and a great big map to put all that to the test in and I fear that Halo 4 will simply never be as good at that.
All in all Firstlook was pretty cool, but also very Dutch. Its crowd were a lot of people who wear baseball caps on backwards with the stickers with size and stuff still on it. You know, the kind of people that watch GameKings; those awful MTV guys with sponsored opinions who were also present at this event. But if you just ignore them and have a good time looking at and playing some games it's a fun day to spend.
) Which games have you seen?
