Eurogamer wasn’t just about games for me, it was the opportunity to see new hardware in operation and experience it before many of my peers.
Ergonomic and comfortable, the DualShock 4 is a work of design genius. The controller has the same familiarity as its predecessors; picking the controller up, you know exactly what to do, what you’ve always done.
The controller manages to make things fresh and exciting with the introduction of the touchpad, share button and light bar. Unfortunately, the games that I played at Eurogamer didn’t utilise these features so I’ll have to wait for the PS4 to come out, like everyone else, to see what the controller has to offer and how it will fully impact on my gaming lifestyle.
Moving onto more games, I headed to the Tearaway station. Tearaway is a PlayStation Vita game from the creators of Little Big Planet, Media Molecule. The game has a distinctly similar feel to the studios previous releases, with a cutesy character exploring a world filled with other cute characters.
The demo serves as an introduction to the game mechanics, showcasing just how much the game utilises the Vita’s many features. This is perhaps to it’s detriment as at points throughout the demo I saw my own face beamed into the Tearaway world, this may be exciting for younger gamers to see their faces in-game, but for me felt slightly unnecessary.
There was a point in the demo where a character wanted me to take a photo of him wearing a crown I had made him, and the Vita’s camera sound went off. This puts me off a bit as I see the Vita as my out-of-the-house gaming device, and as the noise can’t be turned off and isn’t muted through the use of headphones, it means everyone will hear the sounds; on the train, in the office.
However, having said all the negatives, Tearaway was a perfectly lovely game, just what you’d expect from Media Molecule, if not a little predictable. I felt obligated to give up my seat at the station, but could happily have kept playing if not for the small queue forming behind me, though I think I was at the end of the demo anyway. Tearaway looks to be a must-own game for the PS Vita, and a real boon to the back catalogue as many gamers look to the Vita as a cross-functional hardware for the PS4.
Next up, into the Watch_Dogs booth. There was quite a queue for the game, but I had anticipated that, and settled in for the long haul. Once into the booth, which was sectioned off from the rest of the world, the audience were seated to watch a demonstration of one of the missions played in the game. Interestingly, the game was being played on a PS4; a signifier that Sony are winning the race? Time will tell.
Watch_Dogs, a sandbox game, appeared to handle much like a Grand Theft Auto or a Saints Row, but as it wasn’t an interactive demo, I can only go by what I’ve seen, not from what I’ve played. The hacking software used throughout the game looks easy to use, but at the hands of a professional gamer, it probably would.
Though I found the Watch_Dogs presentation interesting, it’s completely different watching someone playing something than getting to experience it yourself. As the game has multiple ways of completing missions, it would have been good to at least see the variety, rather than just the way the developers want you to see it. The game still looks like an interesting IP, and one that I’ll definitely get along with my next generation console.
Culture Shack 