User Blog:
Eurogamer Expo 2010

October saw the arrival of the Eurogamer Expo 2010 at Brompton Hall in Earls Court, presenting me with a fantastic opportunity to get ahead of the game (no pun intended, of course), and get to play first-hand, upcoming releases from the biggest names in gaming. Billed as the UK’s biggest gaming event, exhibitors included Sony, Nintendo, Microsoft, EA, Ubisoft, and many, many more. And in my giddiness, I attempted to have a go on as many games as I could (and had an interest in), provided the hordes of die-hard fans would not deter me from waiting.

The first game I got to have a go on was Sony’s big thing of 2010, the PlayStation Move. The Move is something that has held my interest this year, as it is most definitely a product which splits public opinion; the Nintendo fans are quick to point out the blatant “plagiarism” committed by Sony in Move’s development, while Sony supporters swiftly profess Move’s superiority to the Nintendo Wii’s motion controls. Speaking personally as a player of both the Wii and the PS3, I failed to see the reason for excitement in the Move, or its Xbox 360 counterpart, Kinect (more on that later), but I picked up the Move to play a game of Wii Play-reminiscent Table Tennis.

There’s no denying it, Nintendo fans, Sony’s product is much more honed and technically more accurate than what the Wii offers without Motion Plus. The paddle on screen precisely copied my movements, moving in any direction that I held it, allowing me to strike the ping pong ball in any way I pleased; the spin generated by the position of my paddle was accurate, and the game does punish you for wild flailing, with a particularly powerful shot from me clearing the table by miles. Perhaps my mind would be changed if the game was more exciting, but I felt that showing off the Move using games available on the Wii (there was a boxing game and some kind of sword game) was probably a bad way to convince some gamers (including myself) that the Move is truly bringing something new to the table.