This Is My Joystick!
I was fortunate enough to attend the Eurogamer Expo this year and had the chance to try some of the new games we’ll be playing this Christmas and on into 2011. Donkey Kong Country Returns was one I was extremely eager to get my hands on. Has it been worth the wait? Read on…
When you’re about to interview one of the biggest names in the gaming industry, nay, the biggest interview you’ve ever conducted, naturally, you’re going to want to make an impression. However, in the pouring wet and chilling cold of London on a Friday evening during rush hour, my plans didn’t exactly come together. As it turned out, I was almost ten minutes late to my interview with Yuji Naka (you know the guy who created Sonic the Hedgehog!) and felt more than a little bit embarrassed.
Mercifully, both Yuji and his translator, Toru Sasaki still greeted me with a warm smile and were open and receptive to my questions. I only had time for a half hour slot with Yuji and mine was the last interview of the day, yet even though he was very tired and worn out, Yuji Naka was still friendly and made time for our line of questioning.
I conducted this interview with Laurie Jones who was present throughout. This took place the day before Yuji’s keynote at Eurogamer.
I was fortunate enough to be in attendance at this year’s Eurogamer Expo representing This Is My Joystick, and during my time there I managed to get hands-on with a lot of games we’re going to be playing rolling into Christmas and the new year. This article looks at Dragon Age 2, the sequel to 2009’s Dragon Age: Origins from Bioware. How did it play? Let’s find out…
One of the longest queues at Eurogamer on Friday was for the Medal of Honor Multiplayer. Thankfully for me I had Neil and Ray to keep me company while I stood for an hour waiting patiently for my turn. After a very slow shuffle and having fought the growing need for a toilet break I finally took my seat, picked up the PS3 pad and prepared myself for the Taliban.
Eurogamer Expo was a fantastic opportunity for retailer HMV as their store was in a prime position in the hall at Earls Court. However, despite having a chill out area with bean bags and a vast array of games to purchase, the area was somewhat underwhelmed.
Upon closer inspection it was clear the reason why the thousands of gamers under one roof were not walking around with carrier bags full of the latest games they had just played and loved. The reason for this was because HMV were selling the games at full retail price.
A few weeks ago many of you may remember that I interviewed Radio and TV Presenter Iain Lee about his love of gaming. In the interview I referred to seeing fellow Radio and TV presenter OJ Borg on the National Lottery TV programme and in that “man slouched in a chair drinking cold beer swearing at the TV” kind of way, I blurted out that “OJ Borg, is a poor man’s Iain Lee“.
A quick, snappy line and all is forgotten, or so I thought. Several weeks later I switch on my Xbox to be greeted with a new voice message, which said “Hello it’s OJ Borg here, the man you called a poor man’s Iain Lee, which I take as a slur and therefore challenge you to a duel on the game of your choice!”
After a quick visit to Twitter, it became clear that this was no wind up: I had been tracked down by the big man himself, who was on a one-man mission to right a few wrongs!
Several messages later, all of which were in very good humour, we decided the perfect venue for our showdown would be the Eurogamer Expo at Earls Court in London at Friday High Noon.