GamesCom 2011 – Community Reporter Tom Wallis Day Three Feature
dmcdonagh
2011-08-23
Have you heard about this “Go Prone or Go Home” craze that’s taken off at GamesCom? I’m told it all started because the queue to get into the Battlefield 3 has been extremely long, and when people are waiting aroundthey do silly things to entertain themselves. EA are so pleased with the public support and anticipation they even created a competition, with the best prone photo or video winning a copy of the game on the platform of your choice. The competition is now closed, but you can still check out the video here: http://youtu.be/EOmrdqEVy3A. If you like competitions that are still running, you have a chance to win a copy of Need For Speed: The Run at launch. Head over to this video: http://youtu.be/uW5OLCJMr10 to see how you can enter.
At time of writing, that little video has been viewed on youtube over 5,000 times. With it only going up a little under 12 hours ago, that’s pretty impressive. Tomorrow I’ve got to make sure this new found stardom doesn’t go to my head. “Yes I am that guy from that video. Sure you can have my autograph”
Interacting with you guys back home has been something of a challenge. Imagine, if you will, two hundred people trying to force their way through one doorway all at once. That’s pretty much the perfect metaphor for how battered the wireless connectivity is in the EA business lounge, Community lounge, the press room and even at the hotel! Because of this I’m sure there’ll be plenty of content coming out of Gamescom over the next few days/weeks/months… Ok, maybe not months.
Much of the day was spent video editing, desperately trying to catch up with the massive amount of content we’ve captured over the past two days. I did manage to sneak into the behind closed doors presentation for Kingdoms of Avalur: Reckoning. The eccentrically brilliant Ken Rolston yesterday told us two things; 1. He’s a visionary. 2. The game doesn’t suck. Playing as a warrior, and armed with a Great sword / Long sword combo, I must say I morethan emphatically agree.
The combat is instantly accessible: I began slicing and dicing within moments of grasping the controller in my clammy hands. There’s also a level of depth to the combat that I hadn’t previously appreciated. By combining accurate timing, the ability to switch between weapons simply by pressing the button with attacks assigned to it and situational move choices, there really is a lot in there to understand before you can master it.It’s clear why the combat has been such a focus, as the developers are trying to push the game outside of the traditional RPG niche in the market. From what I’ve seen there’s no reason why it shouldn’t, however it would have been nice to play around with some of the crafting and customisation options available. No doubt they’ll be showing this off in future previews, so I guess I should just stop being so impatient!
What we were told and shown of crafting is that there are three main varieties. Blacksmithing allows you to break unwanted weapons into components in order to build something more powerful. Alchemy will have you mixing ingredients to create potions to regain health and buff abilities. Finally Sage crafting uses materials to make gems that can add attributes to your weapons. Whilst we weren’t shown how the systems play out, we were shown the results as the playable warrior has fire and electricity gems placed on his Long sword and Great sword respectively. Visually, setting fire or shockingyour enemies by using your augmented weapons looked great, and seems to add another dimension to combat.
