What a day! What a show! What a queue!

Well, I say that. Today was a good day, the Eurogamer Expo getting off to a solid start. I was on site for about 10am and joined an already significant queue for the Brompton Hall at Earl’s Court in decidedly depressing weather. It was cold, windy and damp, but the people I ended up chatting to were all pretty upbeat. I passed the hour waiting for the doors to open trading jokes and discussing the likes of Fable and Halo with some games design students that had been bused in from outside London.

Once the Expo threw open its doors I was straight into another, hour long queue to catch the first talk of the day. The Fable III talk was introduced by a little pantomine sword fighting and probably the most enthusiastic town cryer I’ve ever heard. Peter Molyneux, Fable’s creator, talked for the bones of an hour about the gestation of Fable back in the mid ’90′s, the primary film inspirations the development team drew on for the look and feel of Fable games and teased the audience about some of the potential major plot twists in the upcoming release of Fable III. The talk, ultimately, was very light on actual details on Fable III, which isn’t that far from release. I’ve great affection for Peter Molyneux and he’s very passionate and eloquent when he talks about his games, but I left the talk a little disappointed at the lack of anything really in-depth about Fable III.

Because of the way Eurogamer were managing the crowds for the various talks I missed the following session on Deus Ex: Human Revolution. Having to go out from the hall and queue again put me at the end of a very, very long line and with so many people I wasn’t going to get in. If your going to attend any sessions in the next few days, bear that in mind if there happen to be two you want to see back to back. After grabbing a bite to eat it was back to the show floor, dodging crowds as much as possible and trying to get some hands on time with a few of the titles I really wanted to see this weekend.

Compared to last year, which took place at Old Billingsgate, the Expo has really outdone itself this time. Brompton Hall is bigger, brighter and it’s easier to move about. While it’s still thoroughly awkward to queue for a talk or for a popular game, getting around and finding the game you really want to play is an awful lot easier than last year. The hellish basement level of last year’s event is also thankfullly no more.

I’ll talk a bit about what I got to see and play in a later staff blog. Citizen Game is having what you could call a Staff Team Building Exercise this evening, and we’ll be representing at the Expo tomorrow and Sunday. If you missed out on a ticket, I do believe they’re selling discount tickets on the door after 3pm each day if you still fancy popping along. I’d highly recommend it.

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