First Impressions

My very first impression, even walking towards the entrance was the large amount of people either waiting in line for a ticket, or walking in. Really, a lot doesn’t quite cover it. Upon entering we got our press cards and went in. Ironically, the entrance was right under a sign which said: No Entrance. Whether this was intentional humour, or just weird, I guess we’ll never know.

Gameplay 2007 had 2 halls, with 45 stands of game developers, platforms, stores and other gaming related stuff.

From the inside it looked huge, the magnitude of this of course pales in comparison with the old E3, but still impressive nonetheless. Lines seemed to come spontaneous into being, the doors had been open ten minutes, and it was packed. We avoided the lines at first, trying to get a good impression of everything before going over to in-depth analysis.

We got a look at the Bonami Videogaming museum, a school for videogame development, there was even a stand for a concert for videogaming music, which is apparently very popular. We then, under urging of Vincent, rushed to the free record shop stand for the guitar hero contest. More on that tomorrow.


Right after that we had a look at the skate bus, which looked cool from the outside (image) But was cramped and awful on the inside. The main guitar hero event on the large stage was, with lack for a better word, disappointing. Sure there was smoke, a half-naked man jumping around, the gaming broadcasted on two screens large enough to make people seriously consider the selling of relatives for, but somehow it felt empty. There wasn’t enough variation from last year, even less somehow, with the outrageous costumes gone. There was enough of a crowd I guess, but I was quickly bored with the performance.

Apart from the unox stands on the sides of the halls, there was only one large catering stand, and it was right in the middle. What surprised me, I guess, was the amount of shops having stands, and actually selling stuff too. One of them was even holding auctions for computer parts, giving away free stuff as well.

While there was a fair amount of people wanting to go on picture with sonic, including me and Vincent, the Sega booth itself was less crowded, or, more accurately put, not at all. While this might have been expected for such niches such as the school for game development or the ‘future zone’ an actual game developer with the pedigree of Sega should have warranted more attention. Though I don’t think that “At the Olympics” did them any good.

The Ubisoft stand with games such as assassins creed on the other hand was well populated. And let me tell you, when they say actual gameplay footage in those commercials, they mean it. The game looked absolutely gorgeous.




Well that’s it for today, I’ll see you guys tomorrow for the Guitar Hero versus Rock Band article, until then, amuse yourself with the comic!

Dren Sokić
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