GC 2005 - Leipzig
So right after EIEF in Edinburgh, I’m whisked away from sunny Scotland and bundled on a 9.35 am flight out of Stansted to Altenburg, then on to Leipzig for the GC (Games Conference) set in another Messe that the German’s do so well. Those of you that followed our CeBIT 2005 coverage will have some idea of the scale of these event parks, and although on a smaller scale than CeBIT, GC is still far bigger than anything we get in the UK. Covering five Halles, each easily as large as a couple of football pitches, GC 2005 encompasses pretty much everything to do with gaming from chipset manufacturers such as ATI, AMD, NVIDIA and Intel through to game developers and publishers such as Blizzard, Eidos, Activision and Ubisoft.
The main entrance hall… big, innit?Everyone is here and everyone has something to show off, be it the Sony PSP (soon to be launched in Europe), the Gizmondo or the latest in NVIDIA SLI rigs, it’s all here. But what attracted me from the off was a chance to get to grips with a Microsoft XBox 360… which I’ve had a nice little play of Final Fantasy XI on the XBox 360 as well having had a minor fiddle with the box itself before getting told off… But more of that later.
I’ve taken a walk around the five halles, grabbed a few photos of various stands and tomorrow I’ll hit the show for earnest and start pestering the guys for a chat.
For now, settle back and have a browse through a random wander round the halles.
I know, I know…what will those crazy Germans think of next? Not something to have a go on after a foot long weiner with mustard, trust me…
Yep, one for Gordy, a case modding masterclass. It was Dremel city in there!
ATI out in force with their partners…
Getting medieval with Dark Ages of Camelot… and the bird dressed as Guenivere was pretty hot too
Oooh, running code from XBox 360, running ON an XBox 360…hmmmm
There you go, a dummy XBox 360 case to pick up and ponder over… so I picked up and pondered
And a real one in a case, out of reach of us mortals
The Microsoft ‘Fun Park’, with more X-Boxes running the latest games than you could shake a big ‘X-Box running the latest game’ stick at!
The Microsoft ‘Fun Park’ complete with gormless blurry girl who stood there and waited until I was about to take the picture before walking into the shot…
Ooh looky here, Bet On Soldier, in a typically soldiery tent…
…Which contains loads of machine all networked together for group gambling fun
NVIDIA get everyone going with another Digital Jesters game, TrackMania Sunrise. Needless to say, having played the game to destruction when reviewing it, I rooled the LAN at this!
NVIDIA were pushing SLI to the max with a variety of graphics intensive games running smoother than a greased ferret down a Teflon coated drainpipe.
Electronis Arts offer up stress relief for over-tense gamers… You get thrown off the stand if you ask for ‘extras’.
Some game called Gran Turismo, now in it’s fourth incarnation… never heard of it meself.
Electronic Arts, playing it safe with yet another sequel… and dressing hot birds up in sexy cop outfits to get us interested… though the cuffs idea is a bit kinky…
N-Gage QD with some berk waltzing in front of the Glimmeratti logo, Bugbears’s massive QD hitSo, that’s a quick walk around the floor, but there’s loads more going on here and I don’t mean just the XBox 360 and it’s first truly public outing. We’ve got playable code of Dungeon Siege II, King Kong, Far Cry Instincts, Call of Duty 2 and loads more besides, all of which I’ll be getting my hands on in the next few days, with a bit of luck… check back soon for more!
