On Friday 7th November, I was lucky enough to represent wonderwallweb.com at The Gathering 08, an event held by Xbox for members of the Xbox Community Network. Having attended last year I was obviously very excited at the prospect of meeting up with old friends and having the opportunity to check out the latest games which are coming to the Xbox 360 in the near future, a weekend of fun was about to begin.

After a Friday night full of Gears of War 2 multiplayer madness which kicked off with two of the developers introducing us to the game (lovely guys), the following day was when the real action began with all of the attendees managing to get hands on with some of the best upcoming games on the Xbox 360.

The Fun Begins - Pic by wotta

The first game I was introduced to was Tomb Raider Underworld, the game was presented to us by Eric Lindstrom and Adam Phillips, it seems to have a darker look than before, though the controls are certainly just as easy to use as ever. The level I played through was right at the beginning of the game and involved escaping from the burning mansion before Lara ended up as Ash, the movement of Lara was very fluid and the graphics seemed as realistic as ever, meaning that this could certainly be a game that will be very popular, especially since it feels like it is returning to the more action orientated days of Miss Croft. We will have a review for you soon though so I won’t give too much away here.

Next up was the surprising Prince of Persia, Chris Easton from Ubisoft took us through this one, emphasizing that pressing left trigger as much as possible will give you more background on the story, in fact he couldn’t emphasize this enough, which was quite amusing. The game itself looks absolutely stunning, the artwork is presented in a strange hand drawn art style, almost like it has been traced onto the screen, and the gameplay itself is very Assassins Creed, meaning that anyone who has played that game should be able to pick this up straight away. Although I didn’t play this for very long, what I did play left me very impressed and desperate for more.

Robin Burrows of Microsoft was also there, talking our group through the wonders of the NXE, however we seem to have covered most of what he said in our very own hands on article which we published last week, so if you want to know more you should perhaps check that out here. 

Following our refresher with the NXE it was time to move onto the next game, Halo Wars. Having not seen much of this game I was curious to see what the developers had done to make this RTS more accessible given that it had been designed specifically for the console. I have to say that I was pleasantly surprised, within five minutes of playing the level I had managed to control my troops and take down some enemies, within 20 minutes I had destroyed everything in my path and completed the level. I was pretty amazed just how easy it was to play this game, having experienced the awkward controls of the Command and Conquer series on Xbox 360 I certainly know which one I prefer.

Aceybongos and Wotta singing a duet - Pic Courtesy of XboxWorld.ch

Anyway so onto the next game and the one I was waiting desperately to play, Left4Dead. This is one game that I was sure would make an impact on me and I wasn’t wrong. The aim of the game is basically to blast your way through Zombie’s with the aid of your three colleagues, the beauty of this game is that your colleagues are controlled by your Xbox Live buddies who can jump in and out of your game at any time, and when they are not there the computer will take these characters over. In fact I was told, (although I didn’t see this myself) that if you pause the game then your character will continue to play on, now that is impressive. Not only are the co-op features impressive but the gameplay itself is fantastic, the controls are easy to use and the weapons are very effective, especially the shotgun, and if a colleague goes down you can simply revive them, providing you are fast enough (ala Gears of War style). The whole secret to Left4Dead is to stick together and work as a team, otherwise you will be nothing but Zombie food and you wouldn’t want that would you? Left4Dead looks like an absolutely stunning game and as far as i am concerned it’s release can’t come quick enough.

So how do you follow Left4Dead? Well how about with Resident Evil 5, which if Im being honest is probably one of the most stunning looking games I have yet to lay eyes on, graphically it’s just perfection. The level that I played was a short one, however it certainly made an impact on me. The game consists of your character and also a computer controlled character named Sheva, it is your mission to protect her from the Zombie’s because if she dies then it’s game over. She will follow you everywhere but she is a good shot, so if you see the wonderfully realistic Zombies falling down all around you then you know why. The gameplay in Resident Evil 5 is pretty stunning, like I say Sheva is very intelligent and the zombies just seem to keep coming, the only problem I had was that I did find the controls quite awkward, this is probably because the hero just seemed too close to the action, meaning that aiming your gun or using your knife was not very straightforward, however it is probably unfair to criticise the game too much in this department without more time spent playing.

Perhaps the biggest surprise of the event was You’re in the Movies, to be honest when I first saw this game I thought, oh no, however I was so wrong as this is going to be one of the best party game ever seen. What the game does is get the player to follow the on screen instructions, which can range from swatting wasps, running a marathon or just posing and then it saves this action, then the next player will be asked to act out similar instructions, this will continue for four acts until all of the players (up to four) have taken a turn at which point the finale appears. You see the whole point of following the instructions during the four acts is to make a short movie, so what the game basically does is take all the actions you have made and then combines them into what you will see at the end. This really does have hilarious consequences, in fact I don’t think I have ever laughed so much in my whole life. You’re in the movies is definitely one game you shouldn’t let pass you by when it gets here, I can’t wait to see it again.

The Foreign Strangers - Pic Courtesy of XboxWorld.ch

After quite an eventful day it was time to let our hair down and what better way to do so than with the Xbox Rocks Night, which basically consisted of a mixture of Guitar Hero World Tour and all new Karaoke game Lips. The format seen all of the attendees spilt into groups and then performing in their band on stage using the excellent Guitar Hero World Tour. The opening act was none other than the excellent Jimmy Spandex and the Spandetts who rocked down the house, in fact every act was pretty special, though the eventual winners where the Foreign Strangers fronted by none other than myself with our rocking rendition of Everlong.

The Gathering 08 yet again showed that Microsoft have some excellent titles coming to their console in the remaining months of the year and also the first few months of next year, it also proved that they know how to throw one hell of a party.

You can see some fantastic pictures of the event at http://www.xboxworld.ch/page/gallery,list79,1,gathering08.html