Everybody I spoke to at Gamescom said it was the biggest and best year it had ever been. Even on Wednesday, ostensibly the quietest of the show, the halls were packed. You couldn't move on Sunday. 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Black Myth: Wukong had queues up to four hours long. 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Disney Lorcana had to close one of its attractions as the queue blocked the rest of the floor. Nintendo was there. Xbox was there. Sega was there, and many more besides. Huge companies with huge booths showing off huge games. But that wasn't why it felt so great to me, and I hope the games that left a lasting impression on me can leave their mark on gaming, too.
A big talking point at the show was 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Starfield. At 9am on Wednesday, our Gamescom journey opened with an hour-long presentation from Phil Spencer and Todd Howard, both there in person. They gave us space milk, like the astronauts drink. They talked about how great it was to be at Gamescom, and everyone applauded. They showed us the first 15 minutes of the game, from the mining to the combat to the character creation and our first journey into space. This was Xbox's loudest cannon firing a shot across the bough, letting everyone know Gamescom was theirs. And all I could think of was that back at home, our reviewer had already seen this and hours more besides.
Starfield was the big game at the show that everyone was talking about, but we already had it for review. It was two weeks out from launch, and it wasn't even playable on the show floor. 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:PlayStation might as well have taken a big poster of 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:The Last Of Us Part 2 and given a presentation on that. There was a lot of buzz about the biggest and most expensive triple-As, and these sorts of conventions do need the big boys (who could just as easily hold their own online showcases), but the true beauty of these conventions is seeing the smaller games that you hadn't even heard of before you got there.
An unfortunate side effect of this year's show being so big is that when I discussed my favourite games with other journalists, they titled their heads to the side, puzzled. 'I've not heard of that one', 'where's that booth?', and 'who does their PR?' were common refrains. I am not the arbiter of good games - it was often a similar story when they told me their best picks. Too many games and not enough time to see them all. But amongst Starfield and 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Assassin's Creed and Sonic and 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Alan Wake, I'm worried no one will play my games of the show.
Each day, the crew from TheGamer shot a short video detailing our games of the day. On Wednesday, despite seeing Starfield, 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:mine was Hellboy: Web of Wyrd. Thursday, it was 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:my overall﷽ game of the show, Bye Sweet Caro☂le, with 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:a small shout-out for Hauntii (and unfortunately, no room to discuss Time Flies, which made me the world's best fly). Friday, 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:it was the turn of Helskate. All great games with low buzz.
I'm being a little economical with the truth here. My real game of the first day was 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Super Mario Bros. Wonder, but we couldn't talk about that until after the recent Direct aired. But even then, while Wonder would be in my top five for the show, it would probably rank third, below Bye Sweet Carole and Helskate, and just edging above Hauntii and Time Flies. Wonder felt like a great game to play and will almost certainly be the highest in overall polish when released, landing the highest Metacritic score. But I expected it to be good, and it was - that doesn't compare to heading in with low, or even no, expectations and being blown away.
I'm not scraping the bottom of the barrel to pick these games because nothing else was there. Between us, we saw Starfield, Super Mario, Sonic, 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Blue Protocol, 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Prince of Persia, Assassin's Creed, Alan Wake, Payday, 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Mortal Kombat, 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Genshin Impact, 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Life By You, 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Lies of P, Tekken 8, and dozens more games with brand name recognition. I saw the footage my team captured from their various escapades to them filming their diatribes to camera telling me why Mortal Kombat was the game of the show. I still preferred my indie princes🐟s horrors, my small goth adventures, my funky skating roguelike, and my pixelated fly puzzler.
Gamescom helped remind me how much I enjoy this career, how many hits 2023 has had, and how popular gaming is. Despite everything, it is a privilege to work in this industry with the people I do. But it wasn't the big games that left an impression, it was the lesser known games clawing for a gasp of air. I hope at launch they can breathe free, and we can celebrate all games great and small, not just the titans.