To roundup Day 4 I need to go back a little bit to Day 3 and a little trip I took after my writing yesterday’s edition of the Roundup. I went to a smart pub around Piccadily Circus for the “Indie Game Meetup” which was a place where a bunch of indie developers were able to show off their wares with other indie gaming fans. Hit the jump for a brief report on that, and my Day 4 roundup.

The indie meetup had a few issues, and I understand some or even most of them were beyond the control of the organisers. For one, the venue was too small for the number of people who arrived, it made mingling difficult and limited the amount of games people could see. Also a few developers got kicked off their tables where they were showing off their games due to some cross-booking of the venue which can’t have been an enjoyable moment for those concerned. Last gripe, there was meant to be a panel of experts on hand in what I assumed would be a Q&A session, sadly due to the cramped location that wasn’t able to happen.

There was a positive as I was able to meet C.Y. Reid, the chap behind Hug Marine which grabbed my attention during E3 this year. He was showing off Hug Marine and his next title Coolo Forver (typo’s intended). His next title is a co-op puzzler, but importantly a local co-op title. You can play it with one person, but it is much easier to play with two people on the one keyboard. It is still early in development, but like Hug Marine it really did catch my attention. Getting two people directly together to play doesn’t happen often enough with PC games so I am really pleased someone is doing something to change that. The other positive was that Chet Faliszek from Valve appeared and I hope most of the indie developers who were there last night got the chance to talk to him.

Day 4 at the Expo itself was only a short visit for me due to a prior commitment to go watch some wrasslin’ as some folks like to call it. Speaking of wrestling, I was very disappointed that WWE 13 wasn’t being shown off at the event, but I guess we can’t have everything.

My first game of choice of Hitman: Absolution, and it washed away some of the fears that had been growing inside me about it. I’ll have a fuller report on it soon, but I really appreciated the feel of things. It still felt like a Hitman game with stealth very much being the best approach, but not the only one. I will admit that I am concerned that the demo playable at the Expo was chosen to show off the more traditional Hitman features and that other parts of the game might not live up to the heritage the name deserves. I am holding out hope though.

I was able to get an extended playtest on Far Cry 3 and came away feeling really quite confident about the game. I will be having a two-part report of my playtest appearing over the next few days, but to be sure, it is much better than I thought based on my first impressions back on Day 1 (or was it Day 2?).

The final game I actually got to play was Assassin’s Creed Liberation on the Vita, a title which, from the little bit I played, feels like a full game standing on its’ own two feet rather than simple a stripped down port of the console version. For some reason I didn’t figure out how to fire my pistol, but rest be assured, running around with a machete was very rewarding.

I did queue up for Assassin’s Creed 3: The Chronicles of Someone Sleeping in the Animus, but I had to leave before I could play it. It did look quite nice though from what I observed.

That was it then, the Eurogamer Expo done for another year. I will come back with my game(s) of the event and some general thoughts on things in the near future.