While competitors for the Gamestation tournament were home practising for the weekend’s tournament I decided to go and have a look on the official launch for the game in Oxford Street’s GAME store. As advertised on the store it would be right on launch day which would be friday 27th June 2008. There would be a competition for best Nintendo related costume so to blend in I decided to bring out the Apollo Justice costume I had.

(more…)

With the real launch starting off on friday today’s event was more about persuading as many people as possible to get into the Wii Fit idea. In all honesty that was not a problem already as millions of people had pre ordered the title meaning it already sold out in most places as it is. When I read about this launch I was more than willing to go and try the game myself for the simple reason that I wanted to see if the Wii Balance board really did wonders. To start off as I made my way to the event it was pouring rain like it was still Winter time. This did not dissuade me from going though as I expected the event to be inside a building but was I in for a surprise. As I got there a bit late at around 10 30 AM activities were already underway. I was surprised to only see some famous people on this rather incredible house display very fittingly demonstrating the Wii Fit game.

(more…)

As a huge fan of the Sonic games it was always I could not miss such an opportunity to go to the launch of such a special game. What was impossible before in the days that SEGA was in the hardware business came true as two rivals came together in one game. With this in mind I jumped at the chance of joining the crowd at the launch day and see what the event would hold for me.

On the day I set out to University with the intent of going to the launch when it started on my lunch break hour. A description on the SEGA website promised two of Saturday morning biggest children presenters would be on hand with Sonic and Mario, and the promise of being able to play the game, along with freebies. As I was fortunate to get a t shirt about the game on a previous visit to SEGA to play the game, it was already decided that it would be worn all day with pride.

When the time came I was there right in front getting ready for what was to come. It was to much surprise that I noticed that not a lot of people were there as expected. At least I socialised with the staff on hand to promote the event and managed to get myself quite some swag. While this was happening on stage the two presenters were already playing the game in full swing. I have to admit that seeing the game play in the background on this huge display made me more excited to having another go. As I was one of the first to get there and it seemed no random people were brave enough to step up on stage, I accepted to play with them. As I had played the game before on the visit to SEGA it was much easier to play the game. I actually laughed quite a bit with the presenters as I was showing them the controls. It seems that they were not trained in the ways of playing it but we all had a laugh. While this was going on a small crowd had gathered around the stage curious about the game. As others were starting to have a go too I finally noticed one Sonic fan among the crowd.

As time passed I noticed all kinds of people finally going up on stage to play the game. It was to be noted that not one single person came out of it unhappy. It could have been the goody bags being handed out but it seemed that the event was going very well. And indeed that was the main message of this event which did not even have a competition. It was all purely to show the game and it proved that there was mass appeal to the audience. This event was definitely one that I enjoyed thoroughly due to not only to the very kind staff who would answer any questions on the game, but also because anyone could go up and play it! In the end there wasn’t a incredibly huge crowd at the event but at least those that came left with positive opinions of the game. As ever Sonic and Mario were on hand to attend and before the event finished took photos with Dick, Dom and the many fans that appeared throughout the event.

As for the game it obviously does its magic best when being played in groups but there it also takes skill to get all the world records. The controls are very intuitive and worked really well within each game. In the end this game was created for pure fun and it could be seen when playing. I would say that the event was a perfect show of the game overall and a pure delight to any Sonic fans that attended. A review of the game will most definitely be up once I can put it down for enough time and start typing it up.