September holds one of Europe’s biggest gaming conventions, where thousands from across the country and from overseas travel to play the year’s hottest games and new releases. It became apparent how popular the event has become, with the thousands of gamers turning up for the early entry and specially on a week day! Earl’s Court station had been taken over by Sony and advertisement for their biggest games were posted, everything from Destiny to the Order.

Inside the venue, after some epic queuing and having my boyfriend ditch me to indulge in his own gaming urges, I had finally reached the holy land of gaming and so I explored what there was to see. Down stairs, the three giants of gaming, Microsoft, Nintendo and Sony were hosting their line of games from Sunset Overdrive to Super Smash and Mario Kart 8. I tested my luck at a few of Nintendo’s competitive sports, Mario Kart included and was overjoyed when I won! Nintendo offered as well it’s biggest exclusive of the year, Bayonetta two.

Bayonetta 2

Bayonetta 2 is the sequel to the hit game of 2010. A fast paced, wacky hack and slash game where the protagonist is an awesome Witch who uses her hair to combat evil. Only from the creator of Devil May cry this idea could come from. Its mixture of fast paced action and dynamic gameplay create a wondrous and exciting experience where it can be enjoyed by the most hardcore button basher to the noob who only hits the button and pray they succeed in killing something.

Those who played the original game will see that the structure and style is very similar with a few added extras. Torture attacks and climaxes hold greater and more satisfying outcomes, with various improvements in the flow of gameplay along with additions attacks and demons you can call to your aid.

Sunset Overdrive

Another crazy concoction from the minds of Insomniac games and Xbox One’s biggest exclusive of the year. Sunset Overdrive is a tale of the end of the world mixed in with Scott Pilgrim. It’s OTT in the best way as you’ll have to battle a city filled with mutant foes with an arrangement of powerful, creative and strange weapons and powers. In the demo at Eurogamer, I was placed with four other players and together we formed the Chaos Squad. This is the multiplayer section of Sunset were up to 8 players will battle waves of enemies in order to protect a number of different objectives.

Venturing on the rest of Eurogamer, I could see a large number of Indie gamers taking the floor with many creative and colourful concoctions they have made. Eurogamer was now home to those who were big players in the industry but were passionate about gaming and wanted to offer new and alternative experience that where different Call of Duty and the likes. These inspiring developers had their own place to showcase their exciting work and from the progressing years, the number of indie developers and those wanting to inspire to become game designers had grown tremendously.

Destiny showcased itself at the Sony area with a huge following taking part in live demos and death matches against friends. The community of Bungie’s latest game has shown massive support for the new franchise which continues to grow. On the other side of the fence was Microsoft’s Halo Master Chief Collection, coming out this Christmas. Again, the following for Halo has grown and from the looks of the games being graphically re-mastered, 343 Studios has done a great job at reliving the classic series, bringing new life to an enjoyable Sega.

There were a number of other sights including the Oculus Rift head set which made many of its users spin their heads around or jump up and scream, most likely thinking they were dying or being attacked by Sack boy from Little Big Planet.

Upstairs held the over 18 section and as always, looking younger than I am, decided to sneak in with a disguise. Dressing as a giant Pikachu, I entered the over 18 section to find some upcoming titles such as the disgustedly brilliant Evil Within, Farcry 4, The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, Alien Isolation and Assassin’s Creed Unity.

Mortal Kombat

I tested my fighting skills in the latest instalment of Mortal Kombat and found its new system of different fighting styles to be a real game changer. You can have your character portray different moves and tactics when competing, bringing in a fresh experience every time you play the game. Unless you’re a random button masher like me, you’ll still have fun beating your friends to a bloody pulp. The graphics were pretty and the interaction between characters and environment was truly dynamic.

Alien Isolation

Seeing the disaster that was Colonial Marines, I wanted to check out the new game from Creative Assembly, the makers of the Total War series. I heard many good things of this upcoming game, having a stronger focus on fear, tension and being more relatable to the film series. The demo took place in survival mode and as Amanda Ripley, I had to venture a near empty space station with a freaking Alien on my tail. There was a lot of crouching, sneaking and hiding away from this beast and the tension was nerve wrecking. The game looked stunning and its lighting and sound design made the experience even more terrifying and brilliant. It ended when the Alien jumped down and swept me off my feet and shot his tongue into my brain. Ewwwww.

Among the games and glamour where the cosplayers and a host of cat walks and shows celebrating everything cosplay. Eurogamer never had a big cosplay scene but slowly it’s becoming a thing. Cosplay itself has become a lifestyle and now it appears in most major conventions from gaming to films and comics.  Many took the isles dressing up as Lara croft, Pokemon, Nathan Drake and more. No one dressed up as Pac man though. There was Mario and Luigi however!

Lara croft and the temple of Osiris

Lastly I checked out the new Tomb Raider game, an entertaining adventure game that mimicked many of the older top down style shooters with co-op play and epic Tomb raiding. The game sets players to explore various tombs and dungeons in the hopes of killing everything in sight from mummies to big spiders with not a T-Rex in sight sadly. Still the game showed great potential as it was a friendly co-op experience that can be enjoyed by anyone with a great focus on exploration, team work and just good old shooting anything that isn’t human.

Well that’s my journey through Eurogamer. Check out the photos and relish in the awesome gaminess.