Reader Reviews

ECTS 2003 and The PlayStation Experience

by Mike Saleem

I headed straight off to Fifa 2004 and played that for about half an hour - overall good gameplay. Then I decided to play Ghosthunter, which was a very good game, especially catching those annoying ghosts. However I had to ask the PSEx guy to keep restarting the game as the demo kept on running out and I was damn determined to complete it - just for the record, I never did!

I then played other games like Eye Toy: Play, Castlevania, Buffy, Hardware Arena. Too bad that I couldn't get into the '18 Boudoir'. That would have been most pleasurable - I knew I should have never shaved...

The best game I played at the event had to be Resident Evil: Outbreak. I am a huge Resi fan and have to say, the gameplay has finally improved a lot - for once! The multiplayer mode was just amazing. It was funny when me and my mate went into the bedroom and how I left him to fight off a zombie with no weapons as I hid under the bed with a gun... Muahaha... The ability to give so called 'team-mates' weapons and items definitely amazed me - sheer class! I am definitely looking forward to this game release.

The performances were great too. Lisa Maffia was brilliant and looking particularly nice (can't blame a guy for trying). Abs was there too, but I don't really like his sort of music, if you could actually call it that... Me and my mate also got to take pictures of some of the nice ladies who performed as dancers - I still can't believe how many nice looking birds there were!

by Jay Pearce

ECTS was great. Half-Life 2 was amazing to see first hand. All the other highlights that you've already mentioned on the site made it one of the best shows since it was in held in Olympia.

The Playstation Experience, however, was utter faeces. Walking, sorry, barging round the hall was like traversing some giant crèche, populated with teenagers sporting big trainers and even bigger attitudes, accompanied by the shouting of a minor celebrity that even R:SE booted off. Oh dear. The most pleasurable part for me was trying to find an empty bin for the activity pack that was meant to entertain you whilst you queued up behind 'Tyrone' for two hours (feel free to replace Tyrone with any bad-boy name you fancy). Add this to the fact that there was a shocking lack of quality totty to ogle, uhh, I mean, promote new titles and we have a severely disappointing event organised by Sony. Thanks, then. Buh-Bye.

I had paid for my ticket before winning one. Something that will not be happening ever again.

by Warren Merrifield

Thanks to your dazzlingly charming deputy editor [is that what you meant to say? -Ed] and my extensive knowledge of, ahem, boy bands, I was one of the privileged few to receive a free ticket to Thursday's afternoon bash at the PlayStation Experience. Handy, since I was going to GDCE at ECTS that afternoon anyway, I could get to suckle at the massively swollen teat of Sony as well.

And my, how big it was! ECTS seemed like a raft tied to a supertanker in comparison, (and I could mention the word 'barnacle' in relation to the Nintendo truck, but lets not go there.) No one man could sample all the delights available in the couple of hours I had, but a quick dash revealed a stage with massive screens in the centre surrounded by several hubs containing a good many demo pods showing off various games.

So a quick run around the notables: Need For Speed: Underground surprised me by being nearly as good as Burnout 2, and managing to look a lot nicer. Gran Turismo 4 is more of the same as far as I could tell (all the pods managed to have broken wheels by the time I got there). Soul Calibur 2 on PS2 is as fantastic as I expected, although not really on a par graphically with the other platforms. Jak II looks very impressive and different, whilst Ratchet & Clank 2 looks very similar to the first. Siren has buckets of atmosphere and reminded me a lot of Project Zero, and that's about it for the games really. There was Mr. Metal Gear [Hideo Kojima] turning up and being asked a few inane questions before being mobbed by a horde of teenagers clamouring for his autograph whilst the new MGS3 was shown; he is not Robbie Williams, and you are not teenage girls, people!

ECTS-wise; Beyond Good and Evil seemed great. Prince of Persia was good old-fashioned Tomb Raider with a dodgy camera and without breasts. I must be the only person who didn't like Far Cry, but Stalker and Tron 2 both looked fantastic. And I want to play Worms 3D as soon as possible!

Thanks very much Mugs [don't thank me - thank Sony!] for a free wander around the 'Experience', all good fun. Annoyingly however, I got to the tube station just as London Underground lost all power for 5 hours, which were very productively spent in the pub. The things I have to do, eh?