After quite a while in the wilderness, we’re starting to find our footing again here at Ooh Sometimes, albeit at the pace of a dead badger. After the fun and frolics that comes with performing DIY (no, not that kind of doing yourself….wee scamps), it was about time some merriment was had.

But rather than drink myself silly and then wake up in Belgium the next day, instead the time was spent being a proper nerd at the first ever PC Gamer Weekender, which took place in the Truman Brewery in East London a couple of weeks ago. It was actually the same venue where Eurogamer began their rise to dominance in the event space before moving round London before plonking themselves in Birmingham for the time being.

Rather than sounding like a film from the early 2000s where everyone goes to the beach and party for spring break, this was a more geeky affair where the magazine PC Gamer, owned by Future Publishing, set out to have a weekend event devoted entirely to that thing in the back room where you tend to game and watch illegally downloaded anime porn, the PC. Perhaps it was because the EGX and Rezzed events year after year proved to be a popular hit that the chaps at PC Gamer decided to get in on the action, which is a fair shout given there’s nothing else currently dedicated entirely to the PC space.

So was it worth going and what was on show?

HITMAN

And this is where Agent 47 breaks into song after murdering someone with a pineapple…

Already mentioned on a video blog the other week over on the YouTube Channel along with a bit of gameplay from the HITMAN beta, this was shown on the Saturday afternoon to a slightly bored audience, if only bored due to various technical problems with the presentation to begin with. But while we were wowed by some technical details on what they were doing to make the game look as good as possible on PC, they then took this further with a complete gameplay demo of the same Paris level everyone’s seen to death at this point, but decided to go off on one and show a different side of the level where you are going not after the fashion show guy shown time and time again in trailers, but his accomplice / lady friend.

By murdering a chap you look like, going down the catwalk and then quietly shooting her in the back of the head in her room after the show. Yeah, that’s how it happened! It was really something to see, and actually did more to impress about the freedom of roaming round the Paris level and finding new ways of eliminating the targets.

Of course, you will have seen various reviews of the first bit where various people will have now by now been complaining that it should have been all released at the same time instead of a new level every month. How this plays out, we honestly don’t know but keep an eye on the YouTube channel in future for a look at the first part of the game to see if it’s even worth 11 quid of your hard earned cash for that alone, let alone the content which is to come.

DARK SOULS 3

Dark Souls 3: Where you don’t feel as annoyed as before when you die 100 times….

Ah Dark Souls…. the wrist slitting simulator, or it may as well have been called that for all the punishment you would get time and time again by dying over and over and over again. This feeling was never more present when I last played BloodBorne, a feeling which grew to anger every time the words “You Died” appeared in big red letters on the screen. Both Dark Souls and BloodBorne are RPGs where you basically go against creatures of all shapes and sizes, trying to survive to save the world against some evil stuff which has never really ever been explained at all, come to think of it. The games always just seemed to assume you were fine with just going up against monsters and that was that.

Or maybe I never ever progressed far enough in any of the games to even understand if there was ever a real story to them.

So really when it comes to Dark Souls 3, the latest in the line of hurt yourself mentally games from the Japanese company From Software, would you be expecting to be doing anything other than crying? Well given it was by far the most popular game to be played at the PC Gamer Weekender, it seems everyone is on board ready to suffer.

But this time something surprised me.

I died a lot, but I actually didn’t mind. It seemed that the game this time was a little bit more forgiving than previous encounters and therefore I was able to make some actual progress within the demo area, in which you went up against some religious weirdos along with some other creatures before getting burned to death by a dragon if you went up the wrong stairs. While restricted to gamepads for the duration, it wasn’t as annoying as previous attempts and to be honest, graphics-wise, I couldn’t tell the difference between this and BloodBorne, it did look very grim and actually quite good. Hell it was even running really smoothly, so given it wasn’t the final product, surely it could only get better when it’s finally released.

I suppose this time as well, rather than the 30 seconds I got with BloodBorne back at Rezzed last year where I died and was told, that was it, game over, this time we were allowed a good 20 minutes with the game, to get used to the controls and ask questions should we wish. In essence, it was a much better time and since then, I actually look forward to April when I will be seeing those damned words You Died on the screen all over again.

WARHAMMER: ETERNAL CRUSADE

Pew pew with space orcs or something, I don’t really know to tell the truth….

The Warhammer franchise was massively out in force during the PC Gamer Weekender, and whether or not that just says something about us geeks, I don’t know. I’ll leave that for society to judge us, but one of the non tabletop or strategy games present was right next to Dark Souls 3, and in essence we got our hands dirty with the multiplayer only five a slaughter deathmatch they had all set up with the mouse and keyboard.

I have to be honest, this didn’t exactly fill me with the joys of Christmas so to speak. It was at best, serviceable shooting with various things reminding me of the Battlefield series of first person shooters only this time it was third person and you were either space warriors or orcs because it’s Warhammer. But it was really a forgettable experience and I for one will not be rushing out to get it when it arrives on various shelves in the near future.

HOMEFRONT: THE REVOLUTION 

God damn commies or whoever we’re taking back our country from…..

The new Homefront game was on show here as well, albeit in again a multiplayer setting at the show, but this time you and whoever else was set in the chairs near you, were all playing nicely together to fight to win back your homeland from whoever the hell was occupying it. It wasn’t really explained in the gameplay or otherwise so f*ck it, let’s say it was taken over by Care Bears.

So off you all went very very slowly heading towards a location where the Care Bears ambushed you and you all had to make a retreat but only when the game told you. Other than that, it seemed to be the opening part was just a horde mode where you just had to hold the Care Bears back till you move on. This was very difficult and to be honest, there was always a moment where everyone got wiped out badly where just one person went off trying to be Rambo but just got shot down by the Care Bear’s stare….

Actually, would this be a better game Care Bears actually did go rogue and take over the United States?

The game was smooth running, looked very good, but I can’t quite get over how bloody slow you are at moving. I got the feeling that I was about to be overtaken by a pensioner using a zimmerframe at any moment, so I hope that’s not how it is in the final game as otherwise, it will just get bloody annoying when you really can’t get out of the way of incoming gunfire.

TO BE CONTINUED…..

Join again for Part 2 soon, where we take a look at some more highlights and remark on the PC Gamer Weekender itself. Till then, toodles!

Photos taken by Rebecca Freir