Sitting on a train heading to London, Paddington a few thoughts run through my head as the early morning sky shoots past. “What time is it? Why am I going to London at this time? Why is that man staring at me? Will the FragDolls think I am stalking them?” All of these questions will be answered next on “Barrie: A London FragDoll Odyssey“. After a few hours of intermittent sleeping and being stared at by the odd man in the corner, I arrive at Paddington to be greeted by Voodoo from the FragDolls and we wander off to meet some more people namely Vixen and DJ Nes. Seeming more and more like a Gaming AA meeting, we head to Piccadilly and towards the MS Building. Now, arriving at the Microsoft Building the instant feeling of being “not worthy” and asking if I should take off my shoes since this is sacred ground hits me. Having my 360Monster shirt on was a godsend, not just for advertising 360Monster but so people could recognize me if I wandered off into the building. After a few minutes waiting, we are ushered into the Swimming Pool, named because it has some interesting floor tiles which look just like water, only to be confronted with fake palm trees, sliced up melons and cocktails.
“Gamers of the world unite!”
After a brief chat with some people from other 360 websites we all crowd around the 20 odd Samsung HDTV’s which have been arranged nicely for us to play FarCry: Instincts Predator. Introductions were made and the gaming commenced as we were thrown into a brutal Team Chaos match. This started off bad because many of us thought it was straight deathmatch rules and we happily hammered round after round into our own team mates only to notice we had nice minus scores. It was an honest mistake! Vixen is the only one who purposely Team Kills (Joke… or am I?) After a few laughs and getting back into the killing we are interrupted by UbiRazz (Chris of Ubisoft) so we can have a Webcam link to Ubisoft Montreal and chat to the developers about their new FarCry Game. Given the opportunity to ask developers questions, many would jump at the chance but the room remained quiet until brave souls put up their hands and asked questions to the development team. A variety of questions were asked to different members of the team but the link did make it difficult to fully understand what was being said. Most of the questions were based around multiplayer and what changes are being made to make it stand out from the older Xbox version.
“Sarin FD not eating and playing games… fancy that!”
One of the best features of first Xbox FarCry was the map-maker which gave players endless opportunities to craft their own killing utopia. The developers hinted at a few tweaks and additions that had been made to the map-maker to help the more creative amongst the mapping community. Next up we have Lee Ames who happens to be one of the worlds best FarCry map-maker. It was interesting to hear his advice on making maps which I think a few in the crowd were a little confused about. Having spent hours myself making maps in FarCry, it was a good chance to talk to him about the new FarCry game and to see what he thought about the map-maker as well. Turns out he likes the map-maker but says that not that much has changed really and it will be difficult to drag people away from some of the more popular games like Ghost Recon: Advanced Warfighter which is currently dominating the 360 charts.
Glancing at my watch I am shocked. 4 o’clock already and we have barely started really getting into the multiplayer before a tournament was arranged between four teams, each being led by a lovely FragDoll. Rats. I was hoping to get through this entire news post without talking about the Dolls too much. Do not fear though, I have a good few pictures which will display the FragDolls in all their glory. I decided to sit the tournament out so I could take some more pictures of the action and so I get the chance to pick on the losers by heckling from a distance. The tournament was promptly won by Team Jam, which also managed to have OXM 360’s own Ben Talbot (Monobrow) as a team member. They received some nice t-shirts for their prizes and claps and cheers from the spectators and losers.
“Team Jam winning. I think they were hacking though.”
As the day slowly disappeared, it was clear to me that FarCry: Instincts Predator still retains the fun factor of the Xbox version and the map-maker is still great to play around with but I was still left with the feeling that something was missing. Not only from the game but something missing from me. Then as if by a vision, the answer was thrust before me. “We are going to the Pub and the drinks are on Chris (Ubisoft)” Praise be! The room emptied in an instant leaving some of the PR girls to finish off the cleaning and packing away. Before long we were all in the pub having a drink and chatting about everything. Glancing around it seems odd how many people hardly know each other but we can all be brought together by the love of games and debating which of the Resident Evil series was the best. One of the subjects that did come up was how we are all so used to being called by our gamertags (Raide for me) that we prefer to be called by that name instead of our boring, real names. This seems to be a product of Xbox Live and the voice chatting many of us doing in the lobbies and also the forums we all tend to inhabit day after day. Checking the time I knew I had to be heading off since my train time was rapidly approaching. A small group of us consisting of myself, Voodoo, Vixen, Kitt and Sarin (A few others but my gamertag brain went A.W.O.L) heading towards the station. It was an odd feeling when we all had to split off and go home but I had Voodoo to keep me company as we headed back to Paddington.
“Kitt FD on the left and smiling Voodoo FD on the right… awwww”
Community days like this are happening more and more and they are great fun to attend. Getting to meet so many new people is a buzz for me and also getting to play some of the new games that many will not be playing for a while also shows how honoured I am to be part of 360Monster because I get the chance to go to such events. Roll on the next one and I will keep you updated with the latest games!
“Sarin FD smiling and OXM 360’s Ben Talbot playing games”
“Voodoo FD, CyberVixen and a lovely Ubisoft PR Lady.
So much cute in such a small photo”
“Kitt FD stretching and Sarin FD… nooo… Sarin is eating!”
“People concentrating and playing Farcry… a good start”
Originally Written By: Barrie Rogers
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