I was going to attend this expo since I live nearby to where it’s being held … but after reading the program I decided it wasn’t really worth the effort. There weren’t going to be any great revelations like E3 or the Leipzig Games Convention, and most of the ‘previews’ of new games are things that have already been released in other parts of the world, just not Australia. This is the biggest event of it’s kind in Australia, and yet ultimately I felt uncompelled to attend. Some Gamer has blogged the eGames Expo(and here) and generally reconfirms my feelings. A few parts sounded okay; it’s a shame I missed the interview with the Aussie guys who worked on Bioshock, that sounded like it might have been interesting. Oh, and I wouldn’t have minded some freebies.

Greg Arthurton, Nintendo’s Australia’s Director of Marketing, gave a short keynote speech. It was just the usual Nintendo “marketoid” banter, read directly from his little cue cards. Hey, I couldn’t have done much better … it just wasn’t that exciting. Listen for the guy who groans loadly
when Greg claims Metroid Prime Corruption has “redefined the way we play a first person shooter on a home console” …. true, pointing the Wii Remote is a great new way to play a first person shooter, but it’s not really all that revolutionary but simply more of an extension of the gameplay style introduced many years ago with games like Duck Hunt on the original NES. I probably would have groaned or exhaled loudly too.

(Via Aussie-Nintendo)