Hello my dear GS friends!

I'm sorry that I did not spend a lot time here during the past weeks. I missed most of your blogs and also today I feel too tired to stay for a long time. I'm sure that condition will improve once I got used to my new life.

Like I told you I finished my studies on Media IT and am now a Master of Science. Three days after my final exam I started to work in my new job. I'm a software developer (C and Java) now. My company earns money with software for big German gas companies. Not the most exciting branch of trade but it is well paid and the C code is funny

I had to travel to Berlin a lot to get some lessons on the code. Those who travel have stories to tell and I have this one for you:
I went by train in the first cIass and played some N+ on my DS. That's when the stewardess stepped in and asked me "Bist du erste Klasse?" which means "Are you first cIass" in the informal colloquial form you may use for friends and children. I was wondering about the form she used to address me. I'm 23. She probably thought I was younger, maybe 17? It was still not very polite.
I said that I am first cIass and she left.
A couple of minutes later she came back to sell food and drinks. And then she asked me "Did your parents give you money, so you can buy yourself something to eat or drink?" What??! That's a question you can ask a twelve year old!! But not somebody over fourteen. And surely no one at the age of 23! I don't look that young! I did not have to show my passport for years! My only explanation for this is the DS. It is probably still seen as a pure children's toy by many adults.

In gaming news I played through R&C: Quest for Booty - it's good but since it is the same as all the other R&C games before I still felt kinda bored.
I bought the Orange Box to play Portal. I have to say I expected more from the hype but I'm only half way through. Maybe it will get more exciting.
And we (EiRoGGe and me) do now own Guitar Hero. We waited a long time for a cheap offer but it was worth it.

Thank you for reading! I'll visit your blogs soon!
Mog

In the time shortly after the GC newspapers and magazines are filled with related content. I have three selected quotes for you (all translated).

"It is terrifying how many freaks are walking around here. Most of them are nice and only want a picture. But sometimes they are making strange body noises."
~ Booth Babe Linda at the GC in an Interview for GC Today
Aren't you paid for being nice to your guests? I mean the only readers of this are the GC guests.

"The distribution costs of a game are not determinant for its price. The development costs are."
~Uwe Bassendowski, Sony Computer Entertainment Germany
And now explain again why the European prices are so much higher compared to the US prices?

"We are not leaving because the GC in Leipzig is doing bad but because it is too successful for Leipzig."
~Lorber, Speaker for EA on the movement of the fair to Cologne
Well, thanks.

Today was the last day of the Leipzig Games Convention and again I had a lot of fun. We played the new Viva Pinata, Banjo-Kazooie, Spore, Mirror's Edge and some more Little Big Planet and Streetfighter (I'm still proud on my crazy finishing move that filled the whole screen with purple energy). We got Guild Wars t-shirts and witnessed an NCsoft costume contest with a lot of high quality GW and Tabula Rasa costumes. We also paid more attention to the hall with educational expositions and retro games. I played an extremely old game made by MB which worked on a white-on-black vector screen. The game was basically Geometry Wars and was already fun back then.

If you have read my older blog post or the news you know that this was supposed to be the last Games Convention in Leipzig. It will be moved to Cologne. Sony made me almost cry when they placed a huge crying sack boy (real water from a spring) on the Augustus square on a box with the text "Der Abschied fällt schwer" (meaning "It's hard to say goodbye"). Thank you Sony, that's kind! ;_;
Not so kind: Someone made posters with the text "Game Over - GamesCOM 2009 in Cologne" and placed them over our GC posters.

However since the GC was so successful this year (10% growth) it seems like there will be another GC here in 2009! According to market research only 10% of the exhibitors want that the fair leaves Leipzig. Unfortunately they are the big ones (EA). I can imagine that the fair in Cologne will be more expensive (for exhibitors and visitors - current tickets are 12 euro for a day) and that smaller publishers don't want to pay more.

Currently the GC is a cooperation between the Leipzig trade fair and an association of 12 publishers (out of hundred who attended this year's GC). The association decided this year to move the trade fair to Cologne. Everyone else isn't that happy and now it looks like there are going to be two events next years. The games convention in Leipzig and the GamesCOM in Cologne. Will that be a good thing? And how will the fight end? I don't know but my position is clear. Of course it is good for the people around Cologne to have the event there and I can understand that they are happy about it but we invented and established the convention and don't want it to be taken away for no real reason.

You know after almost 20 years German unity East and West Germany are still split. We get a lot lower wages here and many West Germans still have prejudices that the East Germans are lazy and don't do anything right. But once we establish something here it is taken away. No need to say that the GC with over 200 000 visitors has an impact on our economy. So I hope the best. Viva Games Convention!

And now I have finally time to read your posts.

als ob die daGood evening friends! This was the first out of 4 GC days that are open for normal visitors. It was a very good day to be there. I know that you can hardly walk there on Saturdays but today we only had to wait a couple of minutes to play the games we wanted to check out.

• Little Big Planet! Yay! I was worried that the game was overhyped but it was awesome. The perfect coop game. A lot of fun even with a stranger.
• Motorstorm Pacific Rift. Spitscreeeeen! But still as random as the first game. In the first race I was 1st out of 8 and the next race 8th out of 8. The game just doesn't recognize talent! Anyway splitscreeeen!
• Pure. I watched EiRoGGe play it and it looked good. Even better than Motorstorm. Smooth controls and beautiful plants. But I don't know if it has a splitscreen option.
• Tomb Raider Underworld. Well, it looked good but played difficult. I couldn't solve the puzzles but maybe you grow into it better when you play from the beginning. Also you have to be very accurate where you are tilting the stick while climbing and jumping. I foresee frustration if they don't improve this.
• Rayman Raving Rabbids TV Party. Very funny. We played a dancing mini game which is probably better than Boogie on it's own. Gotta have it!
• Skate it! on the Balance Board. Needs a lot of practice! I was pretty much unable to control the direction but I think I know what I did wrong. Also every time I tried to jump by going down a little and than up again the board wanted to reconfigure my weight. It does that when you leave the board step on it again but I did not leave it. I just might have lifted my heels a little.
• Sonic Unleashed. Another game with very beautiful graphics. Very smooth and colorful. I ran through the first level which was very easy. The controls seem to be good and some parts of the level are just like in the 2D games. My only worry about them is that the camera is pretty close and you don't see alot of the things to come.
• Sonic Chronicles: The Dark Brotherhood. Also played good. I will buy it though I still think that there cannot be a good RPG story with the Sonic characters.
• Street Fighter IV. I suck at this one. I did not think that it feels so much different than a 3D fighter. I guess SCIV will be my favorite fighter for a while but if EiRoGGe buys SF we will have some fun with it, too.
• Fallout. Ok, we didn't play it ourselves and only watched a guy playing it but we got a nice T-Shirt and a bottle of "purified" Fallout water. They picked a T-Shirt in size S for me which is of course still way to big but EiRoGGe can wear it instead of his M sized one.

We watched some more games including The Force Unleashed, Starcraft and Home but we were not interested enough to wait and play them. Music and rhythm games were dominating this GC. Everywhere were stages for wannabe bands. Rock Band, the Guitar Hero Rock Band version, the Konami Rock Band version, the Wiimote Rock Band version, SingStar, Dancing Stage and so on and so on.

Yesterday night we went to the Video Games Live show I told you about earlier. The musicians were superb. Everything sounded perfect and the choice of melodies was nice. We heard music from old cIassics, Metal Gear Solid, Final Fantasy, Mario, Sonic, Kingdom Hearts, Crysis, Halo, Castlevania and more.

But I have to say that I'd rather have had a pure concert (like the years before) without the video wall and the spot lights that were blinding the audience every few minutes. Also the audience was encouraged to cheer whenever they liked something and thus they cheered every time they had remotely heard of a game name. The music kinda did not get the attention it deserved and the show around it was not worth the distraction. Because of the video wall they did not even play in our real concert hall where the sound would have been better. But enough complained. It was still a good evening and I'm thankful for EiRoGGes invitation!

That's it from the game city Leipzig, folks!

Today I had sth. to do near our trade fair where the Games Convention will start tomorrow. In the tram I overheard a conversation of three booth babes that just finished their training. Here is the translation:

BB1: You really had to play during the job interview? Blatant!
BB2: Yes I had!
BB3: I had to rent a console over the weekend and practice and then they told me they had other plans for me. And now I already played the whole weekend!!!
BB2: They send me a DS for training a month ago.
BB1: !!
BB2: But I think that's ok. That way I might eventually learn it.
BB1: But I don't want to learn it!

Oh boy...