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Held at the Melbourne Exhibition Centre, eGames is Australia’s biggest dedicated computer and video game expo. Nintendo, Sony, Microsoft and Ubisoft were all present, however yet to be released game content was a bit slim. Nonetheless, gather ‘round children and I shall regale ye with stories of my time at yon expo. Or, you know, just tell you a bit about it…

So the expo was divided into different areas, with new and unreleased games available for playing, as well as PC hardware stands, university stands giving information on games development-related courses, as well as areas for games tourneys. The afternoon started off enjoyably enough, and we were just getting set to take part in a Gears of War 2 multiplayer bash when the fire alarm went off and we had to evacuate the building. Not the best start, even despite some of the exhibitor’s attempts to err… ‘excite’ the crowd by singing a rendition of Livin’ on a Prayer.

Back inside, I made my way to the Nintendo area to scope out any new Wii/DS games that were on show. The new Animal Crossing for the Wii was on display. Now, I’ve never played an AC game before and my time with the Wii version didn’t exactly convert me. Basically, it seems like the same old AC, but casting with the fishing rod (or swinging the bug catching net) is now tied to a Wiimote gesture, which is quite intuitive. The game seems to still retain its charm, but it also seems to retain its graphics – looking more like an N64 game than a Wii game.

Wii Music was being played on a lot of machines, however I didn’t get a chance to play it and all the noise around the expo would have made it very difficult anyway. I did notice little kids seem to enjoy it, but it appears too simplistic for older gamers.

Disaster: Day of Crisis was on show, and appears to be a series of minigames that form part of a greater whole (I.e. surviving the ‘disaster’ in question). While a good idea in theory, a lot of these minigames were either too simplistic (point and shoot with a fire extinguisher to put out a series of fires) or too frustrating (driving a vehicle towards the screen, away from an oncoming tsunami, and you are unable to see what is in front of you). Hopefully other minigames are better executed, as the game definitely has potential.

The two games I had the most fun with, however, were two that involved the Wii Balance Board. Shaun White Snowboarding: Road Trip uses the Balance Board like a snowboard, and this works really well. It takes some getting used to, and it isn’t as precise as a standard controller, but it just feels so much more realistic and natural. Only the tutorial course was available to play, but if the courses are designed around this new control method and accommodate it appropriately, this game could be a real winner. Stay tuned for a review on TNB soon. Skate It on the Wii uses the Balance Board to represent a hotdog…wait, no, a skateboard is what I meant. You press A on the Wiimote to gather speed, then lean and move your feet to steer and do tricks. It was a bit difficult to get to grips with, but with some fine tuning and practice, the Balance Board could work really well.

There weren’t many DS games at the expo, and those that were there were pretty old (Brain Training and Nintendogs, for example). There was, however, a section of classic Nintendo systems, with a working NES set up and a nice collection of Game and Watches, which pumped up the nostalgia.

In non-Nintendo related areas, Resident Evil 5 is looking gorgeous and the new Prince of Persia game looks like a lot of fun. I also got to meet Ben ‘Yahtzee’ Croshaw, who I tried to start a conversation with. Unfortunately, he was a bit stand-offish and kinda just walked away – I didn’t think I smelt that bad. Or maybe it was my hair…

Competitions and tourneys were running throughout the day (Guitar Hero and FIFA were the main ones), and there was even a chance to kick a real life goal on the small soccer field set up in the FIFA area! It was hard not to notice that a large amount of demonstrators / paper hander-outerers (or whatever they are) were attractive females in short skirts, which was an added bonus.

Overall the expo was quite well done, and there were a surprisingly large number of people in attendance. This is exactly the type of thing we need to see more of in Australia, so hopefully the expo continues to grow for years to come.