ECTS London EXCEL
em Review

Fighting Devices and Dancing Loons
In my adolescent, Beavis and Butthead humoured way, I couldn’t help my giggle at the amusingly titled Koch Media and of course Thrustmaster. Anyway, Koch’s *giggle* stand had this rather eye-catching yellow cab on display.


"Anywhere around here's alright mate..."

And Thrustmaster *titter* were demonstrating their new Fighting Arena Controller. I honestly thought, from the pictures I’d seen, that you actually got to punch and kick the sticks. However, the thing works by infrared and you merely punch the air in front of you.

I didn’t get an official word on how the thing worked, but I’m guessing it picks out the distance between the poles to work out whether it’s a left or right punch you’re throwing, same goes for the kicks. The device also came with a floor mat, allowing you to control the characters positioning on screen. It’s a great idea, but it seemed fairly unresponsive, and I can’t see you completing Tekken on the hard level using this thing.


This guy looked so cool kicking and punching thin air.

Either way, you’re going to look a bit of a knob playing any sort of game with the device. But not as much of a knob as those arcade dancing-mat demonstrators, who I’d like to say I am sick of the site of at every bloody trade show!


Steering and Koreans
By this point I was becoming fairly comfortable with just wandering around. Usually I need a direction and a purpose, but it was a Sunday, I was in no rush and there was nothing much else to do. The lack of any decent games was becoming pretty frustrating though and so my eyes were open to attractive or shiny things.

The next of which was this Logitech girl. Needless to say I didn’t have a go in this car, but instead made some notes to keep up the ‘press’ façade. The main attraction of the stand was this large racecar, presumably running Grand Prix 3. I didn’t get to see the wheel, but as far as I’m concerned they’re all crap and all do the same thing - well I find them impossible to use anyway. Momo made the wheel, but does the car come with it?


Pull-up to the bumper baby! Rraaoowwr!

There were an abundance of Korean developers at the show this year, all very friendly people with stands that never failed to catch my eye with their manga style artwork. One large stand in the center of the floor caught my attention, and seemed to contain several different companies beneath one canopy. One stand in particular looked interesting as it displayed several colour mobile phones with games on them, the type I’ve been seeing pictures of in magazines for the past couple of months.

The games looked pretty interesting, and the phones were neat too, seeming almost second place to the gaming element. I asked if the phones were iMode or 3G, to which the spokeswoman replied “No, they’re LG phones “ (obviously referring to the make) “They’re Java eneabled phones that are only out in Korea”. Great, lot of help there then. She offered me a go of a Poker game on one of them, but seeing as the language was all in Korean I really couldn’t work out what to do.


The Gamecube Revealed
Up until now I had somehow managed to completely miss the Kemco stand. It stood out from quite a distance, and especially caught my eye with the huge ‘Batman’ and ‘Universal Studios’ displays. Arriving at the stand I found they were the only people to have the Gamecube on show. This was perhaps the biggest feature of the entire show as it hadn’t really been seen in the UK before.


Alarm clock, games-machine and waffle toaster all in one!

It’s a neat little box that although garish in colour, actually looked quite stylish. I was one of the many mocking it’s name and design upon first sight at Spaceworld 2000, but after seeing some of the games coming out on the little fella and seeing it up close, I have to admit my interest is starting to grow. The recently displayed Pioneer DVD version is especially smart, but I hear that it wasn’t for production. We can only hope they change their minds.

Kemco also had several GBAs lying around, running copies of Phalanx and Mech Commander, but they weren’t very interesting. Mech Commander, for me, is very very dull, and Phalanx demonstrated that horizontal shoot ‘em ups aren’t really meant for handhelds. With the tiniest of enemies wandering into me and not really being able to make out just what I was shooting at.


Shooting Animals with WW2 Trench Guns
Speaking of shooting, the Gamebox stand deserves a mention here, with the most dangerous arsenal of gaming peripherals seen to date - the Dreamgun. Well, not physically dangerous, but I’m sure replica guns of this size aren’t needed for a simple (if somewhat poor) hunting game. I mean shooting a lion with a trench gun?! And I don’t even want to think how you control the bow and arrow.


Here kitty-kitty.

And lastly, the TDK stand had a rolling demo of their new Shrek! game for the Xbox, which didn’t really excite. Maybe if we’d been able to play the game it would have been different, but all in all this was a prime example of the show; lots of people paying far too much attention to a rolling demo just because it was on the Xbox (which wasn’t visible by the way) and because that was one of the highlights of the show.

My one personal highlight of the show however, was to come from the 4Gamers stand. I approached the guy who was looking extremely bored, and a little bit lonely, probably because they were stuck right at the back and no-one was really paying them any attention. This probably surfaced some childhood trauma that had been locked away and he was just waiting for me to leave so he could cry.

Anyway, he was a friendly chap, and 4Gamers made a small range of peripherals, espeically the Jaguar steering wheel. My attention was on the GBA carry cases though. After inquiring and them not having any prices, he saw my press pass and proceeded to tell me he had something for me. 'Dubious', I thought.

He returned from a small back-room with a Camcorder style bag, telling me to be careful there was a bottle in there. I took my prize and legged it. Later I looked inside to discover a CD-ROM image library of their products, a Jaguar racing cap and a half bottle of Chablis. Nice!