The Flood Gates are Open Games Pouring Forth

So as I stated I was at GC Leipzig last week and it was a massive success. The show attracted around 203,000 visitors. They had been thinking of moving the show but that has been destroyed by the 90% or respondents surveyed who said the show should NOT be moved. I was one of those because in the industry we call the show simply Leipzig. We say things like "See you at Leipzig" instead of see you at GC.

I personally had 46 pre-arranged appointments when I arrived at the developer's conference on Monday and along the way picked up some impromptu talks with industry luminaries like David Perry, Mark Rein from Epic and many others. I looked at no more than 40 games, played 30 of those and was generally in awe of how the games industry seems to be 'getting it' now. Round after round of games seem to me to have been lacking in the innovation or completion areas for some time lately. But from what I personally witnessed at Leipzig I can honestly say it's changing.

Champions Online looks to be ready to sweep up a horde of loyal followers with not only its integration with the pen and paper world that is already popular but also with its awesome moving comic book look and cool gameplay.

Borderlands which has more than 100,000 guns in the game had the most excited developers during the demo who were saying things like "damn pick up that gun and see what it does," or "what the hell is that?! Let's see what that does." Since the guns are procedurally generated none of the devs have even seen the full range of them. I thought it was be the awesome almost unattainable achievement on Xbox 360 - Get all the guns. Gotta get 'em all!

Shaun White on the Wii from Ubisoft Montreal was also awesome. The Wiiboard interface for the game is totally cool. The game is fast and quick, the controls are really good and the game experience is fantastic. It's also one of the best looking games on the Wii and I think the industry is finally figuring out how to balance graphics and gameplay on the Wii to get the best out of both.

I could go on for hours but I've got other work to get done. Other industries set for explosive growth in my eyes are mobile gaming where really cool things are being done with games by Fish Labs and with controllers by Zeemote. Splitfish has a massively cool PS3 controller that they can't even make fast enough to fill orders, Russian developers seem to be the burgeoning area of the industry and Playten is really focusing on some interesting gameplay facets never seen before. Seed Studios over in Taipei has a really cool idea on taking the overbearing management out of RTS gameplay with the Epoch Wars title they are working on.

Stay tuned as I sort through piles of information from the show and get you all the coolest things I saw there. The flood gates are open, the games are pouring forth and it has never been a better time to be a gamer, casual, core or anywhere in between or outside of that spectrum. They are making games from everyone and everyone should be pleased.