GameForce 2015
The last quarter of the year always means that a vast array of long-awaited titles are upon us, meaning we’ve been quite busy. However, the last quarter of the year also meant visiting the last of the conventions this year had to offer. GameForce 2015 is one of those conventions. Like last year, the website revealed quite some activities planned for this miniature version of E3 and naturally we’ve visited the second edition of the gaming convention.
GameForce is a gaming convention in the likes of E3 and Gamescom, where you can play games and buy games-related accessories, and like last year the organisation had foreseen two halls. Aside from offering games-related accessories such as Funko pops and Minecraft creepers, visitors were also able to buy hardware for their computers. The retro gamers weren’t left in the dark as there were quite some retro games to enjoy on a good variation of consoles. Speaking of consoles, you could win a few special edition PlayStation 4’s at the PlayStation stand by “pressing the button” while watching people play Guitar Hero Live. There was a good variation of games to play, ranging from AAA-titles such as Call of Duty Black Ops III and WRC5 to indie games such as Mayan Death Robots, QuizWitz and even Guns, Gore & Cannoli. Several games were already available on the market, others had playable demo’s but a few games had not yet been released. This was the case last year as well and it remains a downer that you have to pay an entree fee to play games that you may already have. Aside from the hardware shops, there were three shops with game-related goodies and a few food stands outside for the humanoids among us. Those who found themselves at those food stands were presented with upbeats tunes played by a DJ.
Just like last year, they used the “Waagnatie” as a location which in general isn’t a bad location but it’s also not their best option as the two halls did have some echoes due to the infrastructure of the building itself. The noise seemed to be less than last year which was certainly positive and while there were many visitors, the halls themselves didn’t seem packed but then again, there were only twenty-seven stands.
The trend of doing exactly the same as last year continues as the organisation offered visitors a free app for mobiles, which was also the only way to see a map of the convention. Those who didn’t get the app had no idea which developer or shop was located where. The app also offered a small game to keep the visitors busy but without a code you couldn’t play it, which made waiting in the huge waiting lines even more boring.
At the previous edition the waiting lines at the food trucks were a complete disaster. Luckily this year, there were more food trucks offering a good variation of food ranging from pizza and pasta to fries to waffles to sandwiches. The variety of this made sure that the queue’s weren’t as horrible but there were no tables or seats available and the visitors were forced to sit on sandy stones.
Some would say that the second edition was another success but if you had attended the previous edition, you’d notice that not much had changed and many of the remarks from last year’s edition can be said again for this edition. Add the fact that the YouTubers, retro zone, Hearthstone and League of Legends took up almost the entire second hall, there really wasn’t that much to do. Hopefully the next event will showcase more not-yet released games and a better variation of shops.
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