Just got in from the first day of Fan Expo 2008 at the Metro Toronto Convention Centre and there was a lot to see. The expo ranges from Anime to Comics to Video Games and tries to fit all those crowds into one space. Surprisingly, no fist fights, no fan fights and no pungent odours traveling throughout the complex. While this isn’t a major stop for most publishers, there was a pretty strong gaming presence and definitely a few things we got to get our eyes and hands on.

Here’s what we saw on Day One:

Champions Online

We spoke to Lead Designer Randy Mosiondz a bit about the game and what it was all about at the 2K booth in the event. The game is a collection of the lessons that Cryptic has learned from their time with City of Heroes and City of Villains, as well as a better balance between what has been proven to work in the MMO genre. You are given the task of creating a superhero, of your own design and style, who will be persisting in this world saving people and fighting villains. The character customization is almost designed as a meta-game of the product itself, much like CoH before it, but with a lot more detail and customization options. The game is a little less like a point-attack-wait style game and focuses more on the combat in a way that will keep you engaged during battles, using blocks and trying to understand how the enemy thinks and attacks back.

There is a lot to talk about with Champions Online and Randy was kind enough to offer us some more time to sit down and talk about the game, so look for our interview tomorrow giving a little more details about this and other Cryptic Studio products and what it’s like being a Saskatchewan native living in sunny California.

Gears of War 2

Had a small preview of this game which was basically a showing of the single player demo that most people got a chance to few from the E3 2008 coverage. A member of Microsoft Game Studios played through the level that saw a building collapse on Marcus, and convincing Dom to ride a giant monster off into the sunset. Maybe not exactly like that, but from what we saw the game looked pretty solid. Still a few tweaks needed, with a bit of clipping being very noticeable in certain areas, but those kinds of things are likely to be solved within the next few months as the game readies for launch in November. It looks great, the enemies are all very different and the terrain and environments give the game a very great sense of immersion. November 7th can’t come soon enough.

Entropia Universe

This is a game that we had never really had an opportunity to see before, nor had we really heard much about it at all. There was a group of players demoing this game, that seemed like a very open-world combat MMO on first glance, but it seems to go deeper than that. Entropia Universe is a blend of elements that you’ve seen in a lot of MMOs mixed together in a very unique way. The game is really a second economy, sharing a similar concept in that of Second Life where the in-game monetary system Project Entropia Dollars (PED) are marked against the US dollar by a scale of 10:1. Every 10 PED = $1 USD.

The game itself is free, allowing users to just jump, create a quick character and run amok in the landscape where there are creatures roaming that you can attack using a technique called “sweating”, where you gather sweat from a creature which can be traded for PED with other players. You can do basic exploring, but weapons, skills and anything else you can do in the game can either be gathered overtime from collecting items scattered in the world and sweating creatures, or you can purchase them. The game also gives you the freedom of choosing exactly how the game is played, giving players various skill trees that range anywhere from piloting to beautifying, where you can gain skills to modify players avatars for PED.

The advantage for players is that the PED works for you, in that you can withdraw it like it is account. A few players there were making a living off the game and one of the games players, NEVERDIE, has become wealthy off purchasing land and creating his own zones and creatures which people can utilize for fees. The game works side-by-side with the idea of in-game economics. It filters out certain things like pornography, blood and gambling, so the open environment of Second Life isn’t exactly emulated, but it does add actual gameplay elements into there.

The gameplay doesn’t seem to be the biggest draw, at least not from the little that we saw of the game. There is, however, a lot to do including PvP, a vast world to explore, tons of occupations and a community that seems to be very inviting to new players. Worth checking out, but whenever you’re dealing with real time money it’s always something to be very careful of. Lots of things can add up, considering you pay for basically everything you use, even bullets.

MLG Canada

One of the big events at the expo is the Major League Gaming official tournament stop that is occurring during the whole event. We talked to Eric Michalko who was helping coordinate the event. Considering it is the second year for MLG Canada, it has been a big one, now with an official tour stop which includes 900 players, 300 of which are from Canada, it has grown into a pretty large event. MLG is now covered by ESPN streamed to over a million viewers, as per their last event, so they are hoping to draw even more for the Toronto stop.

We’ll have some info on the results of the tournament a bit more insight into professional gaming in Canada in the next couple of days.

Day Two?

Heading back in the morning for more Fan Expo. We’ll do our best to get some articles loaded up for any news this weekend. Anyone in the Toronto area with any interest in Comics, Horror, Anime or Games is encouraged to stop by the event, as well. There is lots of stuff being sold, shown and celebs doling out signatures at just about every end of the auditorium.