Graham Wright, one of our Ruffidesigners recently accompanied the relentless Microsoft PR team for a whistle top tour around Europe helping to show off Crackdown 2 to an excited press. Here’s the email he shared with the team once he got his feet back in old Blighty.

Hello Everyone

Just thought I would send a quick mail to let everyone know how last week’s shenanigans went. To sum it up it was a huge success. There were a few technical issues with getting people on Live here and there but that was setup rather than anything issue to do with the game. Day 1 was Madrid and it was held in the Torrespacio Paseo De La Castellana which is the tallest building in Spain and also from a distance could be mistaken for the Citadel from Half Life.

There was a bit of a nightmare when we arrived as some of the XBOX’s had the Natal firmware on them where as some had our current version. Not only that but some of the kits were cert kits so they didn’t connect to Partner Net either. Luckily Rog was there to sort this out and he had everything sorted by the time it came to the first journalist getting their hands on the game.

The Press were a mixture of enthusiast and general consumer press with both groups separated into two briefings. The event started with a presentation of the game with Jim doing the talking and me on thumbs. We showed off the bits of the game they probably wouldn’t get to see with their hands on such as the Helicopter and the Wingsuit. The presentation lasted about 20 minutes and then the press got to go hands on with the game from the start as well as do some interviews. The questions were none too taxing with common themes of Natal and Ruffian taking the reins of the franchise coming up from most people. One of the journalists asked if me and Jim would do an ident for his website and I felt a bit like Alan Partridge at the end of Crash Bang What a video.

Once people had got to grips with the game we banded them together to let them play some co-op which everyone really enjoyed. After that the second group of journalists came in and we ran though the same routine again with them.

From what we heard from the journalists themselves and from Microsoft PR everyone was extremely impressed with what they had played and couldn’t wait to get their hands on the final review copies. One guy came over and said “absolutely fantastic, There is so much going on onscreen I love it, I am going to be writing very good things”.

Day 2 was Paris and this event was held in Microsoft’s Paris base. This was different to Madrid as we only had to present the game to one group of journalists and rather than an HD TV in the same room we had a face melting 200″ projector to show CD2 off on. Luckily I had a monitor to play the game on which was connected to the projector so it wasn’t like the Modern Warfare 2 demo at E3 last year

Apparently lightning can strike twice as we had the same firmware issues as we had in Madrid but again Rog got to work and recovered every machine just in the nick of time.

After the 30 minute presentation was questions and then the press got to get their hands on the game. There were only 8 XBOX consoles set up so some of the press had to wait however most people seemed fine just being fixated and staring at other people playing. We were then on hand to answer any questions the press had as they were playing but people were too immersed in the game to look up. It literally was a case of headphones on and leave me alone I want to play please

Sadly due to networking issues in the Microsoft building Live would not work so we couldn’t try out Rocket Tag or Co-op however people said they could guess pretty well at what it would be like and left with a smile on their faces. Again all the feedback from the French Microsoft PR team was that everyone thought the game was amazing fun to play and it was looking good for us getting very positive previews.

The final and longest day was London. The day started at about 8 in a building just off Tottenham Court Road that Microsoft used to show off Natal a few months earlier. This was the biggest set up with 16 consoles for the press set up, however in the morning there was an issue with the BT line so we couldn’t show off co-op how we wanted or Rocket Tag. The morning group were the hardcore gaming press where a lot of the journalists were huge fans of Crackdown so they were extremely excited to get their hands on the game.

We stuck with the same format of Jim talking and me playing this time showing the game to everyone on a 52″ Samsung Plasma in this huge living room with lots of fancy furniture. We showed off the usual, the Docks mission then went onto what you can do with a level 5 Agent. The second group especially like when we showed them the carnage you can do to the Freak crowd in Unity Heights with the Super Car.

During the afternoon event it was general consumer press such as the Guardian, Bravo TV but there were also reporters from Gamespot UK so it was a mixture. Luckily in the afternoon the buildings broadband connection started behaving and people got to go hands on with co-op and Rocket Tag. After the first Rocket Tag game one of the journalists who had no prior knowledge of Crackdown said to me “that was absolutely brilliant, so much fun”.

After about an hour of Rocket Tag the remaining press departed again all singing the praises of the game. All in all everyone had extremely positive things to say including everyone from the MS PR team who were all extremely excited themselves about the game and this came across when they were talking to the press as well. Based on this it is looking good for the European previews and no doubt the US tour will be just as successful in drumming up excitement from the press

Thanks

Graham