Day 3 at the Expo have been all about drinking cider and watching some really interesting conferences. The cider came as part of a liquid lunch with some other journos, while the conferences were from Introversion about Prison Architect and Relic on Company of Heroes 2. This roundup might not be as long as the other ones, but hit the jump to catch the latest.

My first port of call was to Sim City which was a great little experience, this is a game which will have a lot of charm while containing a hardcore centre full of different overlays. It looks like the city building game we have all been waiting for since Cities XL underperformed so woefully. I’ll have more on this one in due course.

Next up was Warface, the upcoming free-to-play FPS from Crytek. I wasn’t expecting much from it, but once I got onto it I was pleasantly surprised. It wasn’t simply a Call of Duty clone! Admittedly, in the surroundings of the Expo the game couldn’t live up to the potential it has as teamwork was non-existent. I was a medic but everyone chose to respawn before I was able to revive them and in the tight confines of the map I was playing on I didn’t get time to use my medkit. Weapons felt good and I liked being able to customise my weapon accessories on the fly. Things will become much clearer when the Beta is released, but having got a taste of the action, I will actually make the effort to check it out.

The Prison Architect event was very good, I will be checking the game out in-depth at home with the alpha which is available when your pre-order the game. It looks like a great new PC indie title, and some of the updates to the Alpha that are in the works sound like they will really change things up a gear. They include:
– prisoners digging escape tunnels, either on their own or in groups when their tunnels meet.
– only guards being able to open locked doors and a fog of war appearing when staff aren’t in an area for about ten minutes.
– prisoners rioting when their hierarchy of needs isn’t met for so long that they just have enough.
– calling in riot police, paramedics and fire crews to deal with riots. These will have a fixed cost for each in-game hour you use them.

Finally there was the Company of Heroes 2 presentation which showed off the skirmish level called the Battle of Moscow. It featured some things which weren’t in the hands-on demo such as units walking over ice, troops dying from the cold and some extremely impressive looking Katusha rocket launchers.

I can’t believe it is the last day tomorrow already, time has flown by too fast already. Look out for more from me then.