It's Saturday and the Leipziger Messe is stuffed like a bratwurst with savory Germans. In Hall 3, where Sony, Rockstar, Eidos and others have set up shop, the walkways are thick with a horrible swarm of game enthusiasts. There are lines for everything , making it nigh impossible to get on a demo station in what spoiled press members (like us!) consider reasonable timeframes. But not every game is getting attention. We hit the floor during the con's busiest day to find out what the Euros are ignoring completely. Which titles are the Germans passing on in favor of sleeping, begging shamelessly for t-shirts or watching a dubbed Police Academy 2? We show you (and explain why) in this very post.
My Stop Smoking Coach With Alan Carr Surprisingly, no Games Convention attendees seemed that interested in trying to break their nictone addictions with the help of Alan Carr on a Saturday afternoon. Given that the game was located adjacent to Petz and Imagine titles, we have to imagine that at least one 8-year old girl naively gave it shot for a few minutes, we just didn't happen to catch it on film.
The Chosen Yes, there is someone playing this Chinese virtual world game, but he's working the booth so it doesn't count. That the "virtual world manufacturer" is named Snail Game and that The Chosen looks like an inventory management sim probably isn't going to change the situation.
Mushroom Men Nintendo DS and PSP titles fare worse than just about any other platform — the Wii version of the Gamecock published game was getting some attention — but we're sorry to inform the guys and gals at Red Fly Studio that Mushroom Men for DS wasn't finding an audience.
Einsatz Erde Die Tierretter and Sophies Freunde Wohntraume The one on the left might be the German release of Pet Adoption Center. We're not sure. The one on the right is something about Sophies Friend and something about a Wohntraume. Whatever the case, we didn't look inside to see why no one was playing these.
Bratz 4 Kidz It was half being ignored, but some poor influential girl was being subjected to Bratz trash out of frame here.
Viva Pinata: Trouble In Paradise There were more than a few Xbox 360 titles that were frequently open — Braid, for example — but Viva Pinata: Trouble In Paradise may have suffered the worst. That may have been due to the kid-unfriendly set up of Microsoft's GC booth, with its focus on music titles and the swarm of teenagers whoring it up for t-shirts and faceplates on the nearby stage.
My Boyfriend Self explanatory.
echochrome The PSP didn't get much love today and not just because Games Convention hooligans were breaking LCD screens and snapping off analog nubs. The draw at Sony's booth was still SingStar, LittleBigPlanet and Buzz! for the PlayStation 3.