This was The Gathering 2008They told us this place was haunted, but the only ghosts we met were folks having too much of a good time at the Lips bash the night before. The ‘traditional and regal’ mansion house at Wokefield Park Hotel, Reading, England was visited by Xbox fans from 7-9 November. This was The Gathering: one solid day of exclusive Xbox 360 gaming and entertainment sandwiched between two spectacular evenings. Only Xbox VIPs get to attend The Gathering, invited along to experience upcoming blockbusters on behalf of the wider Xbox online community. This year’s gang wasted no time getting hands-on time with the games, you’d better believe it. Street Fighter IV was surrounded before the event officially got underway while the dawn ravens pecked at the lawns outside. Prince of Persia too had already enraptured the all-girl Ready Up team, who’d later confide that this was their game of the event. Actually there was a spooky kind of power cut that brought everything to a halt around midday… but this had less to do with Left 4 Dead terrorising attendees and more to do with an overworked coffee dispenser. Refreshments of the reviving kind were in high demand, fuelling repeat performances on You’re in the Movies – one of the surprise stars of the show. Also causing giggles on Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts, and not just from the girls. In line with the broadening themes of Xbox that now boast Scene-IT? Box Office Smash alongside the more hardcore escapades of, say, Bionic Commando, The Gathering welcomed a more diverse crowd. The girls from Ready Up readily proclaimed they could kick the boys’ behinds at most games, and we could sense a broken nose coming on if we proposed otherwise. One of our more casual friends, Jonathan Waples (who you may have seen in the Rock Band TV commercial after he won a competition to take part) told us, “The Gathering has fuelled my passion for Xbox even more.” The community aspect of Xbox has him fired up: “Xbox LIVE has only got better since Xbox 360 came out.” The Gathering was also valuable for the exhibitors such as Elissa Miller from Rare, Lead Animator on Banjo-Kazooie. Elissa enthused: “Even though it’s a Saturday, it’s nice to come down and see what everybody thinks of the game, to show it off. That’s why I really like doing these sorts of events to get people’s feedback.” Elsewhere an unlikely chill-out zone emerged as the Halo Wars room where tacticians quietly directed the Spartans versus Covenant and had to be snapped out of their total sense of immersion when sessions ended. We caught up with Official Xbox Magazine editor, Ben Talbot, for a summary of the day’s events. For Ben, The Gathering continues to be such a success because, “It seems to me that [Xbox] really is taking onboard a lot of the feedback received. Not enough companies listen to their fan sites and take them seriously enough, but Xbox has been doing that and has been doing so for the past few years. The scale of this one shows just how seriously they are taking everyone here.” And as for the split of girls versus guys: “It definitely feels much healthier!”
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