The Virtual Reality GamesYou can fit the population of a city inside Gamescom, spread across its five days, and multiple halls heaving with screaming HD screens and scale models of Star Wars vehicles. Last year, 335,000 people descended on Cologne's Koelnmesse, players and professionals alike, to gawp at upcoming video games and, just occasionally, actually play them.
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Also out this September, albeit very late in the month, is Lego Dimensions, the plastic brick company's version of the successful Skylanders formula, where physical toys meet interactive entertainment. The game plays much like previous Lego titles—you smash stuff up, rebuild the pieces into something useful, collect a bunch of studs and enjoy the occasional joke that's likely to fly over the heads of really young players. These games have long been parent-and-child affairs, brilliant for cross-generational co-op, and Dimensions is no different in that respect.The addition of the "Gateway," which beams Lego mini figures and vehicles into the game, is much more than just a gimmicky way of extracting additional cash out of moms and dads—you need to use it to solve puzzles, such as "hot-and-cold" searching for useful objects (the unit glows green when you're going the right way, red when you're not), and to get past color-coded, almost Simon Says-like conundrums. I play as Batman, Gandalf, Doctor Who, Chell from Portal 2, Scooby Doo, and more, encounter Homer Simpson spread across a wrecking ball, and fight the Wicked Witch of the West and her winged monkeys, and every character has their own unique skills necessary to unlock new areas or complete special tasks. It's not a cheap acquisition—the game's starter pack will retail for about £100 [$155]—but having played Dimensions now, I'm definitely considering making it a joint present for son number one and me. Don't tell him (or the wife, for that matter).Trending on Noisey: Watch the new Joanna Newsom video for "Sapokanikan"