The Shed is in attendance at the London Game Career Fair.

October 23rd-24th saw the Whitechapel area of London pay host to the annual London Game Career Fair, so we went along to have a look. Trudging off the busy tube to briskly walk along the streets, we were on our way, our senses assaulted by a heady mix of smells and the constant cacophonous racket of traffic. Once inside, The Old Truman Brewery on Brick Lane where the event was held proved to be an adequate size for the twenty odd boothes and jostling crowds competing to have their questions answered, ideas picked over and CVs read by the big industry bods.

Our unique angle? Writing of course, and we spoke to every one of the industry's representatives to see if we could find our way into writing for games. As it turns out, it's not that easy and the majority of reps we asked were either stumped or offered up QA and design as possible avenues.

EA, Ubisoft, Sega, Team17, Lucasarts, Kuju, Juice, Realtime Worlds, Rare, NCSoft, Freestyle, Other Ocean, Escape and Blitz were among the many developers with booths showing off their latest IPs. Being the intrepid reporter types that we are, we asked them whether there were any new hot IPs on the horizon. Lamentably, we were met with a firm "sorry, I can't say" from all comers. We even attempted to get some info on the upcoming collaboration between Free Radical and Luasarts' but were met with the same response. Hey, we tried.

Nevertheless, there were still a host of games on show, albeit current titles such as Viva Pinata, Sega Rally and Tiger Woods PGA 08, which was available to play on the four Nintendo Wii pods provided by EA.

In addition to the prescence of developers and publishers, attendees could take part in sessions focused on specific aspects of working in the games industry. They provided added insight beyond the advice and help being given by the booth residents.

However, the occassion could have used a boost from a gaming celebrity. On the walls near the bar area, were pictures of famous studio figure-heads, which looked like our wish list of who we would have liked to meet at this event. Hideo Kojima, Kaz Hirai, Gabe Newell. We could only imagine how amazing the fair could have been with the presence of just one of these guys.

Press presence was minimal, covered by the nice chaps at Imagine Publishing who were selling discounted issues of their fine award winning mag, gamesTM. Happily, they were also happy to dispense helpful advice and The Shed walked away with an invaluable email address.

So all in all, the London Games Career was a productive, if somewhat slow-paced day. Frankly, we would have liked to have seen far more games beyond the paltry offering of a few Wii's, but I guess you can't have it all. Oh, and the coffee was a tad too bitter. Next year then, more games, smoother coffee please.