Nottingham's GameCity - Full Details Inside

Let’s not forget that there are two videogame festivals in the UK this month, with Nottingham’s annual GameCity event continuing to go from strength to strength, providing plenty of game-related events, talks and happenings from Wednesday 24th through to Sunday 28th October.

See, it’s not all about 'that London' after all, with plenty of opportunity for northerners and midlanders to get to meet up and chat with some of the world’s leading and most influential game developers, including Tetris creator Alexey Pajitnov, who lands on Sunday 28th for an exclusive screening of the acclaimed BBC documentary, Tetris : From Russia with Love - and an in-depth journey to the heart of Tetris with developer Paul Carruthers.

Katamari Damacy and futuristic school-playground designer Keita Takahashi (pictured here) is to headline GameCity 2007, delivering the GameCity Vision Statement on Saturday 27th October at a unique BAFTA-sponsored event that, SPOnG is promised, “gives a platform to the most distinctive and individual voices in the industry to offer an insight into their very personal feelings about games.”

On top of those key weekend events and talks from leading game designers such as David Braben, Jonathan Smith and the guys from Free Radical Design, there is the opportunity for young games designers and artists to get their portfolios in front of some of the leading development talent in the industry – with the fifteen-minute slots in the GameCity Art Clinics already being booked up quickly.

For the beard-strokers among us there are a number of interesting panel discussion events planned by the BBFC - who we of course plan to grill in-depth about Manhunt 2 - and that bastion of British liberalism, the New Statesmen.

From the website: "The New Statesman, the UK current affairs magazine of the year, has a long tradition of seeing the creative, commercial and social potential of new technologies. Following on from last year's substantial supplement dedicated to examining the impact videogames are having on the world today, the magazine returns to GameCity to host a series of panel debates. Expect informed and insightful discussions on the key issues which face gaming today: will the rise of in-game advertising cripple gaming's fledgling artistic ambitions? Does the increased realism in game graphics mean they should be subject to tighter BBFC restrictions? Can the UK industry maintain its voice in the international game business or are those days gone for good?"

"Come along and have your say," we are told. We certainly will. SPOnG is already growing out our Dave Doak style goatee in preparation for these debates.

For more and for the full lowdown on GameCity head over to the website.