Edinburgh Festival Plans European Preview Exclusives

Organizers of the 2007 Edinburgh Interactive Festival (EIF) have revealed further details of the event, including a new series of game previews hosted by game developers and featuring a number of titles never previously demonstrated in Europe. In a series of “games screenings” the event will see the world premiere of British publisher Codemasters’ Rise of the Argonauts and Turning Point. It will also see the European premiere of Activision’s Guitar Hero III, as well as Midway’s Unreal Tournament III, Ubisoft’s Assassin’s Creed and Take 2’s Bioshock. Tickets to the screenings, due to take place on August 14th, will be available for purchase from Gamestation stores in Edinburgh, Glasgow and Dundee from August 6th. Students will also be able to attend specially tailored screenings, including an industry expert panel headed by Channel 4 IDEASfactory's Rebecca Thompson entitled ”How To Get Into The Games Industry”. Other special screenings include a demonstration of Unreal Tournament III by Epic Games’ Mark Rein, Clive Barker’s Jericho by Andrew Wafer, Colin McRae: DiRT by Guy Pearce, Age of Conan: Hyborian Adventures by FunCom, Haze by Dr Dave Doak and an exclusive episode of cult Scottish video game show Consolevania. “The Edinburgh Interactive Festival gives gamers their only chance to see the latest games for PC and console weeks or months before they hit the market,” said Brian Baglow, EIF 2007 screenings director. “They also get to chance to meet some of the people behind the biggest games in the world and find out more about the strange industry that creates hits like Grand Theft Auto, The Sims and Halo.” “We've even got a session for non-gamers. If you've never, ever picked up a joystick, wouldn't buy a PlayStation 3 at gunpoint and are confused by kids spending eight hours a day wrestling with a joypad, come to the casual games screening. We'll open your eyes to a whole new world of wonder and fun - and give you something far more interesting to do with your home computer, mobile phone and TV controller,” he added. The entire EIF program is due to take place between Monday August 13th and 14th, alongside design competition Dare to be Digital and inaugural academics’ conference the Digital Interactive Symposium on Wednesday 15th August. Further details are available at the official EIF website.