Since the press event was in London, I first had to get there of course. Luckily Activision knows how to plan an event, they sent me a Business Class flight ticket towards Heathrow Airport. In the early morning around seven AM, I arrived at Brussels Airport or simply called “Zaventem”. Of course in Belgium there is always some department of the airport on strike and today it was the department that was in charge of the landing strips. So in other words all the airplanes got delayed!

With an hour delay, my flight of British Midlands arrived at Brussels Airport and after a short maintenance i was allowed on board. The plane that I boarded was an Airbus A319, a medium sized one. This type is no surprise, since London isn’t exactly on the other side of the world. While the flight normally lasts an hour and fifteen minutes, you’re actually around 30 minutes really flying. The rest of the time you're either waiting on the tarmac or circling around the airport.

As I said before I had a Business Class ticket and this has some benefits. I was offered a full meal that consisted of several sandwiches, coffee and tea. After that a lovely hostess came around with some little snacks. When you think about all the people in economy class which were all packed together and have to pay for everything, you do find yourself special for a moment!

Arrived at Heathrow it was waiting in line in front of the customs and while everyone in front me passed easily, I had to wait a bit longer. It seems a technologically advanced passport also has some downsides… After seeing mine scanned several times and being asked a couple of questions I was finally allowed to pass. My contact from Activision Benelux was waiting with a journalist from the Netherlands at a small café next to the terminal. Both of them arrived a bit earlier from Schiphol an airport in the Netherlands. But unlike me, they had flown in economy. I guess Activision knows which country is the most important *kuch*.

After a short acquaintance we left the airport and were greeted by some London police officers. These people guided us towards a London cab, after we told them where we were heading. After a short conversation between the officers and the driver we were on our way towards the main office of Activision, just out of the centre of London. During the ride we not only talked about our flight, but also some of the latest Activision titles.

After a ride of about fifteen minutes, we arrived at Stockley Park. There we were greeted by a lovely lady behind the desk who showed us the way to the room where the console version was being shown. Luckily for us we arrived just in time for the presentation even despite our planes being delayed.

After a small introduction by the local representative of Activision, the word was giving to Steve Nix and Greg Stone. Both gentlemen came all the way from the States to present their game. Steve is an employee of ID Software, while Greg is a designer of Nerve Software, the company that is responsible to port the game to console. The presentation began with the same PC intro, afterwards a very enthousiastic Greg showed us the new training mode which has been specifically developed for console. After a short presentation it was time for lunch and also on this Activision knew how to treat us. King-sized shrimps, fried potatoes, chicken, ... there was something for all of us and everyone gladly accepted the free food.

After we had filled our bellies, the presentation continued with three multiplayer maps. These were Sewer, Ark and Outskirts. In total we were with about 25 journalists, but sadly there were only twelve Xbox 360 consoles with big HD screens. So after a couple of rounds we had to switch places so that everyone could play. This of course didn’t minimize our fun, as this way we could learn from the mistakes our “colleagues” made (or just laugh at them)!

For each group of journalists there was also a small interview session with Steve Nix and Greg Stone. Since the sessions were organized for each country and I was the only one from Belgium, my session was shared with the only journalist from the Netherlands. We both had our list of questions and we both took turn in asking about certain elements of the game. With some of our questions we amazed the developers, for example about the harddrive of the X360 or dedicated servers.

After a short but strong interview, i was back at the room with the consoles again. Just watching would have been stupid so i decided to play some more Quake Wars and although i say it myself, i was starting to kick some ass on the ‘Ark’ map with the GDF. But it seems not everyone liked it, especially the reporter from the Netherlands, since he was my primary victim. I always caught him off guard while he was reloading or aiming at a teammate of mine. Sadly it couldn’t last forever since I had a plane to catch. Around 16:00 a taxi came to pick me up and it was time to leave the Activision building.

The people that left with me were Martijn, the contact person of the Benelux, and the journalist from the Netherlands together with someone from Finland. Of course we all started to talk about games and after a while I was not only talking about Quake Wars with the Finnish journalist, but also World of Warcraft. I guess it’s a game you can’t really avoid since it has so many players.

At the airport we soon experienced the heavy security measures that were in effect after the attacks in London. Luckily we didn’t get in any problems and without much delay we arrived at the tax free shopping area. The person who enjoyed it the most was the one from Finland, because when we arrived his backpack was empty, but the second time we met at a small bar it was full of strong liquor.

Around 17:30 our group split up, since all our flights arrived around the same time. Unlike Brussels Airport everything went smoothly and before I knew it I was up in the sky. After a short flight I arrived around 20:45 at the airport and was greeted by a grumpy customs agent and the typical Belgian weather (rain!), I knew I was home.