We showed our faces at the London MCM Expo in true Gamercast fashion this week, with mountains of games to play, merchandise to purchase and cosplay to oogle, the MCM Expo held at the London ExCel centre is still THE place to go if you are a gaming nut!

As the 18th Expo held at the London ExCel centre the event pulled record numbers with over 46,500 visitors attending over the weekend. But the best thing about London Expo is that there is always something for everyone, however contrary to the last MCM Expo we didn't manage to see as many brilliant gaming cosplayers, alas it was quite difficult to focus on costumes past the crowds of gaming, comic, anime and film fans. At the very least you can have tons of fun checking out some of the latest games, particularly some un-released titles.

The question you're wanting answered now, is who was there? What did I miss out on? Well as usual there was a surge of developers present at the MCM Expo, event favourites like EA, Nintendo and Rising Star was present as always, but everyone seemed to have a suprise up their sleeves this expo.

Rising Star Games were present with their newest game Death Smiles, which is the first ever Cave title that will see release in the UK; for those that do not know the company, Cave are famed for their impressive schmups, and are the most respected companies that make games in the genre. They also had the addictively difficult Ivy the Kiwi on show, and as usual they were selling many of their recent titles for very reasonable prices, including a few obscure ones that you may not find in retailers like GAME, Rising Star is always the first stall we get to when we hit the expo.

Possibly the biggest game on show was to be found at the Capcom stall who had the most anticipated fighting game of the century! Attendees were able to get hands-on with the brilliant Marvel vs. Capcom 3. The queues may have lasted an hour to get anywhere near the machines, but everyone there knew that it was worth every second of pure fighting energy. With Marvel vs. Capcom 3 even the worst fighters amongst you can look like a fighting master with the explosive fast paced action that the game provides. Although the build present only had a small selection of fighters from Marvel and Capcom it didn't deter any gamers away from the crowded arcade machines.

Tecmo Koei had a strong presence as usual at the expo with Warriors: Legends of Troy, as well as the great Fist of the North Star: Ken’s Rage that we enjoyed at the last show. They also had an exclusive demo of Trinity: Souls of Zill O’ll; a true RPG that’s gameplay does not touch the hack-n-slash nature that we are used to with Tecmo Koei. As a standard they had a lot of merchandise for sale, the usual games for cheap, and numerous Dynasty Warriors related items, as well as a couple of limited edition Kotobukiya Kasumi figures.

Namco Bandai had a selection of great games coming to stores soon, including the beautiful Majin and the Forsaken Kingdom, and anime favourites Naruto Shippuden: Ultimate Ninja Storm 2 and Dragon Ball Raging Blast 2 which had crowds of anime fans gathered around them at all times.

Nintendo were there continuing their Unleashed Tour with great un-released titles like Kirby’s Epic Yarn, Goldeneye 007, and Donkey Kong Country Returns, and some of the more impressive games that have seen release at the start of the year like Dragon Quest IX, Professor Layton and the Lost Future, and more, if you like Nintendo the Unleashed Tour is brilliant at showcasing their recent and upcoming releases, and hopefully the tour will be present at the next MCM Expo with some more new additions.

EA were at Expo with the terrifying Dead Space 2, which -as it should- was pulling in the crowds; they may not have had an enclosed space with Isaac popping out at you like they did for the original Dead Space previously at the Expo. But even in a small area full of other gamers its not hard to get sucked into such an immersive, frightful game. Before you know it you’re jumping off your seat as someone taps you on your shoulder to inform you that you’ve been playing it far too long, as expected they had the demo on show that we played whilst at Eurogamer, although we couldn't help but give it another go!

Of the whole show Death Smiles was undoubtedly the best game of London MCM Expo, and its appearance was a complete surprise to all. Its addictive bullet-hell schmup gameplay takes heavy influence from the occult and gothic themes, and the prospect of a release in the UK is a shooter fans dream come true. Your bullets hit like a hot knife through butter, and the addition of shooting both left and right immerses you in a frantic explosion of bullets that will wholly encompass your enemies. We cannot wait for Death Smiles, and hopefully at Expo a lot of gamers walked away impressed and hungry for some Death Smiles when it is released some time next year.

Although we left a few hours earlier than we expected, a great time was had and if you want to hear Catherine’s impressions on the show, you should check out this week’s episode of the Podcast. The next London MCM Expo will be May 27th-29th, Gamercast will, as always, be attending, we hope you will be too, only another 7 months to go! Who knows, maybe some of the massive games of 2011 will be playable there!