The start of October saw thousands of finger-twitchin’ gamers descend on London’s Earls Court for the Eurogamer Expo, the UK’s largest games show where members of the public can get their sticky mitts on amazing new games, months before they hit the shops.

This year was no exception, with some of the most famous games designers in the world appearing at the show to introduce their latest creations.

As well as the chance to try out Microsoft’s new Kinect motion sensor, along with games like Kinect Adventures and Kinect Sport, there were PlayStation Move games to waggle along with, and a very early opportunity to try out Nintendo’s big new games for 2011.

Kirby’s Epic Yarn is a lovely woolly platform game made from string (no, really!) and that dimwit ape makes a long overdue comeback in Donkey Kong Country Returns. For our money, it’s The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword that was most special. Any new Zelda game is an event, and to see the latest entry before it’s even finished was a rare treat.

And then there were the developers themselves, appearing on stage to reveal what they’ve been working on. Seeing the cheery chaps from Media Molecule introduce LittleBigPlanet 2 made us even more sad that the game has slipped back into January next year, but we were blown away by the sight of fearsome racer Motorstorm Apocalypse. One of the first games to take advantage of the PlayStation 3’s new 3D capability, you’ll have to be mega rich to play the game like that, but we’re willing to bet it’ll be worth it.

Perhaps the biggest treat – and the biggest surprise – was Japanese games guru Yuji Naka. He’s best known as the creator of a certain blue mascot called Sonic the Hedgehog, and his new game Ivy the Kiwi looks like it could be absolutely brilliant.

It was three days of non-stop gaming, but with blistered thumbs and hard-boiled eyes we can definitely say, without a shadow of a doubt, that the next twelve months are going to be an awesome time for gamers!