Tags
Batman Arkham Origins, Fan Expo, Fan Expo 2013, Killer Instinct, Splinter Cell Blacklist, Xbox One
Original Post: August 23, 2013
こんにちわみんなさん
I just returned from Fan Expo, Canada’s largest geek convention. The expected audience is between 90,000-100,000 people this year which places it in the top 5 largest conventions in North America. The convention features comics, sci-fi, horror, gaming and anime. I go for the latter two. I usually only go one day but I decided to extend it to two days this year. I picked Friday and Sunday. Friday since it’s the long day for a decent price compared to Saturday, and Sunday to perhaps take advantage of the dealers there and to finish off anything I might not have had the chance to do on Friday. As it just so happened, about 10 of my friends were planning to go on Friday.
My day started early at 7. I had a quick breakfast in order to catch the bus down to the subway station. I arrived at the subway station at 8:40 and found two of my friends waiting for me along with a few other people I knew. A couple of our other friends were late since one of them picked the other up. I initially wanted to leave by 8:30 in order to make it down for 9 but because of the delay, we didn’t get going until 9:20. The reason why I was so eager to make it down at 9 is because of last year. The event lasted from 10-7. When I went last year, we arrived at 9, an hour before the convention started. But, even with my pre-paid ticket, I still spent almost two hours in line to get in that day. So I was very concerned while we were heading down because I was worried about having to wait in line for a long time again. We arrived by 10 and our group of about 12 people split up. Half of us wanted to head down right away (myself included), and half of us wanted to eat breakfast. One of my friends didn’t pre-pay so he had to move to another line and the rest of us continued on to the pre-paid area. Thankfully, I picked a less busy day to come. I picked up my ticket quickly and it was only a 15 minute wait to get into the main area. Our group split in half again and I began my day.
Games were my order of the day today. The game I wanted to try the most out of all the games there was Ryze: Son of Rome on Xbox One. However, the line for it was long since they only had one Xbox One set up, the demo was ridiculously long, and the people playing could not die. So basically, you had to wait for the two players to finish the 15-minute demo. I passed on that, and moved on to the next game I wanted to try: Killer Instinct, also on Xbox One. This line was much faster because they had two Xbox One’s set up and it’s a fighting game; they go by pretty fast. While I’m not big on fighting games, I know the weighty legacy the first two Killer Instinct games left behind on the SNES and N64. I wanted to try the game out for myself to see how Double Helix would handle the game. The original games were developed by Rare, and Double Helix’s reputation so far is not very good so I was a little worried about the game sucking. Fortunately, my worries were put at ease once I started playing. The Killer Instinct games were known for their combos and this game doesn’t disappoint. Most combos are performed by pressing light->medium->heavy attacks together. You can also throw in special moves in there for added damage. While the game isn’t as smooth as fighters like MvC or Mortal Kombat, it still plays well.
Now for the Xbox One controller. It retains the same overall look of the 360 controller. But the Xbox One’s controller is slimmer (width-wise) and the bumpers and triggers are placed closer together. I personally prefer the feel of the Xbox 360 controller but that might just be because of how used to it I am. The triggers feel out of place.
After watching a video of Forza Motorsport 5 running in real-time, me and my group of friends wandered around. I broke off from the group for an hour to examine the games and anime the various vendors had. I scoped out a few places to return to on Sunday for my shopping spree. I brought along a few of my older games to see what I could get for them. The vendor I went to was nice and offered me a higher price for my games than I wanted. I traded my games in for Rune Factory 2 on DS. That game, and its sequel Rune Factory 3, are games I wasn’t expecting to find anymore. But, a few days ago, a copy of Rune Factory 3 came in a shipment at my store. I snatched it up right away. So, two games I wasn’t expecting to see again, show up in the same week and now I own them. 😛
I returned to my friends for another round of Killer Instinct and then we decided to check out the other sections. I got the chance to try out Splinter Cell: Blacklist’s multiplayer. The Spies and Mercs mode is really fun and I think it’s pretty balanced if you have a good team. My friends and I did pretty well and our match ended in a tie. Assassin’s Creed IV was there, playable on PS4, but I’m really not big on Assassin’s Creed. We checked out a live demo of Watch Dogs, which continues to amaze me, and then we moved on to Batman: Arkham Origins.
Batman: Arkham Origins is another game I was curious to try out because it has a different developer behind the helm instead of Rocksteady who made the last two games. While it does mostly play the same as the prior two games, controlling Batman feels a little slower this time around. Also, I got confused with the games’ controls since they swapped the controls for your gadget use. Other than that, there’s not a whole lot to say. It’s pretty much the same game as before.
Afterwards, we just kind of walked around, checked out the stuff, and prepared to leave. I should also note, that while Sony did have a booth there with PS4 games running like Assassin’s Creed IV, Knack, and Drive Club, I wasn’t interested in lining up for the games. As you might expect, the line for the booth was crazy and there was no way I was going to wait around for that. I should also mention that Nintendo was absent from the convention. It seems that Nintendo just likes to skip every single major convention or public event except for E3. The only time I saw Nintendo at this convention was two years ago when they were showcasing Ocarina of Time 3D and Starfox 64 3D. And they only had a little trailer for that. Even last year, they were only represented by Ubisoft with Zombi U and Scribblenauts Unlimited.
I’m looking forward to returning on Sunday to see what kind of stuff I can get my hands on there. I’m trying not to spend all of my $300 budget (spent $60) but these conventions only come once a year, and the only way I have the chance to buy these things is while they’re here. I don’t trust online buying sites too often. Anyway, we’ll see what Sunday brings.
また後で