Although the Games Convention Asia (GCA) 2009 ended last Sunday (20th September), I didn’t have enough time to post on some of my pictures I took during the 3rd day of the event.. Hope you guys like them.. The cosplayers were really awesome and I thanked them for their great effort in making and cosplaying their respective characters well.. ^^

BTW, there aren’t any shots taken on the 4th day since it clashes with Hari Raya Puasa so do forgive me for that.. XD Enjoy the pics~

Like previous years, I’ve decided to pay a visit to the Games Convention Asia 2009 held at the Suntec Convention Centre.. The event was held at Hall 401, at the far end of the convention hall.. Although I was kind of expecting something epic from this year’s event due to good experiences from previous ones, I was however disappointed.. More on that after the jump..

Well, before I go and tell why Im disappointed, let me tell you whats in store for you guys at the event.. First, there is the X-Box360 booth (I forgot the distributor for the event).. There are a few good games to play, namely from Shadow Complex, Forza Motorsport 3..

and one of the most anticipated game, the Halo ODST, though you are only able to play the “Firefight” multiplayer mode.. It was nice to play the Halo game since the control are almost similar to the one from the previous Halo series.. It’s fun killing some Covenents no? XD

Next up, we have the epic EA Games booth, one of the most awesome booth at the event just like last year.. For this year’s event, EA has showcased quite a number of awesome games..

For example, there is the upcoming Need for Speed Shift, which resembles more of Forza Motorsport and Gran Turismo.. I still prefer epic storyline for NFS like NFS: Undercover…

There are also games like Brutal Legends, an epic heavy-metal-hack-n-slash RPG game with the character, Eddie Riggs voiced by the epic Jack Black.. What more could you ask for from such game.. This game will be out on October 13th 2009.. ^^

Here are the 2 trailers I found of the game itself.. Enjoy~

Brutal Legends – Trailer 1:

Brutal Legends – Trailer 2:

Then we have another anticipated game, the Rockband: The Beatles Edition.. Well, its simple, you have a rockband set, just that you are playing songs sung by The Beatles themselves.. But I’m not a great fan of this game though since I dunno how you can mix “Rockband” with “The Beatles”.. Kinda ironic don’t you think? Dun get me wrong, I do listen to some of their songs.. XD

As usual, here are the trailer and OP of the game…

Rockband: The Beatles – OP:

Rockband: The Beatles – Trailer:

Although the games seems epic, the event itself isnt.. The hall they used this time is smaller and there aren’t alot of big game companies unlike last time.. This year, I get to see IAH, EA and Playcraft among all companies there.. Oh well, at least the lighting inside is bright..

Thats all I have regarding GCA 09 for now.. There are more games at the event such as Borderlands but that will be posted by Fuzzy since he loved that game so much.. For today, there will be some cosplayers who will attend the event so do drop by Suntec if you do have some time.. ^^

At last, the cosplay. It’s sad I have to use a borrowed picture for the header image.

Then again, I didn’t go outside to take pictures of the cosplay, so I never actually saw her. She’s earned “t3h cut3n3ss” award from me. orz

Also, a lot of the pictures are noisy and blurry. In fact, none of the pictures I took of the cosplay competition are even barely “readable” since I zoomed the camera, and apparently on a Nokia N78, zoom = apply 10.0 Gaussian Blur.

*sighs*

I don’t have the best of cameras, but good lord let me freaking zoom without any loss in quality!

Anyway, let’s move this forward.

The cosplay in the actual competition was alright I suppose, save for that contestant wearing that cardboard face. -_-;

The top 4 winners were (in order):

1. Warchief Thrall AKA The (semi-retarded) Hulk in Shining (not really) Armor, won a ticket to Blizzcon
2. The (proportion-challenged) Lich King, won a Nintendo Wii
3. (Bow-detail-lacking) Blood elf archer, won an au:sense chair
4. Kasumi from DoA, same as #3

Notice something? Anything at all? That’s right, the first 3 winners happen to be the only ones participating that were cosplaying as WoW characters!

I suppose you could throw a few arguments in, e.g.:

The others didn’t look that great. The quality of the top 4′s cosplay was so much better that the rest of ‘em. Those guys had like cardboard armor and stuff. The Lich King used dry ice for smoke effects, yo.

Image Source: Popcorn Gaming

So, pray tell, why didn’t the Knight Templar (from the now-defunct Hellgate: London) guy win anything? Personally, he looked way cooler than The Hulk (lighting ftw), and deserved to at least win something. In fact, Thrall shouldn’t have been in the top 4, we should have had the Knight Templar. Even Thrall’s hammer fell apart on stage lol.

My theory’s been de-bunked as I finish writing the entire post though, since I do remember the emcee (who was a real idiot according to some) mentioned a theme which could earn you extra points. That theme happened to be anything Blizzard. orz

I still think Thrall shouldn’t have gotten first prize of all things. Moving on.

I never really went outside to look at the cosplayers though, since I’m an epic fail.

The King playing his own game.

MySims culture shock.

Since I can’t really comment much on cosplay at this point (except for the obese Shana that appeared, which none online have taken a picture of, NOT SURPRISINGLY), I’ll just go on with the gripes I faced.

But before that, I’d like to cover Popcorn Gaming, one of the booths in the GCA. They were showing off a lot of WoW merchandise, such as the WoW TCG, as well as the WoW: Wrath of the Lich King beta on a flat screen TV, but what was notable was this particular item:

That’s right, that is a well-made replica of THE Frostmourne, the same blade wielded by Arthas that allowed him to rise as the current Lich King. It even has runes “carved” into the blade, and can be considered a “real blade”, since it’s sharp enough to cut someone…or even kill. :O

It retails at under a thousand dollars, so I doubt it got sold, since nobody goes to the GCA to buy a $1000 blade. I think you also have to get approval from the authorities to even own this blade, so that’s more moolah out of your pocket.

The Lich King cosplayer went to this very booth, and the people there were so impressed they took the entire blade out of the glass showcase box and let him hold the blade in his hands.

It looked so much cooler than his cardboard/foam Frostmourne. lol

Well, that’s it for interesting stuff. Now for the griping.

You had 2 ways of registering for the event: online and on-site. I registered online as a public visitor, and when I arrived, I went straight to the registration counter and told them I registered online. The people there asked me “Where’s your e-mail?”

I paused. I had checked my e-mail that morning, and I was sure I didn’t receive any e-mail. I’m checking my e-mail right now, too, still no e-mail. WTF.

Even Sadako felt like getting murdered herself.

In the end I had to register on-site, which was like a big waste of time. Better yet, I’ve heard accounts that say registering online did nothing; you still had to register on-site for “security reasons”. So why in flying fsck did you even have an online registration in the first place?!

You also had to register on-site for every single day just so you can get the “GCA Public Visitor” sticker which would allow you free entry. :/

And lol, on the first day, simply by standing in front of the door, me and my brother formed a queue.

And then there was the goodie bag collection. Let me illustrate how it went in a short 4koma:

The funny part is, both the pictures in the 2nd and 3rd panels of this comic were taken one after the other, so there were 2 queues for goodie bags from 2 separate booths formed at the same time. For reference’s sake, the queue on the left (2nd panel) is for Zealot Digital, while the other’s for Runup.

Zealot Digital made you pay SGD $1 for one of their goodie bags, and even then you could only collect purchase them at specific times. I didn’t get their goodie bag because it didn’t felt worth it at all, especially those “Lover’s Gloves” I noticed in the bags. Wtf is a lover’s glove?

Runup, on the other hand, made you collect signatures on a “gaming card” by playing some of their MMOs and doing certain activities, those being having your picture taken (as part of their portfolio, no doubt) and taking part in a survey. I managed to obtain one of these cards (which were only available for the first 50 people in each session), but as soon as my session began, something happened.

The Internet connection got cut.

So there we were, holding our gaming cards and no games to play (servers can’t be reached), so they compensated via miscellaneous. Everyone had to perform miscellaneous tasks instead, like answering a simple question or listening to some guy drone about the game, etc etc etc.

I managed to get through all that without yawning (too much) and got my inflatable panda…thingy. Woo.

So, overall, this convention’s been fun. I managed to play some of the latest games, see some MMOs that were otherwise unknown to me, and meet some of Team Blue in person again.

Oh, yes, almost forgot. I mentioned a Citsu in Spore in the first GCA post.

That up there’s the Citsu. It’s (more or less) based off the (gay-looking) guy below:

For the uninitiated, he’s the guy holding Panther‘s (guy in blue shirt) shoulder, and staring at the camera. That’s CI. Alright? Alright.

So THERE, this overdue post has been done, one less post in the backlog. And thanks to this post, I completely forgot about my Java class today. EPIC FAIL.

*sighs*

I met up with Feidamu and we scour around for any signs of cosplayers.. Fortunately in the wee hours of the convention, we spotted a Lich King cosplayer who is apparently, Fei’s friend.. So I took some shots of the Lich King with his “short-handed” Frostmourne..


We continued walking around and took more pictures of cosplayers who started to stream in at about 12pm.. Enjoy the pictures.. ^^

Well, I expected Loli Illyasviel von Einzbern cosplayer or Illya for short to return but what I didn’t expect was that there is a Loli Saber too.. O.o

Well, the photographers thinks the same way too.. This might be one of the good loli cosplayers around since Loli Haruhi from CosFest.. ^^

Well, even the SWAT team and Delta Force group were there to show everyone their stuff.. I like how their weapon looks, so accurately real..


Ok at about 2pm+ it was time for the CosCon competition.. Well, I didn’t expect the cosplayers to be great but I was slightly wrong.. Well, lets move on to CosCon copmpetiton..

Examples are the Head-Crab character from the game “Half-Life 2″..


The Blood Elf from World of Warcraft..


The Knight Templar from the game “Hellgate London”..

And some of the audience favourite’s, Lelouch..

4th Place: Kasumi for “DOA”.. Prize is a Gaming Chair..


3rd Place: Blood Elf.. Prize is a Gaming Chair too..


2nd Place: Lich King from WoW.. Prize is a Wii..


1st Place: The Hulk in Armour aka Thrall.. This is the best prize EVER!! The prize is a ticket to BlizzCon2008 at California..


After that, its back to cosplay photoshoot.. Enjoy.. ^^

Well, at least my my question have been answered when I saw some decent Vocaloid cosplayers.. There were the Kagamine Twins..


But thanks to Ruby-san, I finally saw the best picture of Miku-chan.. She was there during the convention.. Although I took my own pictures of Miku, the pictures weren’t as good as the other better photographers..

Then there was the Soul Eater group.. I saw Death the Kidd and the Thompson Twins.. Though not synchronize.. Pity didn’t have a shot of Tsubaki..


Best shot during the convention.. Panther with CI and Akabane..


And the result?? xD


Picture of Hinagiku from Hayate no Gotoku.. Looks great.. ^^

Well, if cosplayers aren’t enough of you, there are the models in the convention.. if you want to see more, do check Panther’s blog.. That lucky Panther.. xD

Treating GCA as an entire event instead of separate days seems to be the best approach now, so I’ll do just that.

This part will continue covering gaming and gadgets where part 1 left off (duh), while cosplay’s reserved for the 3rd part.

Just a few metres away from Runup was Zealot Digital, which was featuring their (only) game, Xenjo Online.

Xenjo Online is a cross-platform MMORPG developed by Soft-World, the same publisher for World of Warcraft in Taiwan. I believe it’s either a joint effort with Zealot Digital, or that Zealot’s going to publish the game here in Singapore.

The game is going to be released on both Xbox 360 and the PC, but as of now it’s really, really buggy. Strange stuff kept happening on the demo stations, such as the character’s 3D model suddenly getting squashed, or being unable to move at all.

The MMO feels like another generic one though, but the effects are cool to watch. There are no loading screens in between different areas though, and the game boasts different worlds on the same server, each having their own separate policies (lol politics) and themes.

It also has a language selector, able to switch between English and Mandarin, though this has to be done at the login screen, and applying changes exits the game, so you’ll have to manually restart it.

Trailer below:

[vodpod id=ExternalVideo.694761&w=425&h=344&fv=%26rel%3D0%26border%3D0%26]

No details on launch date yet; maybe I’ll shoot Zealot an e-mail to confirm a date.

I headed towards the Elan Online booth next. Yes, it’s another MMORPG.

Elan Online plays almost exactly like Arad Senki AKA Dungeon & Fighter. I’m dead serious. If Arad Senki were to go 3D, and had a anime-esque makeover, it’d become Elan Online. After all, in both games,

• You fight mobs (and level up) in instanced areas; there is no real open area full of mobs.
• You travel through small areas which are connected together via portals, and some of these small areas make up a town.
• You hit mobs in real-time, unlike that whole 1-click-and-afk thing most MMOs do.

I enjoyed Arad Senki, but since it was in Moonspeak (Japanese), I didn’t know what I was supposed to be doing, nor could I get a proper party of friends, so I left not too long after I joined.

When I looked at the homepage, I found some information regarding an activation card being necessary to enjoy the game after the initial 14-day trial (wtf?). When I brought this up to the guy in-charge of the booth, he said that they would be scrapping that idea, allowing the public to create accounts with no trial periods, paving way for Elan Online Version 2. However, this would only apply to the first character, and subsequent characters on the same account would require activation cards (up to 4).

You can, however, bypass this by creating multiple accounts, but you won’t be able to trade certain items between different accounts, which CAN be traded between different characters on the same account.

As the man put it, “money has to be made somewhere“.

Elan Online also boasts a point redemption system. As you play, you accumulate points, and during certain events, you would be able to redeem either in-game items or real-life merchandise (!).

Also, the website is outdated, and he has warned not to download the game client from it as they’ve only received the updated one a few days ago, and are going to host it soon, as well as revamping the entire website. I’ll post up a confirmation when he e-mails me, which is when all this has been taken care of.

Trailer below:

[vodpod id=ExternalVideo.694766&w=425&h=344&fv=%26rel%3D0%26border%3D0%26]

I wouldn’t mind trying this game, at least while I’m waiting for Dragonica to head into Closed Beta. I might try the other game on display too, Immortals, though to be honest the graphics don’t seem to be functioning 100% yet (high quality settings = low quality settings).

Surprisingly, both games were being demo-ed on laptops. Easy setup FTW.

Digipen was there too, showcasing some of their students’ creations. Synaesthete, one of my favourite games from them, was given a mention, though it wasn’t loaded on any of their demo stations.

I had a chance to try out Toblo; it was sorta addicting, but the avatars in-game felt a bit too simple for my taste. Movable joints plz kthx.

I then headed to Temasek Polytechnic’s booth to check out this particular contraption:

It’s a device to simulate recoil, similar to how a gaming steering wheel reacts to crashes in an in-game race. I couldn’t figure out how I should be holding it, since there seemed to be buttons and triggers all over the place. The guy in-charge told me I should simply hold it by the orb with most of the buttons on it.

They had a game to demonstrate the device, basically a scripted shooter (House of the Dead-esque) to simulate recoil in the device.

Verdict? It sucked.

Granted, the device did simulate recoil, but pushing against the orb rendered it useless, as the recoil movement would be negated by the force I was already exerting. Boo.

TP also had some video running that looked like they were trying to create their own Second Life, but I didn’t feel compelled enough to watch for long.

There was also Nanyang Polytechnic’s attempt to recreate the F1 racing track in the virtual realm. Not too bad, actually.

The Saints Row 2 booth had to be hidden behind a curtain. There used to be a guy outside asking people whether they were 18+, but he seemed to be gone by the third day. ^.^;

Black Shot’s an MMO FPS, basically another online first-person shooter. It’s pretty much meh in terms of quality, and during the 4v4 matches involving all 8 demo machines, lag was abound. I played it on the 2nd day and owned everyone else with my trusty sniper rifle. XD

I wouldn’t play it myself though, it doesn’t look like it’d last long, at least not for me.

There were also “speaker chairs” from au:sense. I call ‘em speaker chairs since they’re practically chairs with a full 5.1 surround sound system built-in. Recommended for audiophile couch potatoes, these babies can even simulate “feedback” from games simply by turning up the subwoofer all the way.

They were using SW: The Force Unleashed on a PS3 to demonstrate the chair, and Fariz was hogging it for an hour or two I believe. ^.^;

And finally, Cherry Credits. They made their first appearance in GCA ’07, and this year they actually got an entire wall to themselves featuring almost every single game from almost every single company signed up with their payment service, including the aforementioned Black Shot.

Holic 2. I played it when it was still just Holic Online, got sick of the grinding. I think they added the Ranger class or something similar since I left. I didn’t realise netgame already signed up with Cherry Credits though.

Allow me to demonstrate what I meant by “entire wall”:

Blurry pic (like most of the other pics here), I know, but you get the point.

GameSafe was at the end with the Cherry Credits main booth. The girl there showed me a website which reviewed the software and ranked it #1 among many other major anti-viruses. You can’t sway me that easily with a single source though.

Some of the PCs appeared to be under maintenance…though I imagine this could have been done before the press came.

Demonstrators showing off the Wii Fit on-stage…and the audience is silent. Actually, it was deserted, save for a middle-aged couple and a few photographers who had nothing better to do with their DSLRs. Those poor demonstrators.

Well, that’s it for this part. The next part will cover other stuff, as well as the cosplay (though not a lot of it, since my N78′s camera died. -_-

Before I go, here are the (approximate) release dates for some of the MMOs mentioned so far:

• Emil Chronicle Online – end of year 2008.
• Elan Online Version 2 – “soon”. I’ll post when I get the e-mail (which will be when it’s ready).
• Xenjo Online – 2009, give or take.

And a shot of MySims Kingdom, because I happen to think it’s cute.

Once again, because I can’t help but collapse at night after my daily nightly prayers at the mosque, I couldn’t blog about the first day of GCA, so I guess a double blog post will do.

I won’t bother covering both days separately though, since both days were pretty much the same in terms of activities and crap.

Electronic Arts

Let’s get started with the booth you see before you when you enter via the main entrance:

EA had a huge booth, filled with stations loaded with some of their latest games, including:

• Spore
• Red Alert 3 Beta
• Mirror’s Edge Demo
• Dead Space
• LOTR Conquest
• NFS: Undercover

Spore

Can’t say much more about this, especially since I already went to its launch. Feidamu kept inserting Citsu into the Spore demo machines though.

Red Alert 3

My first time playing this, so I was pretty excited. I decided to play with my brother, since while both the machines were connected to the Net, there was no point going all gung-ho like some sort of n00b.

Fariz took Japan, I took Allies. I lost.

The game felt like it was trying to pull a Universe at War; all 3 sides (Allies, Soviet, Empire of the Rising Sun) played differently.

For example, Allies depend on their Construction Yard heavily; it handles tech tier research (and ensuring buildings in its build range get the tech tier upgrade) and its build range is non-extendable, save for deploying outposts.

Japan resorts to building drones that deploy into buildings, meaning that they can build freely, so long as the drone doesn’t get busted on the way or while its unpacking. Their separate production buildings (e.g. War Factory, Barracks) have their own tech tier upgrades, so no depending on the Yard’s proximity for that.

Soviets allow you to place buildings immediately, but take time as it’s being built; the complete opposite of the Allies, which uses the classic RA “build-and-instant-deploy” tactic. However, they use the old RA tech tier formula, in which you slowly gain access to more units the more you build up your base.

I’m picking Soviets next time.

Mirror’s Edge

Even though it was only a demo, it screamed “THIS IS REALISTIC”. The desperation you feel as you clamber up walls and jump from rooftop to rooftop, the footsteps echoing as you run towards some idiot shooting you, it’s all there. And it was awesome.

Pity it was only a demo.

Dead Space

Though it’s touted as a “horror” game, I wouldn’t call it a horror game. IMO it’s more along the lines of “thriller”, especially when you put the sci-fi genre into the mix. You can’t get too scared when sci-fi’s involved, especially when you get chances to upgrade your armor, weapons and whatnot to take on more baddies.

That aside, this game is not for the squeamish. If you hate gore, stay far away from this game. I’ll paint a description for you, so you’ll see what I mean:

You walk cautiously into a narrow corridor, heading towards the toilet. You peek in, but nothing’s there, save for some ammo packs for your plasma cutter. You trudge on towards your next objective, opening a door to a medical facility. Suddenly, the warnings lights flash, and a mutant (I think that’s what they are) crashes through a window and runs for your flesh. You aim for the legs (limbs are their weak point), and slice them off. Blood sprays across the ground. As the creature attempts to recover, you walk up to it and give it a good, solid, stomp in the head, literally decapitating it, spewing more blood all over the floor.

Also, if you get too close to a mutant, you might enter a “cutscene” in which it tries to rip the living crap out of you. Hammering the “A” button allows you to rip it off and smash it into the ground, assuming the mutant is a tiny one.

Like Mirror’s Edge, the HUD is well-hidden into your own suit. As the game is third-person, the “spine” on your back, or RIG as it’s called, indicates your current health, and any screens such as the inventory hover next to your character, as if he was actually looking at it himself. I still wouldn’t play this at night though, there’s something about being surrounded by freaks of nature that make me shiver a bit.

LOTR Conquest

This one was totally “LOLWUT”. The game lets you switch classes (warrior, archer, mage, scout) during a mission, and each has its own pros and cons. It’s like playing Onslaught from UT2004, capturing control points and defending them. Occasionally, you get to control Hero units like Gandalf or Legolas, which are obviously stronger than their basic counterparts (magea and archer respectively).

The game’s pretty inaccurate though. I mean, did Isildur really slash Sauron until he collapsed and disappeared in a puff of smoke? Where’d his finger (and the ring) go then?

Still, throwing lightning and fireballs with Gandalf is nothing short of a unique experience. XD

I’ll skip NFS, kthx.

[end of EA]

I wandered around, taking more pix as I went along. The hall was huge, though it was pretty empty in the afternoon of the first day.

Eventually, I stumbled upon a Singaporean publisher, Runup. They had some games on display, including one that caught my eye:

The concept art for Emil Chronicle Online looked like something out of an anime. My interest piqued, I decided to take a closer look:

And upon closer inspection, I noticed some cheeky guy had left a Hinagiku in the server:

The gameplay felt a bit generic though, reminding me very much of other anime-ish MMOs like Asda Story and Holic Online. I’ve yet to actually play it though (as in killing mobs and exploring), so hopefully I’ll get to play it later today.

The idea of an MMO full of lolies and shotas sounds like it’ll attract a lot of moe-moe fans like me, though. Nekomimi warrior anyone? XD

Trailers below, music sounds nice, and the anime trailer looks cute too ^.^:

[vodpod id=ExternalVideo.694000&w=425&h=350&fv=%26rel%3D0%26border%3D0%26]

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QHr-uaRRFMk]

ECO is due in about a month’s time, watch this space for moar!

The other MMOs at Runup aren’t worth blogging about here. Just generic unimportant crap, unless you actually like Angels Online.

I’ll end this here, it’s nearly 3AM. Gawd, looks like I’ll have to merge the next part with CosCon. Oh well.

Up next: Cross-platform MMO! Cosplay! Useless crap!