Tag Archives: gaming

GenCon 2013 Photos, Part 5 of 6: More Free-Roaming Costumes

August 20, 2013 By in Conventions & Events Tags: , , , , , , , , 6 Comments

Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover: GenCon costumes! In our last astonishing chapters:

* Part One: this year’s Costume Contest winners.
* Part Two: more Costume Contest entrants.
* Part Three: still more Costume Contest entrants.
* Part Four: Super-hero and animation-themed costumes discovered around the Convention Center but out of competition.

Part Five, as promised, is much like Part Four, but with different themes. Pot luck, as it were. This represents our last batch of non-terrible costume photos from any genre. I can scrounge up a few more terrible ones if there’s a surge in demand. Once again, a plea from me: any comments and especially corrections are welcome, especially since this entry has a few more mystery characters lined up.

Once again Final Fantasy favoritism wins out as we lead with Auron from FFX and Kingdom Hearts 2, both winners in my book.

Auron, Final Fantasy X, Kingdom Hearts 2, GenCon 2013

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GenCon 2013 Photos, Part 3 of 6: Still More Costume Contest (Last Call)

August 18, 2013 By in Conventions & Events Tags: , , , , , , , , 15 Comments

Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover: GENCON GENCON GENCON GENCON GENCON. My wife and I average four conventions a year, and GenCon consistently has the broadest, most impressive assortment of cosplayers and handicrafts of them all. Sure, we could leave this work up to the professionals with better cameras…but why?

In Part One we listed all the Costume Contest winners. In Part Two we celebrated several other entrants, all game-themed. This time around is the last of the contest photos, what we have left that’s as close to usable as possible. We would’ve taken more and better photos if circumstances had permitted. Traditionally we’ve been able to do so after the contest ends, when many of the contestants usually hang around the ballroom and/or the adjacent staging room for a while. Unfortunately this year’s contest ran much longer than usual. By the time the house lights came up and all the prizes had been claimed, the majority of the cosplayers had long since fled the vicinity for parts unknown.

Nonetheless, we’d like our opportunity to salute the variety and imagination that fans boldly put forth that day. Random example: steampunk Disney Princesses — Snow White, Ariel, Rapunzel, Jasmine, and Belle.

Steampunk Disney princesses, GenCon 2013

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GenCon 2013 Photos, Part 2 of 6: More from the Costume Contest (Game Characters)

August 18, 2013 By in Conventions & Events Tags: , , , , , , , , , , 9 Comments

Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover: we commenced with the first installment of our photo collection from this year’s GenCon Indy. For parts Two and Three we’ll continue spotlighting the annual Costume Contest, but moving on from the winners to the other entrants, a most worthy and crowded field.

Part Two, then: characters from games of all types. Same rules apply as last time, especially the part about correcting me when I’m wrong. if you’d like to set the record straight, I solemnly vow I won’t cry.

As always, Final Fantasy receives preferential treatment here because I’ve actually played most of those. Forthwith: Fang, the dragoon L’Cie who shows up late in FFXIII and makes some of our older party members look sick. Here she’s questing for her lost teammate Hope. Lightning and Vanille also shared the stage, but Fang won our Most Decent Pic Award of that random moment.

Fang the Dragoon!

[orientation fixed in 2019]

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GenCon 2013 Photos, Part 1 of 6: Costume Contest Winners

August 18, 2013 By in Conventions & Events Tags: , , , , , , , , , 9 Comments

This weekend our starstruck hometown of Indianapolis hosted the 46th edition of GenCon, one of America’s oldest and largest gaming conventions. Be it RPGs, tabletop games, TCGs, dice games, family board games, or (a smattering of) video games, your gaming preferences are tended to at GenCon. Try a new game, pick up supplies for your current campaigns, spar with gamers from other lands, or just wander the premises and soak in as much as you can.

Attendance in 2012 exceeded 40,000 — not quite DragonCon numbers and a far cry from the San Diego Comic Con, but it’s certainly one of Indy’s largest annual downtown events (GenCon is gunning for your title, FFA Expo), consuming not only the entirety of our Indiana Convention Center but conference rooms and miscellaneous spaces in several nearby hotels and other unused commercial structures. For four days every year, GenCon is everywhere downtown.

This was my fourth GenCon and my wife’s third, even though we’re not certified pro gamers. Some of our personal geek interests intersect with enough of the available exhibits, dealers, and special events that we’re rarely bored except in the occasional line, but those come with the territory. For extra family fun, this year was our first time escorting our nephew into the fray, letting the overwhelming sights and sounds puncture new holes in his mindset, pausing every so often to give him time to shop for new Yu-Gi-Oh! cards and accessories to augment his existing arsenal.

We begin our retrospective with (most of) the winners from GenCon’s 28th annual costume contest. Caveat for newcomers to MCC: some of our photos aren’t the greatest ever. The 500 Ballroom is always poorly lit before and after the contest, even moreso during. Flash photography was forbidden, largely to ruin the day for us well-meaning amateurs. I’m trying to content myself with the surprise fact that more of our shots succeeded than usual, as will be seen over the course of this miniseries. This is something we enjoy doing, to show our appreciation and awe for those with the flair for this particular aspect of the scene. We apologize in advance for the costumes we missed, and for the opportunities we blew because of our numerous limitations.

Comments and especially corrections are always welcome and appreciated. I’m not plugged directly into every single geek scene out there. Very few geeks are, even the famous ones with their own YouTube channels. If you notice any wanton acts of mislabeling, please don’t hesitate to call me out. I enjoy learning about new worlds and universes, giving credit where it’s due, and dispelling my old man’s ignorance.

Onward, then: this year’s Audience Favorite: Sarah Kerrigan and two Space Marines from StarCraft. They also won first place in the Professional Division. I have no idea how they moved or survived in those things.

Sarah Kerrigan, Space Marines, StarCraft, GenCon 2013

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The GenCon 2013 Wednesday Night Food Truck Shindig

August 14, 2013 By in Conventions & Events, Indiana Tags: , , , , , , , , 3 Comments

It’s that time of year again! This weekend GenCon returns to Indianapolis for another extended weekend of gaming and related forms of competition and geekery. My wife and I aren’t fullly accredited gamers, but we frequently find interesting activities and objects tangentially included in the proceedings, so we’ve dropped in on a few Saturdays. This year marks a bold new experiment for us: we’ll be taking our nephew along for the ride. Should be fun.

This year’s GenCon kicked off early today with a pre-show party downtown on Georgia Street, east of the Indiana Convention Center. Whereas the official focus was on alcohol provided by locally owned Sun King Brewery, we non-drinkers took advantage of the large cluster of food trucks on hand.

Indianapolis food trucks, GenCon 2013

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Wizard World Chicago 2013 Photos, Part 1 of 3: Costumes Not from Marvel, DC, or Star Wars

August 11, 2013 By in Conventions & Events Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , 3 Comments

This past Saturday my wife and I spent quality time together once again at this year’s Wizard World Chicago. Due to multiple complications we had to settle for one-day admission, but we did our best to cover the territory and explore our entertainment options as much as we could within our limitations. We appreciated that the show floor was expanded across two levels to allow for much wider aisles and consequently a lot less congestion and personal-space invasions than we endured in years past.

We kick off our mandatory photo collection with, of course, a selection of costumes. It’s one of my favorite parts of any given convention. I’m frequently impressed by the effort and creativity that fellow fans pour into these lavish recreations, whether they select characters that everyone else is also trying on, or they go obscure and bring to life the characters known only to a few hardcore lucky ones.

The average movie geek knows of King Arthur and his knights, wielding requisite coconuts for accurate horsey clip-clopping sound effects, possibly retrieved from the beak of some nearby swallow.

King Arthur, Monty Python, Wizard World Chicago 2013

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E3 2013: Sony Unveils PlayStation 4 Console, Games, Lack of XBox One Fatal Flaws

June 11, 2013 By in Misc. Media Tags: , , , , , , , , , 1 Comment

Andrew House, Sony, PlayStation 4

Andrew House, President and CEO of Sony Computer Entertainment, shows off his company’s amazing new baby.

This week is the Electronic Entertainment Expo (or “E3” for effort conservation), an annual trade fair held in Los Angeles for those in the computer and gaming industries to meet, greet, demo, impress, and preview their upcoming products. Since my gaming bailiwick is fairly narrow, I was only interested in one of the scheduled press conferences: this evening’s 100-minute presentation from Sony Entertainment, at which they finally allowed the new PlayStation 4 console to see the light of day. The largest physical advantage of the PS4’s new, sleeker, less angular design is that now you can stack things on it. This sounds silly, but the PS3 is built like a car’s dashboard and defies all attempts to use it as a temporary shelf.

Though the press conference began twenty minutes late by my watch, some of the news and notes were well worth the wait. The best announcement of the entire conference, as far as our household is concerned, was Square Enix’s assertion (with preview clip!) that the long-procrastinated Kingdom Hearts III is now in development, after years of stalling and inferior handheld offshoots. I’m hoping this is released long before I reach the age of arthritis attacks. The clock is ticking and the calendar is flipping.

Also generating intense enthusiasm here was a trailer for Final Fantasy Versus XIII, which has likewise been in limbo for years. Following it in the lengthy pipeline are the probably spectacular Final Fantasy XV, plus a retooling of FFXIV, which means less to me because the original FFXIV is one of only two main FF installments I never bothered to try.

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C2E2 Photos 2013, Part 6 of 6: Robots, Games, Misfits and Honorable Mentions

May 4, 2013 By in Conventions & Events Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , 1 Comment

The miniseries finale! The show-stopping conclusion! Our final batch of C2E2 2013 photos! Not including pics we took at panels, which I’m saving for separate entries! Otherwise it means we might finally move on to other subjects eventually! But not yet! Exclamation is an energy!

For my cousin the Transformers fan: Transformers unite for a logo photo shoot.

Transformers, C2E2

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The “Wreck-It Ralph” Easter Eggs You’ll Never See

November 14, 2012 By in Movies/Films/Flicks Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , 12 Comments

Disney, Wreck-It Ralph, Fix-It Felix Jr.In this day and age where moviegoers can wait until the home-video release before watching a movie multiple times, how often are we willing to devote extra time and money to encore presentations of a theatrical release? The case agreeing to my second showing of Wreck-It Ralph tonight consisted of two winning bullet points:

1. My son and I really, really liked it the first time we saw it. This is the first year for new Pixar and Disney Animated releases in which we liked the Disney film better.

2. We had free passes.

I had hoped to catch more details and Easter eggs this time around. Regretfully, I am old and the film’s background characters are spry. We managed to see a few items we missed the first time around: the other three Pac-Man ghosts; a mounted ostrich from Joust; the resemblance of the TurboTime cabinet design to that of Rally-X; and graffiti on a wall reading “Aerith Lives”. That list is too short. I’d also hoped to catch additional Easter eggs and overlooked scenes more to my liking, including but not limited to:

* A sign in Tapper’s bar reading, “Now Hiring Waitresses”.

* An autographed photo of Fix-It Felix Sr. bearing a strong resemblance to Alec Baldwin.

* The monsters from Rampage standing on a street corner outside the Niceland apartments, just staring and drooling.

* A traffic jam outside the terminal whose gridlocked commuters include the Moon Patrol rover, the OutRun Ferrari, an Armor Attack polygonal tank, an ExciteBike, and Nathan Drake in a Jeep. All sport the same license plate: “RIP G4”.

* A Grand Theft Auto thug being arrested by Mappy.

* A terminal convenience shop run by a Moogle and selling movies on DVD with titles such as Citizen Liu Kang, Disney’s Knights of the Old Republic, Wolfenstein 3D in 3D, and Galaga vs. Gyruss.

* A sidekick barbershop quartet with Clank, Daxter, Sparx, and Luigi.

* Pac-Man throwing a fit at Felix’s party because all the snacks are fruits, and for decades he’s been dying to have just one lousy steak.

* An inter-game prison populated with Leisure-Suit Larry, PaRappa the Rapper, and E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial.

* A political-activist poster advocating a unilateral ban on all Minesweeper mines.

* Alternate end credits with the big-head Journey avatars singing the same thirty-second snippet of “Separate Ways” over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over again.

…but I guess that’s what cutting room floors are for. Those, and the dreams of over-the-hill gamers who can imagine a film with three times the budget and none of the legal hassles.

The Joy of the “Wreck-It Ralph” End Credits, and the Extra-Special Movie Attached to Them

November 4, 2012 By in Movies/Films/Flicks Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , 2 Comments

John C. Reilly IS Disney's Wreck-It Ralph!Important things first: Wreck-It Ralph is the best non-Pixar Disney film in years, proof positive that both divisions are up to the task of delivering solid results when the right talents are lined up and the marketing department is kept in check. The end credits confirm Ralph was wrangled by four different writers, two of which are omitted by IMDB — Jim Reardon and director Rich Moore, both veterans of the glory days of The Simpsons. (Of the other two, one, Phil Johnston, was responsible for last year’s indie Midwest comedy Cedar Rapids.) From where I sat, I couldn’t see the seams.

Academy Award nominee John C. Reilly is an unloved palooka who chafes in his day job as the villain of Fix-It Felix, Jr., one of several old-school cabinet games at Litwak’s Family Fun Center (elderly owner voiced by Ed O’Neill). Ralph’s major beef isn’t necessarily that he hates his job, but that he hates how shabbily he’s treated because he does it so convincingly. Even when Litwak’s is closed and all gaming characters are allowed to go home for the night, Ralph’s coworkers — the titular hero Felix (30 Rock‘s Jack McBrayer) and the townspeople he saves every day — relax and party in their high-rise apartment building while poor Ralph is forced to live and sleep outside on a mound of loose bricks. Perversely, in their neighborhood Ralph is the 1% and the well-to-do are the 99%. The manufacturer clearly didn’t program these civilians to recognize the sight of homelessness.

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