Day two started much like the first day did. My girlfriend and I found ourselves in a huge line, one that was actually twice as big as the one we stood in yesterday and growing fast. I was hoping that as with yesterday, luck would be on our side. Within 20 minutes of the show floor opening, we were in the building. Showing up as early as we did helped us greatly, as those who ended up arriving later were not as fortunate.
An hour after the the Fan Expo officially opened, I received a call from my brother. I was still at work and he had just entered the line, which he said was insanely long. Almost two hours later, he sent me a text saying he just got in.
I was fearing for the worst when my girlfriend and I finally got to the convention centre. There were two lineups facing each other: one for pre-purchased tickets and one for those who needed to buy tickets. Both lines were roughly two blocks long. We got in line, expecting a long, slow, painful trek into the convention centre. To our surprise, our early experience was nothing like my brother’s unfortunate two-hour wait.
I love social media. I am a long-time blogger, active Facebook and Twitter user, and enjoy the technologies so much that I pursued a career in which I could work with these technologies on a regular basis. I currently work in the digital/interactive advertising business, where leveraging social technologies to improve our clients’ position in the marketplace is part of my everyday life.
Combined with my love of games, I should be all over social games like FarmVille, Mafia Wars and Foursquare. This couldn’t be farther from the truth. As of now, I have no personal interest in playing any social games. It’s not the social elements that turn me off to the scene; it’s the gaming part.
Continue reading
A few nights ago, my girlfriend and I watched Scott Pilgrim vs. The World. Walking out of that theatre and thinking about how much I enjoyed that movie put me in a weird mental space. On one side, the gamer in me was really happy to see video games represented with a level of love and respect that movies have failed to deliver on. On the other side, the movie watcher in me wasn’t so sure I enjoyed it for the all the right reasons.
As far as I know, I am currently not a father. I’m not done living the “free” adult life at this point in time. However, at some point I would totally love to be a father. I don’t really think that much about it, but when I do, I often think about how I would introduce video games into the life (or lives) of my future little ones.
Last year was a monumental one for everyone involved in the Evolution fighting game tournament. Besides it being the debut of the massively-popular Street Fighter IV, it broke records for participants, attendance and for the first time ever, it was all viewable live to anyone with an Internet connection. EVO was no longer just the one YouTube clip of Daigo parrying all of Justin Wong’s super combo hits. Hundreds of thousands of people tuned in throughout the weekend to watch Daigo and company play out the fighting game magic. I was glued to my computer that entire weekend; watching arguably the best fighting game action I’d ever seen in my life. That tournament even went as far as inspiring me to level up my own skills.
Continue reading
Today is a special day in my home and native land. While I should be enjoying my day off by playing hockey and tending to my igloo, I’ve decided to do a little bit of research and put together a not-that-serious piece on Canada’s contributions to video games. Find out if your favourite Canadian contributions made my list (and don’t be mad if they didn’t).
Normally, I am not one to argue a “best-of” list in any serious manner. Due to the subjectivity behind these lists, there will never be a definitive list that everyone can agree on. The “best-of” lists that are the worst are the ones voted on by “the people”, because regular people make the worst choices.
In spite of that, people love to make them anyway and argue about them till the cows come home. Recently, Guinness announced its top 50 video game franchises, as chosen by you. Snap judgment: you suck. If you would like to read the full list, I advise you to hit the link. Otherwise, continue to read as I highlight a few key spots and add snarky commentary.
Earlier this week, Ubisoft announced that it will no longer make instruction manuals for it’s games, beginning as early as this fall. As someone who grew up in the 8-bit era, when instruction manuals were critical part of the experience, it kind of saddens me to know that this is probably the beginning of the end for paper instruction manuals. Back when I was younger, I used to love reading the instruction manuals on my brand new games as I was being driven home from the store. Some games were totally incomprehensible if you try and play them without reading the manual first. Also, as someone who used to trade in games a lot, keeping the original box and manual would always increase the value of your trade-in.
In the grand scheme of things though, the death of video game instruction manuals is probably well overdue.
In Third Person 