Alex’s Comic-Con Adventure- Day Three
SUNDAY
I was hoping Sunday would be a little more low-key than the previous two days, and naturally assumed that it wouldn’t be as crowded, as most people (including myself) were boarding planes back home sometime thad day, and there weren’t any big panels scheduled.
I was totally wrong.
The place was still packed. Fortunately, the line for the “Fulfillment Room” as they call it, where you exchange tickets gained at panels for free stuff, was short. I got a Simpsons 20th Anniversary button, and a replica of the alternate reality newspaper from Fringe:
Next I headed back to the LOST props display to see if I had won the raffle for meeting a writer from the show. I hadn’t. So I just wandered around for a couple more hours, focusing mostly on videogames. I got to play the demo for the SAW game, which was surprisingly amusing, albeit intensely disturbing. At one point you need to fish out a fuse in a toilet full of dirty syringes. Ick. I tried playing Uncharted 2: Among Thieves, but promptly died after about 30 seconds. I’ve noticed a new trend in games is the “snap-on cover system,” instigated by Gears of War, and the truth is, more often than not it’s glitchy and gets you killed. Even Gears is sketchy sometimes; do we really need two new games with cover systems (this and Saboteur)?
A highlight was getting to play the opening of Tales of Monkey Island, which was great since the game isn’t available on Xbox 360 or Macs. I spoke with the Telltale Games rep, and he said it was highly likely the game would make it to XBox sometime in the future. He also said it was even more likely that Lucasarts would make a special edition version of Monkey Island 2, as it was incredibly cheap to do the revamp of Secret, and the company had already made back their losses. Finally, I watched some people play 4 person co-op on Lost Planet 2, although I didn’t have the patience to wait for my turn. It looks cool- I like the idea of using teamwork to bring down a big monster. I’ve heard that Lost Planet is kind of a secondary level FPS, and this almost looks like it’s just the first game but in the jungle instead of the tundra. So I don’t know…
I passed by the autograph booth- partly so I could ogle Eddie Olmos one last time, but also to see if anyone else was selling photos. James Callis was back, and was offering photos, so I decided to go for the Battlestar triple-threat and shelled out another 20 bucks to take my photo with the incredibly short and incredibly charming British man:
He was extremely friendly / funny. The guy who was before me asked what he was up to now and his first response was, “Well, sleep mostly.” After taking the picture he told me to make sure I liked it, then looked at it and said, “I think it’s pretty cool actually.” He too kinda seemed like his character, again, without the sociopathic tendencies.
Next, I headed to a bizarre virtual reality demo called “Feed Your Fear.” Not sure if this was a product or just a promotion for horror movies, but basically they put a pair of goggles around your eyes and really loud headphones in your ears, and then subjected you to an intense couple minutes of gory horror montage. Only mildly frightening, but still kinda fun.
At this point, Comic-Con was starting to feel incredibly oppressive- I was kind of sick of being herded around like cattle, and felt I had pretty much seen everything, so I got some food and headed back to the hotel to grab my bag and a cab to the airport. Along the way I passed the Heroes carnival.
Yes, in case you weren’t aware, next season Heroes is ripping off its 100th show. Probably in a desperate bid for ratings, as the show slid somewhere around 20% last season, they’ve decided to copy Carnivale and introduce a bunch of carnies who have superpowers. Just another reason for me to never watch this awful excuse for television programming again, and pretend like I never did in the first place. I couldn’t believe NBC felt they needed to put this much money behind marketing Heroes, but I guess they’re getting desperate. If there’s justice in this world the ratings will continue to dip, and the show will be cancelled by the end of 2010. Then we’ll never have to hear anymore pretentious voiceovers from that douchebag who plays Mohinder.
As my American Eagle plane to Los Angeles took off for its 23 minute flight, I got a panoramic view of the southern California coast, and realized that it’s not just LA that’s covered in thick smog- it’s the entire coast. I thought to myself, “Come next year, I’ll be living in that hellhole.”
Conclusion
Overall, I had an excellent Comic-Con experience. The Farscape and LOST panels, as well as the photo-ops with the Battlestar cast, were all highlights. I also thoroughly enjoyed playing and watching the various game demos and previews, as I am an avid gamer. Of those, I’ll definitely pick up Brütal Legend and Batman: Arkham Asylum, and will consider checking out The Saboteur, Dante’s Inferno, Lost Planet 2 and SAW. Now that I’ve actually gone to the Con, I feel I will have to come back, and if I move to Los Angeles, I will certainly make it a tradition to head out to San Diego at the end of July. I learned a lot about how things work- get on line really, really early for panels, bring tons of shit for people to autograph, etc. I hope you all enjoyed this series, as long-winded as it was, and feel free to comment, or ask me any questions you can think of.
Live long and prosper.
Castle on a Hill 