You may or may not have been aware that one of the most iconic video game, anime, manga, comic and movie conventions was in London's ExCel Center last weekend where an astonishing 55,000 + people got their nerd on! Yes Comic-Con, eat your heart out because it can be done just as well across the pond and boy was it an absolute blast!
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| GameSpot UK Crew @ MCM Expo! |
I was fortunate enough to get back together with the GameSpot UK team and man their booth (as the muscle) across the weekend, with front row seats to their excellent stage show and all the weird and wonderful action of the Expo around me. My partners in crime were the lovely
Lauren Wainwright and Capcom's
Daria Gerasimova, who are both super happy fun time people and need your love on Twitter!
So I thought I'd drop this blog to give a little run-down of what was present, the GameSpot UK booth, stage-show and whatever else I managed to catch a glimpse of amidst all the carnage.
The GameSpot UK booth was right at the heart of the arena, which made sense considering the amount of space needed for the stage, audience and the booth itself. This was a prime location as it seemed everyone was buzzing around us, waiting to see what goodies we were showing off, and giving away.
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| The picture says it all doesn't it? |
Across the weekend we show-cased Child of Eden (Kinect), Super Street Fighter IV: Arcade Edition (360), Shadows of the Damned (360), Red Faction: Armageddon (360), DiRT 3 (360), Mortal Kombat (PS3), Virtua Tennis 4 (PS3) and some old school classic arcade games. Endless amounts of people flooded through our confines, played games, talked to us, signed up for our awesome competition and had a great time. It was obvious the exclusives were getting more attention than other games, but nothing was ever free, so we were kept busy.
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| The gang recording a podcast with the guys from Red Faction: Armageddon |
The awesome stage show was really the highlight for GameSpot UK, with a plethora of content, special guest speakers, a live podcast and lots of cool games, I don't remember a free chair all weekend. The stage saw Europe's first exclusive look at Super Street Fighter IV: Arcade Edition with Capcom's lead PR Leo Tang leading the presentation, Deus Ex: Human Revolution, Child of Eden, Red Faction: Armageddon, Earth Defence Force and a host of other titles throughout the weekend. Fantastic work from our team up on stage ensured everyone was kept entertained and every presentation ran smoothly.
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| Lion Man busy promoting his awesome lion wrestling abilities. |
When I wasn't playing security for our booth, I had a chance to wonder around and take in and awe at everything around me. Needless to say, every single person was dressed in cosplay--you couldn't walk from one booth to another without stumbling into a Batman or Cloud Strife. Highlights for me included 2K's fantastic Duke Nukem courtesy of their PR team, Darth Vadar, Tony Stark in his Iron Man suit and a female Predator. I also totally met the Lion Man from the hit show on Sky 1--no idea what he was doing there but super stoked regardless!!!
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| Hail to the King baby! |
There was plenty of other amazing stuff across the arena--aside from all the little shops selling memorabilia and the countless tables set up for card games, I had a chance to check out the other video game booths. Nintendo were in attendance showing off The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time 3D. I tried to get a quick go but was quickly told to turn round and look at the 200 man line waiting to play--needless to say my VIP badge was not getting me on that console any quicker. Epic Studios had a wicked 5 on 5 LAN Gears of War 3 station that showed off essentially the Beta that came out not too long ago. F3AR and Mortal Kombat also had their own booths and Red Faction: Armageddon was sitting near by too. I think Capcom had the most popularity across the weekend as they held Super Street Fighter IV: Arcade Edition and Marvel vs. Capcom 3 tournaments. Every time I wondered over there the place was rammed and it was super cool that they had arcade sticks for the more hardcore gamers.
So that's about it from what I remember, the weekend was just so hectic that I may have forgotten bits and pieces but I will add things as they come back to me. This would of course be an appropriate time to thank the GameSpot UK team for inviting me to work with them again, always an absolute pleasure. For those of you guys who want to see all the amazing photos we took over the weekend, you can do so right
here on the GameSpot UK website.
The next expo is in October once again at the ExCel Center London, you'd be crazy to miss out it is truly one of the best experiences! See you guys there! Hit me up on Twitter:
@ss4Igor
