Transformers Universe @ NY Comic Con 2011

In the midst of all the craziness that happened over at NY Comic Con 2011, Jagex Games Studios and Hasbro was there to showcase their upcoming title: Transformers Universe. Powered by an advanced and evolved engine that powers Jagex’s ever popular “RuneScape”, Transformers Universe will continue Jagex’s trend of creating high quality MMO experiences straight in your internet browser.

Besides from that, very little is known about the game, so I took the time to check out the booth, ask some questions and possibly grab some swag!

G-Star 2011 - Get Hyped!

So who's excited for G-Star this year? I know I am! There's a crap ton of titles I've had my eye on for the past couple of years are getting new details revealed.

Some of the games on my radar include Blade & Soul, GunZ: the Duel 2, Cabal II, FreeJack and many others. Here's a few that I (and think you) should be keeping your eyes on:

Blade & Soul:

• Summoner class shown/playable at their booth
• 7th class revealed
• CBT3/OBT dates announced

GunZ: the Duel 2:

• Playable preview build
• PvP including four maps: Mansion, Pier 5, Refinery, Market Town
• PvE confirmed, but map is undecided whether it will include a boss battle

Cabal II

• New footage showcasing the new engine (CryEngine 2 to CryEngine 3)

FreeJack

• New footage showcasing finalized content (will most likely include the recently announced Graffiti gameplay mode)

And that's just to name a few. There's also new Cyphers footage (probably the first MOBA game I've ever been interested in) and a HUGE booth for Guild Wars 2:

*Pic gathered from MMOCulture.com

I was hoping for details regarding Mabinogi 2 and ArcheAge, but at the moment they're either declared as a "no show" or strictly Business-2-Business behind closed doors, but hey there might be a leak or two. You know how the internet is these days...

Also on my radar:

• Continent of the Ninth (C9)
• Battle Territory: Battery
• NED
• Bless
• Dizzel

I can't be ONLY one this excited for G-Star this year, right? Let me know I'm not alone! Post a comment or something! G-Star will Busan, South Korea from November 10th to 13th.

I'll be following such sites as KoreanGamers.com, AcroFan via YouTube and of course, Cinderboy's blog: MMOCulture.

Click to visit!

Click to visit!

Click to visit!

Dragon Saga - Review

Dragon Saga (also known as Dragonica) was one of the first original action MMOs to ever hit English speaking territories. Just recently, things got tuned up with an expansion called New Origins, featuring new story quests, a new race and many other goodies. While this title may have turned heads by in the day, many other action MMOs are now out and about in this ever increasing MMO market, so it’s time to take a closer look and see if there’s enough here to make gamers want to turn their heads back.

NY Comic Con - Day 4

And it is OVER!

The NY Comic Con ended at 5:00 PM today and I managed to get most of my work done covering a few booths. This whole thing was a huge learning experience for me, and really showed me that I need a lot of tools to do my job more effectively, like an audio recorder, better video recorder and whatnot. With that in mind, I'll be far more prepared for next year, or for any other public event I can go to. I checked out the Star Wars: TOR booth which had a one hour wait time for PvE and PvP play. I mostly wanted to get inside the booth so I could take pictures of the place, but the exhibitors wouldn't let me. I was only allowed to take pictures outside and behind some of the players. When I finally got in, I tried out the PvE and went with the Smuggler class.

After the short play-through I had, I can safely say that the game was... well... kinda boring. It's true what they say that the game is sort of like WoW with lightsabers. But then again, I only got 17 minutes of playtime, so that's not enough time to give proper judgment.

Next up was the fan booth for Mega Man Legends 3. I know I mentioned that they were planning to gather a bunch of supporters and "protest" around the Capcom booth around 3:00 PM, but I misspoke. They were actually planning a "peaceful march" down to the booth, and apparently Seth Killian, marketing director for Capcom US, knew all about the march and was totally cool about it. After the marchers reached the booth, they met up with Seth to present a huge scroll filled with fan appreciation and support from people at Comic Con in reviving MML3. Seth took the scroll to heart and have a friendly discussion with the marchers a bit later. I have some footage of the march and a little bit of footage from the meeting with Seth:

Seth agreed to send the huge scroll to the higher ups in Capcom Japan to support to cause. Mission accomplished!

I was done covering any more booth after that, so I spent the rest of my time playing the latest build of Skullgirls and tried out Dead Island for the first time. One thing I DO regret was not getting a beta key for the Counter Strike: Global Offensive beta which is happening right now, and the stupid part was that I was around the Intel booth where they were giving out  keys quite often. Damn. All in all, though, I had a really great time and got to see a lot of great/funny/stupid/creepy stuff. Definitely going again next year.

NY Comic Con - Day 3

Argh, my aching back.

I'm gonna get this post out real quick because I'm pretty tired at the moment, but today was interesting than yesterday. Most of my morning was spent around the Intel PC Gaming booth because due to the jealous I had over my brother winning that Core i7 Extreme CPU, I wanted to win one myself... by entering an Unreal Tournament 3 Tourney. I played that game for hours and felt I actually had a winning chance, but when preliminary rounds started, I always lost by a hair or from playing on a map I had no knowledge of. The third prelim round with the map set to ROCKETS ONLY really pissed me off and I gave up at that point. No new CPU for me. :( At 4PM, it was time for me to get back to work. I got a little tour of the TRANSFORMER UNIVERSE booth and interviewed Laura for more info on the game. The new Jagex engine used to power the game looked great, and they took the time to demonstrate some of the animation process using Maya.

Besides that: I made an ass of myself playing that Black Eyed Peas dance game and took more cosplay pictures...

NY Comic Con - Day 2

Second day down. Things started out more rough than yesterday, though: There was a lot of rain before I got to the center and I had to dredge through two miles of it. With that and the tons of traffic, I missed the live demo portion of "The Secret World" event.

I managed to catch the Q&A session, though. There was one question that people around the OnRPG forums wanted me to ask, and it was regarding why The Secret World will be using a subscription based model instead of going with the trend of F2P. The response I got was: They're going with a P2P w/ Item Shop. Item shop will have mostly cosmetic items and they feel that TSW is a quality game for P2P with all the content it has. And they seem pretty damn confident about it, too. That's all I could get out of them, so I hope that's a good enough question.


Afterwards: I walked over to the event area for Street Fighter X Tekken. They revealed some new features including a gem system and revealed that Rufus from SFIV will be playable. TThey also set the release date for Street Fighter X Tekken will be on March 6, 2012. A PC version was also in development (which I was happy about) and 9 more characters were teased near the end.

NY Comic Con - Day 1

Whew.

Managed to check out the first day of Comic Con.

...Well, just a little bit of it, anyway. I actually showed up late with my brother, thinking there wouldn't be anything to see, but luckly we had 4-day passes so we were able to check out the IGN Kick Off event, which was a concert headlined by a DJ named Z-Trip and some rock band that I didn't really care for.

Big week!

I think it's fair to say that next week is going to a big one for me because I going to NY next weekend to attend Comic Con!

Now, I've never been to convention before, but I hear they're creepy as hell, with all those sweaty nerds dressing up and what not. But I'm mostly going there on business, checking out a couple of booths and doing some coverage on some real high profile titles including Star Wars: The Old Republic and The Secret World.

Could be fun, but at the same time I'm a bit worried. This is the first press event I'll be covering that WON'T be behind my computer screen, and to be honest: I don't know much about these titles outside of the information already noted on their websites, so I better start snooping for some decent questions to ask in case I find myself doing an impromptu interview.

Still, I'm just exicted to be heading back to NY again. Last time I went there was with my brother and a few of his friends for St. Patricks Day, and oh man what a day it was. I'll never forget walking around from pub to pub with those guys, and me getting drunk off ONE beer. Plus the trip back home was hilarous.

Other than that: Still playing around with Dragon Saga for review and will be replaying APB:Reloaded later on.

Battlefield 3 Beta (In a nutshell)

GOD DAMN IT!