Comic Con 2007

Section: 

IMAGE(http://www.gamerswithjobs.com/files/images/Title.jpg)

There are no words to describe the 2007 San Diego Comic Con. Big just doesn't work, and neither does immense or gargantuan. Pictures hardly do it justice, the herds of geeks and nerds looking miniscule in simple digital photographs, but they come close. The only true way to understand the scope of this four-day pinnacle of popular culture is to stand in the middle of the crowds, surrounded on all sides by super-heroes, Final Fantasy characters, and lots and lots of Jedi, and allow yourself to be overwhelmed by it. At any moment, these cosplayers could snap and overthrow the city government, declaring what was once a beautiful California city as a new safe haven for fanboys and girls, a nation unto itself. No force on this earth could stop them. Not even deodorant.

What was once a simple convention for the comic industry and its loyal fanbase is now an international media launching pad, giving Hollywood the quick and easy path to the genre fans. Mere yards from a tiny booth manned by independent artists hoping to sell a few copies of their basement-pressed trade paperback is an ear-shattering monolith promoting ABC Family's new fall lineup, pressed up against Hasbro's impromptu warehouse of collectable G.I. Joe figures and ultra-rare Transformers playsets. On the opposite side of the floor are comic and collectable retailers, companies selling the perfect lightsaber replica for your rendition of what Anakin should have looked like, and racks of vintage comics as large as some town libraries.

Rob "Gaald" Borges and I found ourselves in the center of all this craziness, and the pictures in the gallery below are just a small taste of our experience. There was a lot of excitement for the various panels over the weekend, like the unveiling of Iron Man footage and Watchmen posters, but all our time was spent in the heart of the exhibition floor, getting a glimpse of the highs and lows of modern fandom. Many AA batteries died to bring you these photos. Enjoy.

Click here to see the gallery!

Comments

I just vomited a tiny bit...

Wow, Iron Man looks awesome...did someone get tired of making Ghost Riders and Fantastic Fours?

Flux wrote:

I just vomited a tiny bit...

Count yourself lucky, this is the second day in a row I've lost my breakfast.

Can a new rule be added to the CoC, stating these kind images may not be posted before Noon? I'm gonna develop bulemia if this keeps up much longer. Not that I couldn't stand to lose the weight mind you, but still...

Free Hug threesome, nice.

So spill the beans on Eye of Judgement, already!

Is that Batman someone's cousin? He appears on both the first and last pages.

The Bag of Holding pic is more my style. Simple. Understated. I won't go so far as to say classy.

My eyes! The goggles do nothing!

VicD714 wrote:
Flux wrote:

I just vomited a tiny bit...

Count yourself lucky, this is the second day in a row I've lost my breakfast.

Can a new rule be added to the CoC, stating these kind images may not be posted before Noon? I'm gonna develop bulemia if this keeps up much longer. Not that I couldn't stand to lose the weight mind you, but still...

I'm not all the way through them, so there could be worse, but just be glad there were no cross players.

Montalban wrote:

The Bag of Holding pic is more my style. Simple. Understated. I won't go so far as to say classy.

I will respectfully disagree with this. It is indeed simple and properly understaed, but not classy? I've seen colleges without that much class.

Those hug girls look like they really know how to handle a wand.

Blade's car is frickin' awesome.

And on another note, I'm pretty sure Comicon would have embarrassed me in ways that GenCon could never.

Here's a quote from Tycho at Penny Arcade about his experience playing the game at Comicon.

We only had occasion to leave the booth twice during the entire convention - well, three times. The first time was on Saturday, as after four days of working the floor we were allowed to hold a panel upstairs to the (potential) delight of the gathered throng. The other time was early in the day on Thursday, where we walked over to Hasbro's booth and were startled to find that Eye of Judgement was there, ready to go on multiple kiosks. No-one was near it, I assume because they could not make sense of it. After playing it for forty minutes and then tearing ourselves away to return to the booth, we begged to be shown the game before the show on Sunday. I spent most of the week obsessed with it, modeling it in my mind, considering card combinations that would penetrate deep - sometimes startling myself with my own cleverness.

I would be startled again when Gabe beat me less than ten minutes. I took the second game, but only after a grueling, nearly hour long, mud-encrusted arena tractor pull. Eye of Judgement is going to sell me a Playstation 3 and a Playstation Eye - a card game - further evidence that I am batsh*t loco insane and you should stop reading immediately.

Just about everyone who saw the game last weekend was really excited by it. There were three booths set up in battle mode and they were always packed with people wanting to play. My voice is still recovering from all the talking. Several people came back day after day to play again, and sometimes even waited an hour or more to get the chance.

I thought that was you guys. That's great, Rob.

Rob is a booth babe.

I have a mixed reaction to Eye of Judgment. When I first heard about it, I thought it would rock - like a Magic online, but you can use your cards IRL or online, whereas with Magic you crazily have to have cards specific to one or the other. Then I read that you can't play the game offline at all, which seems a little weird for a CCG.

THEN I remembered that not only do I not own a PS3 and don't want to, but CCGs are a terrible money sink; the $15 I pay to play WoW for a month buys about 3-5 hours of Magic entertainment. So add tons of cards to the cost of a PS3, figure that the most active players online will inevitably be the ones who buy enough to have sets of every card...yeah, sounds bad to me. It'll be interesting to see if they can overcome these obstacles.

Oh, and try telling me that you aren't going to be sick of the battle animations/processing times by your tenth game, and just want to get on with the freaking game already - gamers are an impatient crowd. Maybe there's an option to skip all that, but at that point, why do you need the PS3?

Tycho looks very scared in that shot.

The Kitana chick at the end doesn't look too bad...

wordsmythe wrote:

Tycho looks very scared in that shot.

Maybe Batman was trying to give him a butt pat.

AnimeJ wrote:
Montalban wrote:

The Bag of Holding pic is more my style. Simple. Understated. I won't go so far as to say classy.

I will respectfully disagree with this. It is indeed simple and properly understaed, but not classy? I've seen colleges without that much class.

All I'm sayin' is that if it had half a grand piano sticking out of it, then it would be classy.

Fedaykin98 wrote:

I have a mixed reaction to Eye of Judgment. When I first heard about it, I thought it would rock - like a Magic online, but you can use your cards IRL or online, whereas with Magic you crazily have to have cards specific to one or the other. Then I read that you can't play the game offline at all, which seems a little weird for a CCG.

You read wrong. Online play, head-to-head with a friend, or against the computer with 5 different skill levels.

Oh, and try telling me that you aren't going to be sick of the battle animations/processing times by your tenth game, and just want to get on with the freaking game already - gamers are an impatient crowd. Maybe there's an option to skip all that, but at that point, why do you need the PS3?

There is an option to turn those battles off, which is what we were running during the epic battle Tycho writes about. And you want the PS3 for more than just pretty graphics -- stat tracking, online play, overall cool factor of interacting with technology in a unique way.

If it's not your thing, that's fine. I didn't think it would be my thing either, but it's a ton of fun. I'd recommend you try it before passing judgement, no pun intended. It'll be at PAX, fully playable, and well worth your time.

Shazam wrote:

The Kitana chick at the end doesn't look too bad...

Dude, she's 12. I knew I should have left my jail bait comment on the picture.

When I said "no offline", I should have said "no non-PS3 play". I understand that part of the point of this game is to sell PS3s to a crowd who are notoriously free with their cash, but it seems clunky to have a CCG that I can't play anywhere I want - say, my local hobby store, which might consider running tournaments if they didn't need thousands of dollars worth of PS3s and TVs to do it.

I'm not saying I won't like it - the first time I saw it, it blew my doors off! - I'd just dig the option to play it anywhere.

And I will almost certainly try it at PAX, unless the lines are unbelievable.

You can play without the PS3 as well. Hasbro people kept referring to it as Analog Play. It's a fully-functional TCG, with mana and rules and the whole thing. Why you'd want to play without the camera and the console is beyond me, but I was never into Magic or stuff like that.

I had a great picture of Sgt. Slaughter, but it turned out blurry. That was a blast from my childhood.

He looks a lot like Mr. Incredible, actually. He's all upper body, big gut, with a chin the size of Montana. And then his legs are like toothpicks. And he was in the old spandex getup, just like a wrestler. It was the most surreal moment of the convention. I hope he got a sack of cash.

I don't like the idea of buying cards. =\

Yeah as Demi mentioned you can play this game without the PS3, and you will be able to download the terrain so that you can create your own maps. So if you can't afford a PS3 but you still enjoy CCG games you would probably enjoy playing this game.

If you do buy the video game version you will get the camera, the stand the battle mat a 30 card starter deck and an 8 card booster. They haven't given a final price on what the bundle will cost but from what I understand they are trying to stay competitive with games like Guitar Hero 2.

For those of you wondering how online play will work without cheating, it seems Sony has thought of a great solution for that as well. In order to play online you have to register your deck with the eye, if you have multiples of a card that you want to use in a customized deck you have to be able to show all the multiples at the same time, (there are cards you can have multiples of and some you can't) when you have all 30 card registered it will save the deck. When you go to play online you choose which deck you want to play with and you have to have the cards with you while you play. In order to prevent deck stacking the game will electronically shuffle your deck and tell you what cards you need to pull for your hand.

You guys are off the clock, take off your top hats and but down the bullhorns

Certis wrote:

You guys are off the clock, take off your top hats...

You can leave your hat on, Certis.

I know it's hard not to sound like Corporate shills.

Bring on PAX, can't wait to see the Eye in action.

Gaald wrote:

I know it's hard not to sound like Corporate shills.

Especially with all this money they're paying me!

This seems appropriate.

Montalban wrote:
AnimeJ wrote:
Montalban wrote:

The Bag of Holding pic is more my style. Simple. Understated. I won't go so far as to say classy.

I will respectfully disagree with this. It is indeed simple and properly understaed, but not classy? I've seen colleges without that much class.

All I'm sayin' is that if it had half a grand piano sticking out of it, then it would be classy.

Yea, well, there is that. I still want one though.

momgamer wrote:

This seems appropriate.

If I had clicked that a minute earlier, I'd be calling you out for a new keyboard due to extreme soda spray.