Robot Claw

The door upon entering, or in this case leaving. As you can see the crowds were large:

< NYCC 2009

A quickly (and badly) done stitch of the floor from above:

nycc09.jpg (click for large version)

As I’ve said many times, the crowds were large. Since it was sold out, it seems impossible they could increase the size of the show without moving to another venue or perhaps booking more of the same venue. Even yesterday, the show floor itself was much larger than last year, plus they had done things like move the gaming tables and stage upstairs.

Every part of the con was more popular than last year, and as the day went on all of the show was mobbed. Last year, for instance, the ‘artists alley’ was a bit of a ghost town, but yesterday even that section was difficult to navigate. The massive booths that the game companies brought with them were absolutely jammed with people, and the Marvel Comics booth had a line that seemed to go on forever for what we never quite found out (a signing? a limited issue item for sale?).

Here’s some random shots of some games we saw:

The first is more a shot of the chair than the game (a flight similator for XBox). The chair was a hydraulic, motion-controlled piece that moved in sync with the game itself. It looked like a lot of fun (not to mention expensive). I imagine if it ever ships it will end up including support for various genres such as driving and flying games. The second shot shows a Yu-Gi-Oh arcade cabinet (‘DuelTerminal’) which may or may not have been an intelligent arcade card game. It seemed to have an eye to scan cards, with which you play against opponents online. While almost certainly an import from Japanese arcades, it was in English so I suppose they may be considering importing them. The last show was of the very impressive (at least graphically) MTG for XBox, which is supposedly available via XBox Live Arcade in a few months! Here’s hoping a PS3 version follows…

Something else I don’t remember as much from last year was the abundance of ‘booth babes’, all of which were happy to pose for photos:

April and the turtles were part of an official booth (she was so skinny!), as were the nurses and the girl in the dark outfit. The pink nurses were promoting… well we never quite worked out what. What I couldn’t help but notice though was the one on the chair never got up, no doubt because her skirt wouldn’t allow it! The shorter nurse in the white outfit gave me a condom after the photo! This was strange, to say the very least, since she was promoting an Aranzi Aronzo book (about cute animals). KLS either snapped the shot of the dark-clad girl too early or late because she posed by putting her mouth up to my ear and her hand on my shoulder. Probably somehow related to whomever she was supposed to be dressed as.

Chun-Li was ‘just’ a cosplayer – but as you can see a superb one. And I included the Wookie photo for a reason. First – check out those amazing Wookie outfits! Secondly, the catwoman (?) cosplayer won my award for ‘best in show’. Her costume was superbly made with a very high level of detail, plus she was just everywhere, endlessly posing for photos or being interview by someone. She certainly looked like she was having fun!

Remember those tattoos?

There were quite a few booths that gave away temporary tattoos, but only two that had girls apply them for you. It’s all in the marketing!

Oh yeah, ‘Mimi’ the dancing catgirl? Here’s a video I shot of her. Watch it – she’s funny!

She’s a good example of the mania of the con. She was dancing at the booth for a store called Organic, which mostly seemed to sell model kits and figures from Japan. We couldn’t work out exactly why she was there, and concluded it was probably simply to drive customers to the stand. There was so much to see and do at the show, that it’s a real challenge for the companies to get attendees to their stands, so the age-old technique of pretty girls seemed to be a popular (and effective) one!

Of course, an arguably more effective draw is celebrity!

Colin Baker was not mentioned as a guest in the guide, or on the webpage. Seeing him just sitting there was a massive surprise! I told him he was one of my childhood heroes and to this day I’m still an enormous Who fan. I also urged him to continue doing the commentaries because he’s so very good on them (and he is). He was friendly, gracious and a joy to meet. Easily the (super) highlight of the day!

Of course the show was riddled with celebrity of all sorts, and not just restricted to the official signing booths (which had people such as Peter ‘Chewbacca’ Mayhew or Joss Whedon. Sitting at stands on the floor we saw (amongst others) the Honky-Tonk Man, Dale Arden from the 1980s Flash Gordon film (the actress of course), some dude from Lost In Space and a plethora of comic creators (Chris Claremont, Jim Lee, Brian Michael Bendis etc.). This guy, as well (another challenge to AW):

Amusingly, Nerdcore had a booth (they make my annual girly calendar). I had a chat with the guy who plans the calendars and urged him to return to gaming (2007, the first calendar, had a gaming theme). I also got an autographed poster from the girl who is February in the current calendar (who is on my wall in this room as I type!).

We didn’t get as much swag as last year, mostly because we were far more selective. This doesn’t mean we didn’t almost kill ourselves lugging heavy bags through NYC because we hit Book-Off and Kinokuniya before coming home.

After it all we’d had a great day, and there’s no doubt we’ll be there for NYCC ’10 🙂