So… I know a bit late with my con report, but I’ve been insanely busy since getting back, plus its also taken this long to recover. But anyway, how was ICON? Basically, it was fucking awesome.
This year MK came along for the fun, and as much as I knew that she would have a blast, there was some concern going in that it wouldn’t be worth her time (she’s been busting her ass these days, trying to get Pale Fire done in time for APE, and I feel bad whenever it seems I’m distracting her). I also got the sense that she wasn’t exactly sold on the show either; perhaps I did build up the event quite a bit, to the point that her and others simply couldn’t figure out why I was getting so hyped for some super colossal huge three day geek-fest (I would later learn that the reason Robin ducked out was because I had also raved about the Popeye movie in the same manner, which he for some reason did not end up enjoying). But it wasn’t until around 11pm on Saturday after the sex and gaming panel when it finally hit MK that, besides being a huge nerd con, it was also my place to feel like a rock star, when she declared “Matt, you have groupies!”
- Myself, MK, and Jason arrived at the hotel around 5ish, and after jumping up and down on the beds for a bit (well at least that’s what I did…. sorry, but I become totally gay for free hotel rooms), we grabbed a bit to eat, and arrived at Stony Brook University around 7ish. While standing in line for our badges, I made a dumb little joke to MK and this big, nervous, goony guy in front of us turned around and tried chiming in with one of his own, which elicited a covert “WTF?” look from MK to me, and I knew right then and there it had begun.
And when we made it to the dealer room, Jason pointed towards this vaguely homeless looking guy and said, “Do you know who that guy is? That’s the ROOMMATE of the world’s leading Godzilla expert.” And at point it dawned onto me, “Oh my God, its going to be one of those kind of weekends… the ones that rock!!!”
- What’s makes the show so damn special? Well its literally the Elise Island for nerds. Its a place that many converge upon to escape persecution from the “real” world and to be in the safety of like minded folks, as well as discover something new, in a sense becoming reborn. As mentioned a thousand times before, you’ll find shit there you ain’t gonna see or hear about anywhere else, hence why it draws so many diverse types of characters and classes (literally) of folks. For the most part, it’s a mix of older, more “traditional” nerds and geeks, the ones who are into established genres, like Piers Anthony books and classic Star Trek, folks who have been making the trek to the show ever year since it began 25 years ago (often carrying themselves with an air of elder-statesmen), and young kids who are totally spastic simply because they’re so bored fucking stiffed from living in a college town in the far reaches of Long Island with so little shit to do that any chance to dress up as their fave anime character is to taken with zest. And I’d be lying if I didn’t mentioned that the girls can be pretty damn cute…
Speaking of, one of the things we did was hit a do’s and don’ts of cosplay, which was headed up by the spunky chick who stood out as Jason’s & my favorite handler from the show two years ago. It was interesting hearing advice such as “Don’t get mad if someone else comes as Cloud [from Final Fantasy VII]… every Cloud is different!” and “If you want to show your admiration for someone’s costume, please don’t glomp… a simply handshake will do.” I still have no idea what the hell “glomp” is, and a part of me doesn’t want to know.
- We didn’t stick around for too long; MK was getting tired, so Jason & I dropped her off at the hotel and then made our way to Dave & Busters. It wasn’t much different since our last trip, with the exception of House of the Dead 4 (I was hoping to see Virtua Fighter 5, as realistic that might be). We both gave Ghost Squad a try, which turned out to be surprisingly decent. I gave Virtua Cop 3 another shot, and we both took Daytona USA for a spin, of course. Jason and I even gave Tokyo Cop another chance as well; again, awesome game, but the difficulty is way out of whack. Afterwards we went for the traditional Friday night at ICON trip to Applebee’s; the place was packed and we almost had to wait for half an hour for seats, but someone lit a stinkbomb in the parking lot, so that cleared things out for us.
- The next day, Saturday, is always the busiest; that’s when the place is packed to the brim, and when the majority of the shit goes down. There was already a ton of people waiting for tickets the night prior, far more so than before, and it would seem that this year’s event had the highest attendance ever.
Our first stop was to see the man, Mr. Sulu, aka George Takei talk. As mentioned previously, Jason and I are uber fans of the guy, and I made it clear to the folks who were setting up my speaking schedule that I absolutely had to see him talk. And it was SO worth the wait… the guy has like a million awesome stories (then again, the guy could read a McDonad’s menu and I would be entranced, thanks to his heavenly voice). Takei mentioned how he once had his stinky jogging socks stolen by a crazy fan, but there were no answers to crazy “In the episode ‘Mirror, Mirror’, when Sulu had to shoot those two Klingons, why did your character, who’s supposed to be left-handed, shoot his phaser left to right, as opposed to….” type-questions. Though he was asked about the grilling he gave Governor Schwarzenegger on the Howard Stern show for vetoing the same sex marriage act, which turned out to be a joke; its sorta bizarre how unimaginative hardcore fans can be when they finally have a chance to ask their idol something (though when it was brought up, Takei handled the rather embarrassing question with absolute confidence and grace, of course). Half-way though this one dude who came in late and had to sit up front (behind us). His asthmatic wheezing was a distraction the entire time, but it was golden to see his pathetic attempt to get the mike (he was literally wincing like a sad puppy dog), and his subsequent argument with the moderator who told him that they only had time for one question, but he just had to ask three. To the question “Where’s the strangest place you’ve been recognized?” the answer was the bathroom, at the urinal, which got a very girly “EEEWWWW!!! from the dude. Yikes. The talk was capped with Takei signing his tea cup, since a fan had asked for it during the Q&A…
- Afterwards, I strolled around a bit, since I knew I had a packed speaking schedule ahead of me. Walked around the dealer’s room of course, and even though it was actually bigger this year (they moved the art show to another room), there was less to see. The thrill of discovering some bizarre knick-knack from Japan or rediscovering a long lost toy from one’s childhood has pretty much been undercut by the internet. At the very least, I used to go ga-ga over game soundtracks, but thanks to BitTorrent, I have no need to really buy anything. The only thing that caught my eye was the Star Wars astromech collection, similar to what Joel got a whiles back, which I’ve been meaning to get my hands on ever since seeing them. I figured that I could maybe score both five droid sets for $25 (I was willing to go up towards $30 if need be it). But one dude was selling them for $90! I looked around and cheapest I could find was like $75. So as is the case, if I don’t get something I want for the price I’d like to pay, I just buy something else so I don’t go away empty handed (it’s the classic consumer whore mentality), so I almost got a Mario mouse pad, till I realized that I would probably never use it, since it looks rather uncomfortable.
- I also thought about checking out some of the other panels at the show, but as I’ve discovered in the past, one of the more annoying things about the show is that its big, too big (the whole show takes over the entire Stony Brook campus). There’s a million cool things going on, but since everything is spread out, its impossible to catch it all, so its gets frustrating. Instead, I decided to take pics of some people in costume, including this awesome Captain Planet…
Here’s some girls from Soul Calibur 3 along with some guy from something that I don’t know about…
I’d love to know, it was super nice (for something Nazi related)
And here’s the robot from FLCL…
I would have taken more pictures, especially since there was certainly no shortage of cute female cosplayers, but I would once again be validating all the negative connotations that certain folks have of me (plus, I have a girlfriend and all). Also, I had forgotten to charge my camera before the show, so I didn’t have much juice. But while checking the pics I had taken while on the toilet, I managed to get this one show of something poking from the stall next to me…
- It was finally time to get to business. From 1 till 5 I had Big Budget Game Development, Indie/Small Game Development, Girl Gamers, and The History of Video Games. The Girls Gamer panels was, for better or worse, no where near as volatile as last year’s. Hey, the women in the audience seem to rather support my notion that it would be cool if more women were both playing and making games! I guess it helped that I didn’t bash Hot Topic this time around (I had made a point about corporate America’s parlaying nerd culture and Hot Topic’s Nintendo shirt as a sad example of this… which is also where about 85% of last year’s group shops at it turned out).
Though the panel I was most anxious about was 6:00′s The 10 Best Game Ever Created (in one guy’s opinion). Every year the folks who run e-gaming gives me an hour to talk about whatever I want. The first time I spoke about video game journalism, the second was cultural differences between America and Japan, as reflected in their games. And both were total bombs, so I figured that I would have to really do something that would bring folks out, if not to listen but to argue.
And it worked! For an hour I was able to yell and scream by two cents at the everyone that had filled the lecture hall. I had some technical difficulties from the beginning (I had created a Keynote presentation, since I knew just describing games was not going to be enough, so I had to have visuals, and I Jason had brought along his PowerBook to run it, but there was no VGA cable to be found) but it was quickly resolved with both Dave Goldstein and Dave Quiggley rushed to be my aid to provide A/V support. Otherwise, it simply went phenomenally; everyone booed when I wanted them to, and cheered when I had hoped they would. The games I chose, btw, were…
10. Virtua Fighter 2
9. Mega Man Wily Wars (since I couldn’t pick between Mega Man 2 & 3, I simply went for the best port job Capcom has ever done)
8. Super Mario 64
7. Shadow of the Colossus
6. Legend of Zelda: The Link To The Past
5. Rez
4. Ms. Pac Man
3. Daytona USA
2a. Super Mario Bros.
2b. Metal Gear Solid
and……
1. Tetris
So the obvious question is why isn’t Rez #1, right? Actually, that was the original plan, but I didn’t want to be responsible for a riot, especially since I knew folks were already going to be pissed with VF2 being on the list and not Street Fighter 2, let alone no Final Fantasy game. Afterwards I asked everyone what they thought their number one game was, which immediately became them asking what I thought about them, and again I was able to stand my ground (though certain folks looked as if they wanted to lay it in me for dissing Kingdom Hearts… but I won them back for endorsing fan favorites, like Chrono Trigger).
- Afterwards was the banquet and I joined MK who was in the middle of talking with a guy who hosts a cable access show in Manhattan in which he covers old B&W horror flicks. Then we met up with Jason to check out a panel of sex and relationship, which was supposed to be the spiritual successor to the panel from last year which was basically how to get laid. But this year’s was no where near as meaty or exciting, so MK & I ducked out to check out “Friends Don’t Let Friends Write Mary Sue’s.” So what the hell’s a Mary Sue? I had no clue, and neither did MK till she and Tim found out earlier in the afternoon: its a term for folks who write fan fiction, but insert themselves in the story and make themselves the center of the universe. Like MK’s example, if some chick writes herself in a Harry Potter fan-fic and not only becomes the greatest wizard throughout the school, and manages to kill Voldemort, but gets both Harry and Ron to fight over her. This was something I just had to check out.
The fan-fic panel was… intense. I don’t think I have ever been in a gathering at ICON in which everyone was so flat out angry and bitter (more so than the filk folks I stumbled across a few years back). I know its wrong to rag on anyone’s creative endeavors, and if writing imaginary exploits involving one’s favorite video game characters is the source of happiness, then more power to that person. But I guess the problem is that despite everyone pride for what they do, many are too scared to reach beyond their circles for feedback, since they’re deathly afraid of any little off hand comment from some random stranger on the web who simply “doesn’t get”. And maybe that’s because writing about the secret love life between (insert the names of the two male leads, usually the hero and the protagonist, from any Japanese RPG) is indeed sorta silly, but which they treat as “serious business”, so things are confined in a very rigid circle. And as we all know, when geeks who have been shunned by society gather to form their own circles, the pecking order can often be far more vicious.
And its not to say that I really give a damn about fan-fic, but I gotta admit, I would love to at least take a look at the one crazy chick’s on-stage’s 98 chapter Final Fantasy story which she’s been working on for the past four years. Also, the whole Mary Sue thing is rather compelling if you think about it; Tim mentioned that he thought the concept was pretty niffty and was going to put himself in Desperately Seeking Susan, or some other 80′s flick, for a comic, and MK’s going to do the same, except for the bible. I may even join in; at this point, I’m going towards the BBC comedy, the Office.
- I still had some more panels to do that night. The first was Flamewars and Trolls, which is basically about stupid internet behavior, mostly from, but not confined to, message boards. I myself had plenty of tales to relay from both the Gaming Age Fourms, and Insert Credit, and all the other panelists had their tales as well, but the star of the hour, and perhaps the entire show, was easily Battlestar Galactica Guy.
Basically, this one guy, who I just knew was going to be trouble when I first saw him; the crazy ones are always easy to pick out, because they’re the very first to show up, and they tell you upfront that they have plenty to say, even offering to come up with you, plus they ALWAYS sit right up front in your face. This fellow btw looked part white, part Asian, much like myself, and even wore glasses, but he seemed rather frail and dainty, plus was dressed like Doctor Who. Anyway, the topic once again was people acting dumb on message boards, and everyone pretty much agreed that the best coarse of action when dealing with trolls is to simply ignore them. Which leads to this guy, who happens to be one of the administers of a Battlestar Galactica board (he runs the wiki, hence the name), to tell us how someone kept spamming the boards with nonsense and how he had to constantly engage in a battle of the wits. We asked why the troll wasn’t simply banned, and Battlestar Galactica Guy mentioned how there were no mods at the board, hence why he “had” to argue. Battlestar Galactica Guy was quite proud of the fact that even though it took many months, he eventually “won”, and proceeded to tell us all the witty quips that he used, mostly taken from Monty Python, and even using a cockney Brit accent when paraphrasing for us. I suppose I should mention that on my top ten list of things I fucking hate in the entire world, its people who repeat Python lines. Anyway, when we pointed out that it was actually the troll who had won because of all the attention he had managed to grab, and that’s all they really want, Battlestar Galactica Guy became argumentative, and a heated (and very bizarre) exchange ensued went almost the entire hour, until he decided to walk out in a huff, which happened to be right when MK entered the room; I had advised her beforehand to skip out this particular panel since I assumed it would be a total bore-fest for her. So Battlestar Galactica Guy walks about, saying Python quotes once again, with everyone in the room, not just the speakers, but the audience telling him how nuts he is, and once he was gone, he came back to argue some more, to prove his point of how “you just can’t ignore people like that!” He eventually left the room, but has since become a legendary character.
I also managed to really rile up everyone when I mentioned how a furry had contacted me before the show (no doubt due to all the crap I give furries on Gaming Age) and how he and a buddy, if they spotted me, were going to “teach a few lessons.” MK and Tim wanted to check out some furry film playing later in the evening, which I planned on stopping by as well, and everyone all of sudden had to come along, to see if anything goes down (and I had assumed that if anything was indeed going to, it would be there). Thusly my own personal entourage/angry mob was born.
Next was Gloom and Doom, which is all about how games today are becoming too realistic and depressing, and naturally, I brought up the blue, blue skies of Sega’s, among other examples. Then it was More Joy Than Just The Stick, which was all about sex mixed with gaming. Everyone thought I was full of shit when I mentioned how I had gotten Dead or Alive Extreme Beach Volleyball because I’m a genuine fan of the sport. Surprisingly, most folks in the room were not familiar with Korean arcade game where the goal is to stick your finger in a woman’s asshole (actually, its not your finger but one from a big plastic hand, which is attached to a big plastic ass… though its wearing jeans). And of course, what talk about sexy games would be complete without an explanation of the one game I’m most know for, Jizzmoppa? Which got everyone all hot and bothered to play it… it was a decent panel, one which I wasn’t even going to participate in originally (simply because previous iterations have been… sorta creepy…. but the audience really made it something worth sitting through). And things actually went so well that some kid afterwards asked for my autograph!
- Since it was the last panel, the gang wanted to know what was next. They had invited me to go drinking, which sounded great, but I was beat tired from all the talking. But they also wanted to see me get into a fight with a furry, so myself, MK, and Jason ended up quietly slipping out, to head towards the screening building instead, for the anime dance party. Its always been lame in the past… like a junior high dance where all the dudes are just standing against the wall, sweating some 14 year old girl who’s spinning around like an out of control top (with glow sticks). But we arrived to discover that it had been cancelled (due to a fire!). So with nothing else to do, we all checked out a hentai screening, which is always worth a laugh (though the smell was particularly pungent at this point). Afterwards, there wasn’t much to do except go back to the hotel, but instead of going straight to bed, Jason and I stopped by the dance party in hopes of some food. The pickings were slim, but we at least got to check out this one dude with the awesomest mullet ever.
- Sunday is always the most low-key. There’s a definite “the party’s over” vibe all throughout, which can be sorta depressing, since it marks the end for some folk’s opportunity to walk around dressed like Vash the Stampede or some random medieval dude like its no big deal, at least until next year.
I still had some panels to talk about, as well as some time to kill, so I finally made it to the console gaming room, which was rather blah. All they had was Tekken 5, Third Strike, Smash Bros, and all the other fighting games that anyone can play anywhere else. There wasn’t even a Mugen set up this time around, and I was pissed because I could have been at a Stan Sakai panel going on at the same time (which according to Jason and MK, was totally awesome). Though I am glad I managed to catch a bit of Star Wreck.
Basically its a Trek parody from Russia (I believe). Check this out: Kirk, Worf, and Data (along with another crew person whom I couldn’t figure the identity of, since everyone has jokey names…. Data is called Info for example…. plus its a little confusing since the characters are from various shows) have all been sent back in time to our era and are stuck here. I ended up missing the first ten minutes, but arrived at the point where Kirk has just been on another unsuccessful date, and in a fit of frustration calls up Worf, who’s selling hot dogs, to tell him that they have to get hell out of there and back to the future. They meet up with Data at a bar and discuss that because of a flaw with the timeline (the space program which eventually leads the formation of the space federation, has all of sudden been cancelled) that they may as well just conquer the earth. A phone call is made to their other ally, who I believe is supposed to Riker, who became a rock star, hence why he doesn’t associate with the others anymore. Kirk asks him where he hid the Enterprise, and when Riker reveals that it was sold to the Russians, Kirk becomes pissed. So then they all go on recovery mission; turns out that the ship was disassembled or something, and the technology incorporated into a plant. Kirk arrives on the scene to take it over and force the workers to follow their rule, but they’re all ecstatic to be ruled over and wish to dominate over the capitalists, so they willing help out with the construction of a new ship. Kirk ends up taking with the president of Russia, who is also eager to see the nation become the greatest super power once again, so he hands over a bunch of troops to aid in the take over. And all that is like in just 15 minutes!
I had to head out right before the ship was launched (the special fx bw were pretty top notch, but almost anyone can so some pretty amazing stuff with just Maya and After Effects these days) for my next couple of panels, which rounded out my day. There was Ratings & Censorship in Modern Media (it’s one where a bunch of folks from other programs, such as comics and films, are supposed to participate, but there was a fuck up, so I had to handle it all by myself), The Art of Video Games, and The Future of Gaming. I also had Games We’d Like To Make, but especially after the solo censorship topic, I needed a break, and everyone was very understanding. After my last talk, I made my goodbyes, and brought up to Quiggley how, for talking at so many panels once again, that I should get a belt next year, a la wrestling, and it seems they will be looking into it.
- But there was still one last panel: a print vs. webcomic panel with MK. The previous year had a bunch of whiney web cartoonists claiming superiority over the print medium for various, idiotic, reasons, in which Peter David was able to silence them all (but not happily so) when he described the intense joy and satisfaction of opening up that box from UPS and holding, flipping through, even smelling your book, so naturally I was pretty eager to this year’s edition, especially since not only Peter was back but a few web cartoonists whom I’m not the biggest fans of were at the show, and was curious to see what would go down. Unfortunately, David bailed out at the last minute, nor any of the others whom I expected were present, so it was just MK, some guy who is thinking of doing a web comic, and another person who did his thesis on the subject, but the panel actually turned out quite well as a result. Though the only low point, of course, were folks in the audience who decided to use it as a soapbox, primarily the aforementioned catty bitches from the fan-fic panel. And once it was over, everything was over. We hit the road shortly after 5.
Unfortunately, just about a half hour into our trip, Jason’s car started showing signs of trouble. At the gas station we had to get a jump because the batter had died, but it went out again on the highway, so we had to call a tow truck, and take the LIRR home. But otherwise…. yeah, ICON 25!
