The Hopeless Gamer at c2e2 Part 1 - A Summary of Awesome

I'm having a hard time deciding how to write about c2e2. While they're doing their best to expand their way into more tabletop gaming, there's no doubt that the place is clearly dominated by comic books and the companies that produce them. I don't have a problem with this, in fact, I love comics more than a little, so I'm happy that c2e2 exists (especially given its placement early on in the year). If you read about c2e2 on other sites, you'll find a common sentiment that c2e2, as a convention, just works. It's only been around two years now, but it still reigns as the most pleasant of cons. In the next couple of posts I'll be writing reviews of stuff I picked up at the show that specifically relate to gaming. You think superheros when you hear the word "comicbook" but I was happily surprised by some of the stuff we found. Not only did I get some great gaming fodder in comic form but I actually picked up some really great fantasy stuff. NEW fantasy books with new IP's (as well as one of the oldest fantasy IP). For now though, I've decided to dump a bunch of pictures here and tell a little bit about the cool stuff we did.

So first of all, c2e2 is a great place to look at upcoming toys. DC Direct, the toy/collectibles company from DC Comics produces some extremely gorgeous toys including the Arkham Asylum and World of Warcraft figures. I think it's been known for a while that they're producing Starcraft II action figures. These things looked incredibly sweet, so I'm going to pretty much just let them speak for themselves.

I just want to buy about 6 of these marines and run an action-figure scale Starcraft-skinned Deathwatch game. Who's with me? Oh! They also had a very cool Green Lantern prop replica on display depicting the titular lantern from the upcoming movie.

And speaking of Green Lantern, there was a nice little toy display of a bunch of Lanterns fighting their enemies. You get a lot of cool displays like this at conventions, but being a Green Lantern fan, I appreciated this one the most.

Marvel was obviously pushing pretty heavily for their upcoming films Thor and Captain America. Thor's clearly the one being pushed much harder, but Cap got some love at the huge, spacious Marvel booth as well. Anyway, we dug the giant Thor hammer display piece they had, but even cooler was the S.H.I.E.L.D. car with a full booth apart from the Marvel booth. It was a cool effort on Marvel's part and you could get in line to get your picture taken for, what I'm assuming, is to get your very own S.H.I.E.L.D. ID badge. It was a nice little gimmick.

Alas, as I previewed above, the gaming area was a bit barren. I didn't walk into it since it was practically empty (and I wasn't interested in playing a random game of Magic or D&D), but I did snap a quick photo of it. I like the idea of trying to integrate tabletop gaming into the general geekdom, but I don't think this is the way to do it. First of all, the gaming area was off separated from everyone else. The convention is only two and a half days and jam-packed full of stuff. I have a hard time justifying the effort and time involved in going to the convention and sitting down for a game. Call me a bad Hopeless Gamer, but it's true.

And then there's the fact that no gaming company has a presence in the main exhibitors/vendors hall. I realize that space is expensive, but plop the giant FFG booth from Gencon in the middle of the hall full of demo's and new stuff on display, and you're going to draw in brand new customers like nothing else. Most comic fans have no idea about the modern, ridiculously awesome, state of tabletop gaming. Bring in the new blood and grow the hobby! Ah, but I'm digressing. Needless to say, I admire the effort, but am not sold on the execution of bringing gaming to c2e2.

The best part of the con for us was everything that we sat through in the IGN theater a.k.a. the biggest stage of the convention. We'll be doing a run-down of the four different shows/panels we got to sit in on in a future post covering c2e2, but I'll just say that these were by far the highlight of the con.

For now, I leave you with pictures of that time we ran into Godzilla on the elevator. Ah, but he is elusive.