EGE

Prolly a bit late, but was well worth it, I'll have photos, videos, and more up online tomrrow. Only just got back to Brisbane from Melbourne.

Actually, (just my opinion here, feel free to flame me) unless you were a 12 year old console freakout, there wasn't much to look at. And even then there was no PS3.

I was only there a few hours, and most of that was tied up with the mod comp presentation.

Sorry, just my opinion. :)

Dale

I quite enjoyed it but i kept myself busy doing filming for a project im involved in. As for just walking through i dunno how long it could entertain you. But assuming you wanted to get your hands on as much wii as possible (like 90% of the people there) you could spend many a hour waiting in lines. Some of the presentations were quite good as well!

Yeah I pretty much heard it was mostly handheld stuff and Wii (if you could get close to it) so I didn't bother, did anyone see Auran's Fury thing though? I was interested in seeing how they were going on it.

Well, the eGames & Entertainment Expo has now come and gone, and it's taken a bit longer than I thought to put the pieces back together. To be honest the whole thing was alot bigger than I expected, and our involvement was more then we could have possibly imagined.

To start off with, you can check out my photos (along with captions) that I took during the trip here. There's ALOT of photos there, so if you're on dialup, you might want to take a break from the computer screen after you click on that link :)

You can also check out the videos we took on our YouTube page here. Of special note is the 8 Minute Tour which will give anyone who missed the event a good indication of what was there.

The most exciting part for us, apart from having our own booth with the same retro setup again, was to be able to MC the main stage on the Saturday and Sunday.

We also got the chance to do our podcast live from the main stage with an audience, you can listen to the latest episode here.

I thought that for a first event, it was really quite impressive. There was something for everyone, with strong showings from Nintendo and Microsoft, and Sony giving a keynote saying nothing quite new.

Playable versions of Gears of War, Rainbow Six Vegas, Viva Pinata, and of course all the Wii games, were a highlight. The PC and Xbox 360 Tournaments were a big attraction, and some people won some awesome prizes out of it.

Alot of the other booths were dedicated to universities with gaming degrees, hardware or software manufacturors, gaming websites, or local LANs. I think EA, Activision and Rockstar not being there hurt it a bit, but no doubt they will be there in force next year.

Here are a few quick photos from the event. Look forward to hearing the thoughts of everyone else who attended as well.

The lineups outside initially were pretty long actually

Daaaaaaaaaaaaytooooooooonnnaaaaaaaaaaaaaa. Hell yeah

Our booth

The 'winner stays on' bits were a great idea. There was one for the Wii, 360, PS2 and an Intel PC

The 'bouncing castle' where they were showing playable Gears of War

Quite a turnout

Auran had their upcoming game Fury setup for people to play

We got sonic into our booth to play with himself ... as in, play Sonic 2 on the Megadrive ... oh cmon, thats funny

A fantastic industry panel line up: Michael Ephraim, (Managing Director Sony Computer Entertainment Australia and NZ), Rose Lappin, (National Sales & Marketing Director Nintendo Australia) and David McLean, (Regional Director Microsoft Home and Entertainment Division Australia) talk about the gaming market and their respective companies involvementsYug2006-11-22 17:23:58

Matt and myself up on stage doing our MC duties throughout the event

The Wii section had a constant line, and Link kept a watchful eye to make sure no-one pusehd in

Sonic Wii ......

As you can see, this guy dressed in a shiney purple wizard outfit drew HUGE crowds

Myself and Matt during our live podcast up on stage

The eSports Zone of course had CS 1.6 running most of the time, but it also featured such games as the locally developed War World

Myself and Matt with Vispi from Nintendo of Australia

The semi-final Fight Night 3 competition in the Xbox 360 Zone

Myself and Matt doing the Charity Auction as the last event on the Sunday.

Overall alot of fun, but very tiring (especially the nights). Looking forward to the next one already though :)Yug2006-11-22 17:24:48

[quote]We got sonic into our booth to play with himself ... as in, play Sonic 2 on the Megadrive ... oh cmon, thats funny[/quote]
How could you let sonic do that? a kitten dies every time sonic plays with himself!!!

If you have the budget for next time, a few lava lamps would enhance your booth nicely. Thanks for the quick write up and photos, I was curious to see what was there too.

Rofl! I kick ass at daytona. Great photos!

[QUOTE=JohnN]

If you have the budget for next time, a few lava lamps would enhance your booth nicely. Thanks for the quick write up and photos, I was curious to see what was there too.[/QUOTE]

We were going to get some plants in there, and some other things you'd find in a typical loungeroom ... more stuff to make you feel 'at home' the better I thought :)

But what style of lounge room is the question? This year it looks like a student share house with a TV table made out of milk crates, beanbags and cosoles on the floor. Lava lamps and the likes would enhance that feel.

edit... Oh! your mean plants ;) yeah now I get it. That would also add to a uni student lounge feel a lot.JohnN2006-11-23 16:56:14

I agree, I did want a lava lamp in there but we were pressed for time. Initially we weren't going to have bean bags either ... we were going to pick up a $50 old couch and drape a sheet over it :) Doesn't get more 'student share house' than that!

until you get the dirty plate with baked beans under that said couch, plastic tumblers, egg stuck to the roof, and some random neighbour's cat "adopted" as the houses own.

the bean bags are good, although I suspect for the punter walking past a couch would be more a inviting option.

Did you have any other direct competitors there? (no need to name them if you did)... I know this is 'diry pool' but next time you could employ the 'shiney purple wizard' to stand outside their booth ...man, I gotta stop giving these gold ideas away for free!

Egg stuck to the roof Jacky? what sort of animal are you?

Dammit, if only our booth had a ceiling, I could use the egg on the roof idea!

I don't really think we HAVE any direct competition John, unless there's other australian game / comic / review websites out there ... I know there are other gaming websites out there, and PALGN and tehw00tshow had their own booths too, but most of the online game website community get along really well.

It wouldn't be difficult to fabricate a ceiling for the booth, but you might have to address lighting issues (more lava lamps).

Add to that ceiling some Lara croft posters with love hearts drawn on with red markers.

I was there with anything interactive (wow we really should have gotten shots of our booth, someone might have) and the purple wizard dude was in the booth next to us with the similar dressed woman. I avoided them for so long before the lady nabbed me on my way back to the booth once to try to sell me file protection that apparently makes me run faster in games... they weirded us all out.