New York ComicCon

(yes, I am friends with the goofy guy in the foreground)

The second annual NY Comic Con was this weekend. Aside from all the fantastic comic stuff that was going there was a fair amount of a video game presence as well. I feel that its my job to present that to you, so here it is.



On the first day I got to play the new Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles game for the Xbox 360 (TMNT to the cool kids). The game was pretty solid. It’s a third person action adventure. I really liked the combat once I learned the controls combos came really naturally. My favorite addition was the ability to switch your character on the fly. So you could go from Raph to Leo with the touch of a button. It changes the game dynamic because each character performs differently and ads a new aspect being able to switch characters in mid air to do combos and help get across long jumps. There was this weird running on the wall part, that I didn’t really understand, and I discovered the biggest problem with this game. The camera sucks. I kept trying to move the camera with the right thumb stick, the way you can on just about every game these days. But the camera did not move. It was locked at the same point the entire time. That kind of bothered me. But this was a demo, so I’m hoping things will get better.



Sony had a huge presence. Giant PS towers could be seen across the convention floor. They had a bank of PSPs, PS2s and PS3s. I have said many times that I didn’t own a PS2. That does not mean I didn’t play a chunk of God of War. I did. And I thought it was pretty good. God of War 2 was there to play, but there were so many people by the Sony booth the whole time it made me want to leave. Sony put its booth right in the front directly between the Marvel and DC booth. That’s some balls right there if you ask me.



I did finally get my hands around a working PS3… not one that was turned off. Got to play me some Motorstorm. I have to say, the load times were pretty terrible. I actually thought the thing froze when I got to my car select. Actual game play though was pretty good. Looked amazing, I should know I was about 4 inches from the TV because the cord on the controller was so short. I still think a lack of rumble is bad news bears… oh and the controller felt light. But all this has been said before. As a game, the game seemed cool.



The largest section dedicated to a single game was for The Darkness Well, I’m sure glad that there was text across the bottom of the screen that said game was still in development because the controls were awful and it didn’t look so good. Reading about this game I was excited. But playing their demo… not so much. First of all, there was a WAY to long video you had to watch before actually playing the game. That’s annoying. I don’t want to watch a video to play a demo. Second, I felt my character kept sticking to the walls. I would get close, and it would just stick on there and the shooting was bad too… yeah, overall, I’d say there’s work that needs to be done.

There was also a HUGE trailer that had 8 Xbox’s and the GRAW 2 multi player hooked up. It was really sweet. In front of that was a the 360 version of Guitar Hero 2. I REALLY wanted to play that but time did not permit. Between the other games and all the events I wanted to go to… oh well.

I did play a game that has the potential to be my favorite game of next year. And that’s saying a lot considering Bioshock is coming out soon and Halo 3 is on its way, and so is Mario Galaxy. What game do you ask? Why Monster Madness: Battle for Suburbia of course. If you’ve not heard of this game, well, its actually based off Zombies Ate My Neighbors. It’s a top down everyone on one screen shoot-em-up with all sorts of crazy weapons. There was a multi player demo that was tucked away off to the side that I almost missed completely. I’m glad that I spotted it because the multi player is really fun. The controls took me a round to get used to, but once I got them, it was effortless. So good, I cant wait for this game. Oh and they gave me a knit hat for playing their game… sweet.

The con was also good for all things comics. A HUGE dealer floor and a really nicely set up area for all the events. I went to Kevin Smith question answer, two DC panels and a Marvel panel. I must say I got a lot in for only going for two half days. Manhattanites who have interest in all things nerd should have been there. I can only hope that as the NY ComicCon grows so will the video game presence.

[Editors Note: I put the games I played in bold, not only to gloat, but also so they can be quickly refrenced. I don't know if I will ever do this again...]