First blog entry, yippee!

I like living in Austin, but there are certain things about it I just absolutely love. Having awesome events like SXSW is most certainly one of those things. The "Screenburn Arcade," which is a gaming exhibit/show/LAN party, was a ton of fun, and completely open to the public!

I was joined by fellow Texas CAG darthbudge (who took lots of pictures!) at the Austin Convention Center, and while the show floor was small, it was very comfortable and surprisingly not too packed. There was a large Alienware booth that had a ton of gaming PCs running CoD:WaW, Guitar Hero III, F.E.A.R. (I was like WTF), and last but not least, Bionic Commando!

This little event marks the first time the new Bionic Commando has been shown in playable form to the public. Even better, they had free, open-registration tournaments for the multiplayer mode! How does the game play? First of all, let me tell you that I thought the BC: Rearmed remake by Grin was excellent. I had high expectations for this game. After playing it today, I can say that it lived up to them and more. The 3D swinging mechanic is really, really smooth, and the game (which was a prototype build, if you can believe it!) already has a great deathmatch mode. It was a Games for Windows title, so there was a 360 controller and a keyboard/mouse setup on every station. It was pretty nifty.

Sir Budge entered a BC tourney before I arrived, and came in 2nd place. I entered the later bracket, and also came in 2nd place in the finals. Seriously, be on the look-out for this one, it's going to be good. Don't want to rant too much about one subject, but BC felt similar to the BC:Rearmed remake, in a very good way. I think this is the mark of a great pair of products, and a talented developer. Onward!

There was also an nVidia booth that was showcasing these really cool 3D glasses that you could use with any game. I tried it with Burnout Paradise, and I swear, it really looked like the screen was poppin' out at you. It was very cool, and one day when it hits clearance I might consider getting one, just for Burnout.

The Mountain Dew Lounge area was suprisingly well-furnished. For one, it had a full Mountain Dew bar, so I drank as many tiny shots of MD as I could stomach. There were three distinct areas:

* Classic corner, which had an NES, Atari, another old ass system, and various Handheld Electronic Football games (the real ones). The posters on the fake 70s-style wall, behind the also 30 year old TV, advertised things like the original Star Wars, which was a nice touch.
* Rock Band 2 PS3 set-up, which we, of course, rocked out on.
* PS2, Xbox, N64 station, which had a ridiculous amount of games just laying around. Next to this was a similar set-up with an NES and SNES.

All around, it was bad-ass, and it actually felt comfortable to just lounge there. I entered the GHIII tournament as well, actually feeling pretty confident about winning. I lost to a man who goes by the name of.... JEEBUS!

Seriously, I'm not kidding.

How and why this character from my past showed up today (I beat him in a GHII tourney at EB Games years ago), I think I may never know. But I curse the day you were born, Jeebus!

Anyway, I thought I'd share my experiences from today, mainly because I had such a great time. darthbudge is a cool guy, and hopefully more Texas CAGs will come in the future. Thanks for reading!

P.S. Bug darthbudge for pictures!