Comic-Con Preview: Games
Comic-Con is quickly becoming the Mecca of pop-culture entertainment. The mammoth conference is like the Consumer Electronics Show (or Comdex) for sci-fi and fantasy lovers, film geeks and obsessive comic book collectors. Lately, gaming has become a bigger part of the show as a number of developers and publishers have begun to participate.
For example, last year Blizzard had a large booth where attendees could play Burning Crusade, while NCsoft was hocking older comic book-themed games like City of Heroes and City of Villains to attendees. One of the bigger booths was Activision's; the game publisher was showing off the then yet-to-be released Marvel Ultimate Alliance. However, there wasn't a lot of exclusive content unveiled at Comic-Con 2006 and there were very few hardware PC and console hardware makers at the show.
View the Comic-Con 2007 Preview Slideshow (19 images)
But gaming's presence at Comic-Con seems to be growing. For example, Capcom announced this week that it has an "incredibly busy Comicon[sic] planned - far bigger than what we did at E3!" A bigger presence at Comic-Con than at E3? Say it ain't so, Capcom. On one hand, it makes sense; E3 was greatly downsized this year after being moved from the Los Angeles Convention Center to much smaller venues in Santa Monica, to which only a fraction of the number of people that attended E3 in previous years were invited. Comic-Con, meanwhile, will likely have more than 100,000 people roaming around the San Diego Convention Center, and it's a good bet that at least 10% of the comic-book geeks and movie nerds in attendance will be gamers.
To be sure, Capcom's lineup for Comic-Con consists of some rather frivolous events, such as:
- Lost Planet: Extreme Condition Xbox 360 tournament
- Ace Attorney producer Minae Matsukawa autograph session
- A Mega Man ZX Advent costume display
- Super Puzzle Fighter II Turbo: HD Remix tournament
- Nerdcore Parade with Ultraklystron, Nursehella, Beefy, Ytcracker, the Former Fat Boys, and the Sucklord!
Okay, it's not exactly filled with exclusive, behind-the-scenes previews of anticipated titles like Resident Evil 5. But still, there will be a host of major developers and publishers at the show with some interesting stuff lined up.
Blizzard will be at the event once again and perhaps will have some StarCraft II stuff to show the audience - at least that's the rumor. The game company will also get to celebrate a new World of WarCraft comic book series.
LucasArts will once again promote its upcoming Star Wars console game, The Force Unleashed, which deals with Darth Vader's secret apprentice during the years between The Revenge of the Sith and A New Hope. And LucasArts will also show off its new original title, Fracture. The sci-fi shooter takes place during a futuristic civil war where players can alter the Earth's crust with "terrain deformation" weapons like tectonic grenades.
Disney Interactive will be previewing its new Turok title. Developed by Propoganda Games for the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3, Turok's story has been kept under wraps. But it will once again involve dinosaur hunting in the jungle, of course, with first-person shooter action based on Epic's Unreal 3 Engine. The video game series is based on a 1950s comic book series, which is also called "Turok."
Turok returns at Comic-Con.
Telltale Games will be on hand to promote its highly-successful Sam and Max episodic game series, which just completed its first season. The PC game episodes are now available for download via GameTap and Steam, and the entire Season 1 is also out in a retail package. But word is the series will also make its way to the Xbox 360 and the Wii. Telltale will hopefully offer a glimpse of what is to come with Sam and Max: Season 2.
Starbreeze Studios will discuss its comic book-crossover game The Darkness and perhaps will offer a glimpse of the forthcoming next-generation version of its acclaimed game The Chronicles of Riddick, called Assault on Dark Athena.
Foundation 9 will present its new Wii title Godzilla: Unleashed, which is essentially a large-scale fighting game that puts players in the role of the fearsome reptilian monster and allows them to fight other creatures and rampage through destructible environments.
Godzilla returns in the new Wii title Godzilla: Unleashed.
38 Studios, the new game developer created by Boston Red Sox pitcher Curt Schilling (who also happens to be a huge EverQuest fan), will be at the show to provide details about its first game, which is a top-secret project involving comic book legend Todd McFarlane and fantasy author R.A. Salvatore.
In addition, Sony, Microsoft, Konami, Sega, THQ, Square Enix and Sierra Entertainment will all have booths on the exhibit floor. So does this mean there will be a changing of the guard when it comes to gaming conventions? Probably not. I think E3 will be back next year, though I'm not sure if it will be in Santa Monica (Vegas gets my vote) and I expect it may have a slightly larger invite list. However, it's clear that the convergence between gaming and other pop culture media such as movies, television and comic books is increasing.
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