Con Ascending

I'm not gonna lie, the end of 2014 was not a good time for yours truly. While I did manage to successfully survive my appendicitis ordeal, it pretty much left me flat on my back for weeks wrestling with the thoughts of my own mortality. Adding to that I would be saddled with a huge medical bill to pay out by the beginning of 2015. Bringing further stress to matters, my mother ended up having some serious medical issues herself over the course of the Christmas holiday. On top of that, my aunt would pass away shortly after the turn of the new year compounding complications further. All in all, it has been an incredibly rough patch for my family, my friends, and especially myself.

Thankfully in the recent weeks I can proudly say that I've made a full recovery from my surgery, as I'm back to work, and I've seen my bill get dissolved. My mother's health has noticeably improved, and we all seem to be moving on from the loss of my aunt. I opened myself up for commissions online (to originally help pay my surgery bill) and I had a pretty good turnout of interested customers. While I'm still in the process (as of this writing) of getting those commissions done, I intend to use the funds to upgrade some of my hardware.

Things actually seem to be on a bit of an upswing as of late, and if anything else, I can at least say that I got to start 2015 off on a fairly good note with a fun pair of local conventions. The Maryland National Harbor hosted both events which were only separated from each other by a handful of weeks. Of course for those who have been coming to this blog for the last few years, you know that I'm referring to none other than Magfest and Katsucon. While I didn't attend either con in their entirety, they were very uplifting palette cleansers that I personally feel served to get me back in a far more positive state of mind than what I previously had been in for the last few months.

Magnificent Magfest

As per usual, Magfest has once again maintained its position as one of the best cons I attend on a regular basis. The staff is courteous, the hotel is expansively gorgeous, and the activities available are right up my alley. For the first time since I began going to Magfest, I didn't actually go all four days. I only went three out of the four, mostly due to the con's odd scheduling this year. For some reason the four days were not the typical Thursday through Sunday, but Friday to Monday. While not exactly a deal-breaker in my books, it did make showing up for the final day somewhat difficult. Ultimately I had to sit out the Monday, but I'm fine with that considering how great of a time I had the prior three days. Sometimes all you really need is a few days to chill with friends and get in a crap-ton of arcade style gaming!

Nathan Drake is on the lookout.

The games this year were certainly something to behold. A great selection of old-school classics, new triple A titles, and a slathering of incredible independent projects were ripe for the playing. I indulged in my usual fair, such as X-Men: The Arcade Game, Dungeons & Dragons: Shadow Over Mystara, Metal Slug, and a slew of arcade fighters. The two areas that kept me coming back the most though were the pinball tables and the independent games wing.

Pinball has always been one of arcade gaming's most purest experiences in my eyes, and I worked a plunger this year like the tables owed me money! Nowhere did I do as good as I did then on the Spiderman table, which I must say is one of the coolest modern tables I think I've ever played on. After wrestling with the bastard to the better part of an hour I achieved the top high-score of 42,094,215! It made me feel all warm and fuzzy inside knowing that I had demolished the table with a small crowd of about six people behind me cheering me on.

Sadly though, the table's scores got reset the following day, so I couldn't return and bask in my once amazing former glory. Upon trying my hand a second time to get the high-score I couldn't get so much as to break 36,000,000 and the new high was well over 47,000,000. To that wizard who made that score happen on that table, I salute you and bow to one with greater skill than my own. There were other tables I played of course (such as the totally radical and bodacious Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles table!) but none held my attention more than Spiderman did.

Franziksa von Karma whips you into shape.

Ultimately the indie games were where it was at this year. Magfest dedicated an entire wing of the convention floor to these guys and for good reason. These games kicked all sorts of ass! I got to meet up with tons of developers (like the creators of Starr Mazer) and got to make some (hopefully) good connections for a couple of potential future projects.

Besides the business end of things I also enjoyed such fantastic titles like One Ship, Two Ship, Redshift, Blueshift. It's an extremely easy to pick-up-and-play game that is essentially like Pong, but with the control stylings of Ikaruga. The smack-talk the characters provide feels just like the sort of smack-talk players would give each other, with several lines being quotes from other games or memes. Despite its simple premise the game had a level of polish to it that just made playing it feel right. The pixel art was downright impressive, and voice-acting kicked the whole experience up a notch. If you've got a friend to play with, you can't go wrong with a title like this.

Aerobat was another insanely addictive one, having some of the most hectic and speedy gameplay of anything I've played in a long long time. Extreme Exorcism  easily channeled my love for Ghostbusters, while also providing a huge challenge the longer I played. Your job is to hunt down ghosts in a big spooky mansion and exorcise them from each and every room. The catch though is that with each ghost you eliminate, another comes in imitating your motions from the previous kill. It's great Nintendo-hard type gameplay that really gets the palms sweating and you feeling like you've truly accomplished something when you win.

The lone game that kept me constantly coming back though was Nothing Good Can Come From This. My god, this one is almost as simple as a game can get, yet my friends and I found ourselves playing it for hours at the convention. The premise is simple, you're one of two people locked in a room, a loaded gun drops down from the ceiling, nothing good can come from this. I got pretty good at playing this game, so much so that I actually caught the attention of the creator himself, who then challenged me to several duels. While he did whoop me up quite a bit, I eventually did get the better of him in the last few rounds. Even though it can be purchased for the PC, I feel the only way to truly play it was how we did, with a classic arcade cabinet, some joysticks, and a metric-ton of smack-talk.

Overall, the independent games this year were symbolic of everything that not only makes gaming great, but why it has always been great. A lot of these titles tapped into what I like to think is the core essence of gaming itself. What is that essence? It's fun, everyone of these games was without a singular doubt, fun to play, and play for hours on end. Not to bash more modern/cinematic/overly produced games today, but they seem to have forgotten that one of the most important things a game must be before anything else, is fun.

Magnanimous Music 

It wouldn't be Magfest without some kickass concerts going on, and boy did I get to see some kickass concerts! On Friday night Machinae Supremacy made their triumphant return, and pretty much rocked everyone's faces off within their opening ten minute set. I've said it before, and I'll say it again, these guys sound fantastic live, and know exactly how to put on a show. Sadly I wasn't able to get any decent shots of the band playing this year, but trust me when I say that I got pretty close to the stage and felt that rockin' bass in my face!

Powerglove also made their return to Magfest this year, playing a good portion of their cover tracks from their album Saturday Morning Apocalypse. Every time I watch Powerglove live it's an experience to say the least. From getting the audience to dance to the Tetris theme, to bringing a fan up on stage to sing the Pokemon theme Judas Priest style, Powerglove easily stands as one of the star musical attractions.

Unfortunately I didn't get to see some of the other bands perform due to time constraints, but for the bits I got to rock out on, I feel like I got more than my money's worth. I can only hope that come next year we'll have both of these bands in attendance again, as seeing both of my favorite Magfest bands play the venue the same year was like getting a late Christmas present for my eardrums.

The Last Level

Overall I've got nothing to complain about with Magfest. Even with the odd schedueling, this was exactly what I needed in order to get my mind off of everything that had happened prior. Granted, I didn't have anything incredible happen to me (like scoring an interview with Ellen McLain) but sometimes that isn't what I need. For a few days I got to simply chill out with some of my closest friends and game. Hell, for a brief couple of hours I almost felt like I was a ten year old again, just living for the game, and striving to make it to that last level.

Storm

Lady Deadpool

Hipster Ariel

Lady Loki

Miguel of Dragon's Den Unlimited

Storm Trooper

3... 2... 1.. SMASH!!!

Furrys need love too!

Looks like Mike has brought along some friends.

The true Dante and Trish of Devil May Cry arrive in style.

The Prince of the Universe is so cool.

Ms. Marvel and Scorpion team up.

Katsuthon

Interestingly enough this year marked ten whole years that I've been attending Katsucon in some shape, form, or fashion. Once again I only came in for the day, but boy what a day it was. A lot of my old convention buddies (some who I haven't seen in years) showed up at Katsucon, and for a day it almost felt like I was thrown back to when I first started doing the whole convention thing in the first place. It was great catching up with everyone and even reliving some of our old wacky routines (such as bad cosplay bingo with Crybringer, or skipping through the dealer's row with Riftwalker) that we had become known for. While I didn't do much beyond hang out with friends, I did end the day with a bitchin' hotel party where I got to mix drinks for everyone and show off some of mad chemistry skills!

I wish there was more for me to put here, but there simply isn't much to report on. I showed up to fundamentally hang out with friends and somewhat recapture the spark that made me love going to these sort of events to begin with. Despite my gripes with Katsucons of the past, I only went for the day this year because I could only afford to go one day from work. In all honesty, I think this would've been the Katsucon that I actually would've wanted to attend for all three days, but alas, such is the way of things. Perhaps next year will bring better fortune my way, and I can make it a point to bring Katsucon back into the full weekend fold of conventions, but only time will tell.

Tharja

Kasumi

Johnny 2x4 and Plank

Claire shows Jill how to make a cosplay sandwich.

Khal Drogo will rip your throat out the Dothraki way

This group's cosplay skills are over 9,000!

Zuko and Azula come face to face for one last battle.

Batgirl and Harley Quinn were actually selling candy cigarettes.

The Sailor Scouts grab coffee with a Castanic Warrior from Terra.