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MAGfest VI Report MAGfest
was the first convention I attended as a guest. As such, that convention holds a special
place in my heart. Going back each
year as I’ve been fortunate enough to do has always been like returning home. Brendan, the brains behind MAGfest
these days, always busts his ass to deliver a stellar experience each
year. He’s assisted by some of the
most dedicated and unique characters I’ve ever had the pleasure of crossing
paths with. Since MAGfest is not a straight gaming
event, it breaks a lot of rules and conventions associated with them. The emphasis on music first and foremost
comes to the forefront as every night there’s a concert of multiple rock
bands (a term used a bit liberally as these bands are as eclectic as the
music they play) that play a wide variety of pieces from video games, as well
as the occasional pop culture song (the theme song from the Mighty Morphin Power Rangers, as well as the entrance themes for
Hulk Hogan and Shawn Michaels from the WWE stand out). The gaming room, which is filled with
consoles from the old Nintendo to the PS3, is quite simply a gamers
dream. It’s an endless sea of
televisions, each playing games that you know and love as well as games that
you’ve only heard of in rumor.
Basically, if it’s a game that was at one time available in the There’s also a LAN room, but with all
due respect to computer game players, that’s an entirely different
world. Every time I stepped into the
LAN room, it was like walking into some occult ceremony. A hundred faces all looked up at me, devoid
of emotion and with huge eyes, then they went back
to their computer screens. There was
no sound to be heard except the inaudible sound of electricity flowing within
power cables and a thousand heat sink working double-time. Most of the convention, I spent
working at my table, shamelessly hocking my books. I had the good fortune to be seated next to
PBC Productions, promoting their
Captain S DVD. And not far away was
their older sibling in the gamer movie business, X-Strike Studios, premiering their
fifth film, Resident Horror. Fizzman Statues was also there, including a Super Mario
chess set that was too beautiful to be believed. I was seated behind Morlock
Enterprises, and got to be delighted by their own unique brand of humor,
parody, and got to play with the neat stuff they always bring to conventions,
including a Fairy-in-a-bottle from the Legend of Zelda games which I MUST
possess before I die. I also got the chance to meet up again
with two of the finest minds in video games today, the Virtual Fools. I got to meet these guys at MAGfest 2 and
I’ve followed their work since.
Additionally, I got to finally meet some of the masterminds behind the
legendary website OC ReMix. I’ve been a huge fan of that site for years
and to finally get to meet the guys who make it work as a delight. Hawk and Ananth
from Applegeeks
were there, but they opted to forego the table and spent most of the time
wondering around, spreading their nonWindows-based
love. I traveled with them and Dave Lister to a mall in DC for lunch
on Friday, which was pretty much the last time I saw the outside of the hotel
until Sunday afternoon. We got to hang
out a lot over the weekend, which is always a joy for me. Dave’s a hoot and a half and Hawk and Ananth are simply great guys that I think very highly of. The hotel itself was a really nice. The lack of nearby restaurants and
convenience stores was a real problem.
They had two in-house restaurants as well as a hotel shop. Both the shop and the restaurant were
radically over-priced, but the hotel grill wasn’t too bad and the food was
really good. Never the less, after two
or three times, one gets tired of spending fifteen
dollars on an eight dollar meal. All in all, MAGfest is a great experience. If you’ve had the good fortune to go in the past, I hope you can come again sometime soon. If you haven’t been, then you are really missing out. And if you were this past year, I hope you had an absolute blast. Lord knows I did. |
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