I had a great time! Too much to see and do, not enough time!!! (I was splitting time between Expo and family)
Always great to meet internet friends in person...got to meet Bangerjay, Pinballpete, Maddog, Bojo, pinghetto, MUSKETD (greta!!!), GaryTheNoTrashCougar, Chris & Melissa from Cointaker, Andrew Heighway, Stan Fukuoka...man, who else...remind me if we met at the show! Gweempose was kind enough to invite me over to his house - beautiful collection...I wish I had more time to play but I had to bail to go to the airport. Great to see old friends again - Lock When Lit guys (Rob & Mark & their dog who almost ate me), Rufer (MNPinball), Randy from Color DMD, PDXMonkey, Acejedi, Fattrain and the box of beer attached to his hand, Trent @Tilt, all the Stern guys, Jersey Jack...I know I'm forgetting people - just too many good people!
The star of the show was the P-ROC area with all of the custom games...working or not, it was just so cool to see. I can (and will lol) critique these games but at the end of the day - I can't build a f*cking game!!! These guys built f*cking games!!!! All of the creators were amazingly nice.
-Bride of Pinbot 2.0 ...I was just like "TAKE MY MONEY!" ...so so so so so good. Granted it was using an existing game as its base but the whole thing just screamed 'LEGIT'...so professionally done, it doesn't seem like a mod - it seems like a real upgrade from Williams.
-Deadpin ...I didn't really get where this game was going *shrug*
-Matrix ...unreal! Again, had a great base game to start with but it really morphed into its own thing. I like that George Gomez signed the translite and wrote "I love what you did to my game!"
-Kugler Family ...where did this come from!?!? What a GREAT playing game! Wonderful flow and loops. I was having a kick-ass game on it and it crashed ...still, super fun.
-Wrath of Olympus ...looked great, but not sure I was getting a great feel for the gameplay...looking forward to see how it turns out though.
-America's Most Haunted ...playfield looks nice & it plays great - lots of fun little tricks in there...but the art & sound have to be redesigned if they want to sell a ton of these.
-P3 ...*cry* ...sadness. I love this platform - but P3 proves you just can't slap a monitor in a game and expect it to be next gen. You need stellar art direction and animation to go with it. Ironically, a new Stern with a DMD looks more "modern" than a pinball with poor art/animation on an LCD.
-Predator ...so - what was going on here? How come it couldn't get going? I feel bad judging it poorly, cuz shit happens...but kinda glad I bailed on this one. Hmmmm. Also, is it just me, or does the "k" in the Skit-B logo look like an "h"? ...and the "B" looks like a mask. I was like..."what's Shit Mask....oh..uh...Skit-B? I guess?"
I didn't play Demo Man or CCC but they looked cool.
Seminars were cool, but aside from MM Remake no huge revelations. Jpop pretty much just showed tons of sketches and conceptual work...I thought we'd actually see something resembling a playing game. Magic Girl and Zombie buyers seemed to be impressed...I felt like I was outside a cult looking in *shrug*
Sad I missed the PBL Party but just ran out of time...saw some video, though. My old Elvis was on a rotating platform!!! CRAZY!
Got to play a lot of WOZ and Star Trek! Enjoyed both but don't feel compelled to buy either yet...but there's a slight Star Trek itch, lol...we'll see.
Didn't buy too much stuff...got a bunch of the Super Bands to try out & some Glow Balls to put in Tron. I prob would have bought some ramps if I thought I could fit them in my luggage.
Took a quick trip over to Gene Cunningham's Anti-Expo Expo. Tons and tons of parts...I kinda wish I needed something ...but I really didn't. In & out in like 10 min.
I had no issue with the Freeplay games. OK, yeah not as huge as other shows but plenty of cool and unique stuff to play. Played Black Belt & Magic Castle for the first time....also that sweet Alvin G Soccer game. Loved Varkon - don't see that often. Each day there seemed to be different games popping up in there, so that was fun. I guess if you purely go to shows to non-stop play, it might be a tad disappointing...but I felt there was so much stuff to see and do - it all worked for me!