So, MAGFest stands for Music and Gaming Festival. It started on Dec 31, ended on Jan 4. There was a party every night except the night of the 4th - So, 4 concerts, each with a few bands. This was sort of amazing. There was also a huge ballroom full of consoles and TVs (and the challenge section) and a large area outside of that with arcade machines (On Free Play!) set up, and then past that was the dealer section. There were also 3 panel rooms, a LAN/computer room, a video room, a Jamspace, and a table top room. So, yeah. There was a LOT to do. At Megacon, a couple years back, the con started to ... lull after a couple days. MAGFest was *just* as awesome on the last day as the first day.
But, you know. I just realized the best part about the entire thing, in talking to a friend about it. The best part was that I felt like I belonged. See the anecdote about Select Start, later. All the people around me thought that was awesome. In the elevators, people would just talk and joke and get along. Total strangers, but it felt like we were all, because we were there and geeks, friends. It didn't feel like a con - It felt like, as the owner said on the last day, a party with all my closest, 2200 of them, friends.
Gaming:
So, I played a whole bunch of fighting games while I was there. There was a Japanese style SF Alpha 3 machine set up, a Versus City machine. I probably played a good 90-100 matches on that. Probably won like 10-15, heh. Still damned fun. The first night I was there, though, I ended up playing like 10 matches against a guy, before someone asked for next. So, I walked over to shake my opponent's hand, say good matches, eg, have good ettiquette. So, I notice he has a special badge, and ask him if he was one of the staff or what. Nah, he says he's here for his website. So, I ask what site, and replied, "Screw Attack". I got schooled in SFAlpha3 by the owner of Screw Attack. Ha. That was great. I actually saw a second guy who mains Adon, which surprised me. He was much better than mine. Other fighting games I saw: Alpha 2 (On Saturn. The Dpad on the Saturn controller really is amazing. My lord. My execution on that sucker was PERFECT), 4, HDR, MvC, MvC2, Capcom vs SNK 2, BlazBlue, and some Japanese game.
Further, to scratch my gaming nerdiness: SHMUPs. On arcade. ON FREE PLAAAAY. I didn't get to pay as many as I wanted, as there were only 5 (ha, only.) and so they tended to be busy. Still were amazing. I also got the chance to play Death Smiles on 360. Which ... god *damn* I wish the game came out in the US. It is an amazingly well done game. It does a lot of new thigsg and does them well. Hopefully it's emulatable.
Rhythm games! I played SO MUCH Taiko Drum Master. It was great. Started to hurt my hand after playing it a bunch, heh. It's such a great game, too. Found out that it has an anime op/end section. I played Lucky Star and Haruhi's op, heh. I also played a decent amount of IIDX, which ... I am terrible at. Really terrible. But, better than at Keyboardmania, which I also tried! Gaaah. IIDX is at least fun, and I'd want to play it more later. Though, FFFFFFFFFFFFFFF. While I was playing it at one point, some kids walked up and sat 2P ... and one of them asked me if it was a ripoff of DJ Hero (Which was also set up in the console room). No, ya dumb shit noob. The game that came out more than a decade ago was clearly the one ripping off DJ Hero. Fucking fuck hell. I ... tried to not show the "god damn why are you so ignorant, know your roots, fuuuuuuck" in my voice as I told them that DJ Hero ripped Beatmania off. Guitarfreaks and Drumfreaks were there, too. But I didn't play them.
Etc: I played Steel Battalion. That was a ... crazy experience. It was actually damned fun. I wasn't very good at it, but I did get to the 3rd mission before I died. I really enjoyed it. It felt really awesome to play the game. It could be tightened up, and I wish the game was a bit less realistic in some ways (you fall over if you turn too fast and there's no jump jets, which would be *AWESOME* with the pedals), but it was great. I wish I could find it... I sorta doubt, though. If they ever try again, for a current console, I'd buy it in a heartbeat.
Challenges:
Another interesting thing they did at MAGFest, in the console room, was the challenges section. About 15 laptops set up with various emulators and SNES controllers set up on them to do video game challenges. There were 100 of them. The guy that won ... did 96. The ones that weren't done were Super Metroid Expert, Super R-Type Expert, Wolfenstein 3D Expert, and Punch-out Expert. Super Metroid and Punch-Out have been around for multiple years and people that are stupidly good at games have played them and tried very hard, but they survive, unbeaten. Wolfenstein and Super R-Type are going to not continue. The guy that runs them finds them too hard.
I ... played to do some, but I didn't end up doing any. I just lacked the patience to do even the ones I knew I could do, if I took 10-15 minutes of trying. I missed out on some small challenges, but ah well.
http://courtwright.org/m8challenges/
If you look, look carefully. Some of them are deceptively hard. The MMX ones? You *can't dash*. Yeah. Ew. And SMK? You can't survive a race if you place 5th. Yeah.
Concerts:
The bands I stuck around for that I liked: Brentalfloss, Rare Candy, Select Start, The Megas. The first, Brentalfloss, I'd seen a bit of, but not much. It's slightly arranged versions of video game songs, with vocals to them that tend towards funny. He was just an over all awesome guy. He had a song, which I didn't record and isn't on YouTube (which, to be fair, this is the first time he's performed it...) called 'At the Gaming Con', which is roughly the feeling of being at MAGFest, and one would hope gaming cons as a whole. That ... you're surrounded by your peers. Be a total fucking geek. Don't worry, there's someone worse. Get excited: Everyone else is, too. I've got more to say about him, later, but that'll be about his panel.
Rare Candy: Guitar, bass, keyboard, drums. They were really good. I ended up buying their CDs. They had a clean sound, and I loved the keyboard that was included. They did a fucking amazing arrange that was LttP Dark World INTO Death Mountain. I loved it.
http://www.rarecandyband.com/
Select Start: They were out of Gainesville, so I had to go see them. And I am SO GLAD that I did. Mostly because... the band layout was 2 flute, 2 violin, a double bass, an acoustic guitar, and a keyboard. Fucking mini-orchestra. It was beautiful. I recorded some of their songs, too. So, now, a short anecdote about their set. I was maybe 5 feet from the stage, maybe 10 feet from the guy that would talk between songs to introduce them. He introduces a song, "So, maybe some of you have heard of a composer, Yasunori Mitsuda *cheers* ... He composed an album, Kirite-" at which point, I jump up and do something between squeeing and yelling 'YEAH!', being ... the only reaction by the crowd. The guy speaking says, " ... Well, I guess we made someone happy" to which I reply, "Sorry! I just love this album!". And, well, I loved the band. I bought their shirt. If they had a CD, I'd buy that, too. I ended up talking to them their set - "Hi! I loved your set, you were awesome. By the way, sorry, I was the Kirite guy", heh. To which they liked my outburst, heh. We talked a bit about them and Kirite and such. I loved it.
http://www.selectstartband.com
[Kirite, as a note, was an album compsed to go along with a book. I've barely ever seen anyone else know about it. It is amazing.]
The Megas: I don't have nearly as much to say about them. They do Megaman covers, with fairly awesome lyrics. They're good stuff.
http://themegas.com/main/main.html
Other bands: You know. I discovered that I don't really like listening to chiptunes live. Or bands that are entirely guitar. I like the music, but not so much live. I listened to a few Metroid Metal songs, and ... left. They're good, but I just can't get into it, live. I need other instruments or voice, or ... something. Same applied to a few other bands I tried to listen to. Ah well. I still LOVED the concerts, given that I saw 4 bands I really liked over 4 days. Everything can't be everyone's bag, eh?
Backloggery:
So, I met some people that I know via Backloggery! That was pretty cool. I met KasumiBlue and Ashen. Ash normally hung out in the LAN room, and Kasumi normally hung out with me or in the LAN room to play Dissidia (to be expected). And this got me to start *playing* Dissidia, to... dear lord, help me. Both of them were really nice, and we got along. Kasumi and I hit up a few panels, but Ash normally stayed in the LAN room, though we hit up the dealer's room a couple times. They were both very cool, and I liked meeting them both. Ash also worked an 8 hour shift at the Challenges section, that Kasumi and I hung out with her during, as it was from 10PM to 6 AM, so, ew.
From left to right: Ash, me, Kasumi
But, this is why I want there to be a Backloggery meet up at MAGFest 9.
Panels:
Brentalfloss had a great panel. He's a cool guy, and he played a few songs that he didn't at the concert and aren't even on YT. And asked our opinion of the 'At the Gaming Con' song. Further, he got drunk, as a GPX guy just sort of ... brought up a bottle of rum, and poured him some, unprompted. And refilled it. He had about 4-5 shots by panel end. Though, amazingly, about 30-45 minutes after the con ended, he showed up at a piano I was near, and asked if he could play. Despite his drinking earlier, he played piano amazingly, and improvised songs based on the names of all the people around (me included! :D). The cool thing ... I saw him arond at the con, a bunch. Playing games, at the Sid Meier panel, at the closing cermonies, etc. He's just another guy that loves gaming. He's one of us, he just happens to also sing.
Sid Meier was great to see, too. He was very chill and answered a bunch of questions about the early days of his developing and such. Also announced a Facebook Civilization game, which is crazy. He also played piano and sang in the jam space, heh.
VG music name that tune. This was audience entry, but I didn't go up, sadly. I think I would have actually done pretty well - Though, it would have, a bit, depended on the categories that went up while I was there. I knew 4/5th of the RPG category, instantly, and would have picked up 3 points easily (though the 4th would have been reflex, heh). Crazily, Okami went up ... and no one on the panel knew it. What the fleep. It was in the Capcom category, even. And also, a Muramasa song came up, and I was the only one in the room to know it. Yay marathoning it recently. This is where Kasumi and I met, which she would have done pretty good, too.
VG trivia - As hosted by Jon St. John ... AKA, the VA of Duke Nukem. Yep. Video game trivia hosted by Duke Nukem. It was amazing. One of the teams named themself "I'll rip off your head and shit down your neck" just to hear him say it in the Duke voice. I think I would have aced this, too, as I knew ... a large amount of the content. I think the best question was, "In what game did the peasants revolt against the nobles because they had *pause* l i t t l e m o n e y?" with each letter of the last bit coming up at the end at a very slow pace. Which ... apparently, I was one of the few people in the room that got the gag, as the FFT intro text came up ... very ... slow...ly. Alas, though, I wasn't chosen to be a contestant, here, either.
Auction/Closing - They were ... fairly awesome, but can't be explained too well, without being there. Heh.
Dealer room/Swag:
I bought: Lunar: Silver Star (no, I don't have a SegaCD ... but I want to own it), Saiyuki: Journey West (SRPG that I don't own...), a Gurren Lagann shirt, the Rare Candy CDs, and a Select Start shirt. There was a bunch of other awesome swag, but I didn't want to spend *that* much money.
... Whew, I wrote a lot. Yeah. I loved this con, so very much.
To close: WOOOOOOOOOOOOARGH! (which is ... about the right way to write out MAGFest's rallying cry, the Collosus scream from X-Men arcade)
Can you tell how much I loved it, though? Given how much I've gushed?
