Shaun Musco

For starters, I did have fun at this event. Now since this was my first one I can't compare it to others. However, I can say how it stacked up to my expectations. First, I was a little disappointed there were only 3 new game booths (Global Agenda, Bayonetta, and Dante's Inferno). I was really expecting to get my hands on a lot more games. The staff was volunteer and really had no idea about the show or at least the ones I talked to at the door. Staff at the Press side was very friendly but this is something I expected. I like to see how your average Joe is treated.

I also sat down at the public gaming computers and I was thrown out after 10 minutes, like I was drunk at a bar that fell off their stool; I was press for crying out loud! Maybe they didn't think I was going to review their Game Show? No reason was given to me. I only got a tap on the shoulder and someone telling me I had to leave. There was plenty of open PC's for other people. If I had to give this show a letter grade I would give it a C-.

Eric Musco

So as we approached the Convention Center, I became really excited. This was my first game convention and I was going to be there as a member of the press! As we went into the press entrance everyone was very friendly and helpful, we even got approached by their PR Director, Jesse Collins, who did an awesome job in making us feel welcome. The whole staff at that side was great, they even remembered our email correspondence and knew who we were.

Once we got out onto the Convention Floor I was a little shocked, and not in a good way. We did a quick tour and only discovered four gaming booths! Even with that short setback I loved wandering the floor. I got to meet up with some industry folks who I have had personal correspondence with and it was nice to put a face to a name in an email.

Any lost love I would have from the lack of game companies present was certainly made up by the "small folks" and their booths. We ran into some really great artists, somecosplay folks, a production team who makes their own video game movies, and so much more. It was really cool to just throw ourselves into the pile of "nerd-dom"

With all of that being said, let me just hit some quick positives and negatives.

First, the good.

Global Agenda, those 2 words really could sum up this paragraph. As much as this was a Gaming Convention, the game booths themselves were pretty sub-par. The whole industry representation was really saved by Global Agenda. They had a pretty large booth, plenty of staff members, who were all friendly and knowledgeable! Not to mention they were there representing a great game. Other than that I have to give alot of thanks to the minor players all around the convention. They really made it fun to report on the floor and to just get out and talk to people.

Now the bad.

I only have two complaints. First, the volunteer staff that roamed the event was horrible. We had a girl that we talked to that didn't even know what a swag bag was or if a certain Game Company was in attendance. I originally thought that the second part might not be a problem, but it is when there are only four booths! Also, and this one is a big one; when we are at the LAN section of the event, hosted by AlienWare, we suddenly got asked to leave for absolutely no reason. Now in retrospect, I have discovered that we were being asked to leave because an event was starting in the area and they wanted to clear it out. However, the employee in that area was extremely rude about the whole situation.

All in all I had a blast, I really hope we can more serious players to the east coast events, here is to holding my breath until PAX East in Boston 2010!

Pat Hettman

After checking out the Game Expo on Saturday in Philly, I thought it was pretty good for my first expo.  I didn't have the privilege of going to PAX like  Samm and the rest of the crew did so I thought this expo was a pretty good 'starter' if you will.  I thought it was pretty organized for the most part and all the vendors were really cool.  The guys at Turtle Beach were really helpful and made me want to buy every single headset on the wall.  I had never heard of them before and when I tried on the set and ran around in Halo ODST for a little bit, I thought I was hearing Shaun's console next to me, they're just that sexy.  The people at Hi-Rez were really cool as well.  For those of us that didn't play Global Agenda at PAX, the showed us how to select characters, queue up, etc and seemed to care that people were there to try their game out. 

The only problem I had was at the LAN farm that Alienware had.  The four of us walked into the LAN farm, found four PCs next to one another and were getting a Warcraft III LAN game going on and only after about 15 minutes some dude came over and was like 'You guys have to get up.'  There were people sitting there for longer than that and I just thought it was lack of respect for gamers to let you sit there for minutes and then tell you to get up because there's a line out front.  There was no 'time limit' sign or anything saying we only had a limited amount of time to play their mediocre PCs.  The first one Musco sat down at didn't even work.  Other than that, it was a great experience and I'm glad the guys asked me to tag along for a day of nerd fun.