Saturday, July 21, 2012

The last Comic Con EVER!

The Mayans were renowned for their prognosticational abilities. As they laid their collective fingers on the year of 2012 and said: "this is when it all ends" we have just passed the final San Diego Comic Con.

Or so that reliable source known as the internet says.

Let us collapse the experience into its component parts as they might be discussed more easily.

Hitman: Absolution Those who feared this may be a departure from the series to focus on action instead of stealth need worry not. The level I played felt just the same as past games, an open level with multiple options for eliminating the target. Openly firing on the target will bring down waves of guards and SWAT in the demo level. The murder puzzle remains intact. Advertising for this series has always been a bit schizophrenic; promo images and trailers always display the bald head, suit and Silverballers. A commercial for Hitman: Contracts featured 47 unleashing a barrage from a minigun.

Tomb Raider Lara Croft and I had never crossed paths before outside of a movie theater, so I cannot comment re the controls as compared to previous games. The demo level featured some platforming but largely focused on bow hunting. In my many years of playing games I have killed countless people, aliens and robots but loosing an arrow into a deer then needing to finish it off as it struggled made me feel uncomfortable. Perhaps I simply have a greater affection for animals than people, digital or otherwise. Or perhaps deer hunting is something so alien to any game outside of Oregon Trail that I am not desensitized to it.

Assassin's Creed III This is a game that was not playable at the convention. After some waiting in line I was ushered into a dark theater to sit upon a wooden box while a woman yelled at us for not being excited enough. She demanded we inflate our swag tomahawks and cry out when Connor used his in the pre-recorded demonstration, most of the assembled crowd remained reserved. The video was impressive, as these nearly always are; hopefully the promises of an improved control scheme alleviates the problems I had with Brotherhood.

Archer After waiting in line for roughly an hour and a half I entered the Hilton's Indigo Ballroom roughly half way through a screening of an Archer episode from the coming season. It remains as funny as ever, littered with callbacks and references. Adam Reed, H. Jon Benjamin and Aisha Tyler dominated the panel following the screening, leaving Chris Parnell and Amber Nash largely mute through the proceedings.

Venture Bros Once again in the above mentioned Indigo Ballroom I was treated to the Venture Bros panel. No finished animation was available to be shown but they did provide a short video of voice overs on top of animated storyboards. Once again the show remains hilarious. I mention the panel largely to comment on something I had never seen before in 14 years of attending panels. Doc Hammer called out the audience on their terrible questions.

Panel questions for a movie or TV show often fall into two categories:

To an actor or actress: "In this movie/show you got to play X. What was that like?" The answer often boils down to: "Wow, good question. It was pretty cool."

To a creator: "In the upcoming season/movie will we get to see X?"

It was the second query that the good Doc objected to. He was saying basically people were asking to see the show now, but phrased in a manner to fish for spoilers. His answer was: "You will get the show when you get the show."

Next: Pic post with added commentary.

-CP
"Uma has it."