Busy weekend this one. A few words to sum it up ?
Memorable
Meeting
Pain
Happy
Missing
Sexy
Memorable ? Friday saw me heading up to Birmingham NEC for the EGXRezzed gaming exhibition. To be honest, I wasn’t that bothered about the games on show, I was there for something different. (More in a minute !) However … there were a few game highlights with lots of potential :
Wasteland 2 – is an update on an old classic (which I missed first time round). It’s set in a post apocalyptic world and the mechanics looked like they had potential. I was watching people play through encounters in intuitive fashion. That’s what games have to be – intuitive.
Hearthstone was there – this is a game that I’m actively avoiding ! It has great potential for stealing Life !
Kenshi was another post apocalyptic setting game. There’s been a few of these come out lately. Day Z, Rust, 7 Days To Die. Those look a bit rubbish though, I’ve watched semi playthroughs of them and I really wasn’t impressed. Kenshi and Wasteland 2 look rather better sorted.
And more too. Including the Pokemon girls. More later for that too 😉
Meeting ?
Wow. Yogscast are even better in real life than they are on screen. Who are the Yogscast ? They’re a steadily increasing band of gamers who make videos for Youtube. Their primary game is Minecraft, which is a fantasy sandbox survival and building game. What makes the magic is what the players do in the world. It’s what they build, it’s the commentary on the game. It’s the way they have huge fun in their world … and bring their audience along with them.
Watching their videos is a great way to chill out. And I got to meet some of them on Friday !
Yogscast Kim – I wrote a comment on one of her videos (The “So This Is Yogscast” one) that she was the best thing to happen to the Yogscast this year just gone. Huge character, that ability to connect with the audience and absolutely adorable in every way imaginable. Yep. Even in the midst of the Mad Hax Geoguessr ragequit episodes. Kim goes in for horror themed games with Hannah as her usual suspecting victim.
YogscastLalna (aka Duncan) – is the Mad Scientist of the group. You can be watching him build stuff and all of a sudden something will pop up with a stupendous factor of Ludicrous. Or something gets set off of unbelievable craziness. However, my favourite of his videos is the Grim Fandango series. That’s an old adventure game, one of the best of its type.
Zylus – I have to admit that I don’t watch much of Zylus’s stuff. He’s one of the people who works more in the background, making the other people look awesome. I identify with that, I’m one of them too. We’re the little people who make the big things happen. They couldn’t do it without you MrZylus !
Yogscast Hannah – there are a lot of faces in the Yogscast but probably the one that sets the tone most is Hannah. Her highlights include Lets Plays which has commentaries that can get especially crazy. And highly amusing. Never a dull moment. Hannah also does an annual advent calendar series, which I see as a way of giving thanks by giving something back to the fans. She made me buy Tomb Raider ! Which I still need to finish. Also need to avoid getting Assassins Creed games, Hannah makes those look like massive fun. I’m running through the old Mass Effect 3 series at the moment, which is a game we were both addicted to, up until the third game which kinda broke it for us …
Yogscast Sjin – if I was inclined that way, I’d say Sjin was utterly adorable too (I was picking up comments from some of the lady fans around). Here we have a Genius Builder with a soft voice that explains simply and clearly what he’s up to. Unless he’s doing what he was doing in the Minecraft session on Friday – the mild mannered builder turned smiling assassin … I saw what he was doing ! Creeping up an unsuspecting person with TNT, while the audience were chuckling along behind him trying not to give the game away.
I’ll keep watching them for ages. May they continue in the Youtube game for a long time. I actually have more fun chilling out with them as I watch the videos than I do playing the games.
Pain ?
Heavy cramp on Thursday night led to hopefully just a strained calf muscle, which I thought may have been torn. But I could barely walk on it and was on my feet all day Friday. Much pain. But so definitely worth it to meet the best Yogscast day at EGXRezzed.
Happy ?
Happy Mother’s Day to all the people it’s appropriate to today ! Yep. I know there’s a different date for it in different countries. Why do we do that ?
Missing ?
I missed a couple of opportunities on Friday. The first was missing the Steamgirl – we didn’t get chance to tell each other what to look for. I actually thought I spotted Steamgirl but it was someone else. Oops. Hope the person I spotted wasn’t as freaked out as she was looking …
The second was the Pokemon Girls. I had my “Don’t Ask Me, I Make It Up As I Go Along” t-shirt on. Which just happens to be one of my favourites for a Friday subversive t-shirt for work. The t-shirt was spotted … And as I tried to hide behind a pillar, PokemonGirl seeks me out for a peek at the t-shirt. And later on, when I’m walking past that stall again ? I get grabbed (unprotesting of course!) and the t-shirt gets shown off to all her mates on the stall.
So why missing ? I’m still kicking myself there, I could have had a selfie taken with t-shirt (still on me hopefully although I did pick up spares) and PokemonGirl. Which would have been a perfect excuse to pass on an email address to PokemonGirl (with the selfie pic).
Oh well. I never think of these things at the time !!!
Sexy ?
I hope pinging this to Twitter in a minute will lead to someone reading it. But I’ll not mention her again here in case she blushes ;-).
Nah – Sexy is for the car, cos everyone in the family wants one now. I think I’ve persuaded the sister to keep hold of her Saab convertible for a few more years. No news is coming out from Japan but they’d be insane not to bring out a convertible version of my car. They can’t get mine because they need something hatchbacky or SUV to fit the Murphster in and the saloon style of mine disqualifies it. But … in a year or two when the IS-C300h comes out ? (that’s a guess) The Saab should be reaching its end of life …
Yep. Pretty full weekend and there’s a bit more tomorrow. CrazieMob is going to see the next Captain America movie. We’re expecting something special.