FACTS 2012 Convention - Cosplay, Games and Goodies

You can see what I did with my 3DS at Facts here.

In the small country of Belgium, Facts convention is a special treat for the entire country. Where else would you meet a full-fledged wizard accompanied by a ninja on a dusky train platform on a Saturday morning, right next to overnight drunks and a crazy man having a discourse by himself?  I immediately wondered who the regular train goers would consider to be crazier. This would be the scene all over the country, brightening its denizens’ normal weekend. In the city where the convention is held, the streets are flooded with cosplayers of all sorts. Knights, anime girls, army men, Minecraft characters; it’s a sea of recognizable figures if, for once, you’re part of the in crowd like us. To the people getting their morning paper off the porch, it’s a sight to view with mouths agape, as the passing bus seems to withhold a local circus.

This is all the line WITH tickets. The line without is somewhere at the door.

This year’s convention is just a continuation for me, now with more experience. As such, I hope you’ll forgive the more blog-like format, as most things will be paired off between my observations of last year. It hasn’t changed much. Facts is still the place for anime, comics, films, figurines, merchandise and games. This time, I decided to get tickets beforehand and I learned one vital thing: Going later ironically beats the crowds that are already in the building. There was a disproportionate row between ticketholders and people still needing a ticket; to such a point that a young man exclaimed: “Why the hell did I buy a ticket?” At least that got a good laugh. It did get me a chance to scope some costumes this year.

Jade was hot, but all were outdone by this cute girl sporting her Star Wars outfit like a pro.

While there is still a wide variety of outfits, the movie madness and tv certainly has had an effect. More casual people were sporting the best Avengers costume they could buy, while Pokémon and Doctor Who folks fought for the rights of best fandom. At first, I thought cosplayers getting asked to take pictures would eventually get tired of being bothered, but I was far from the truth. In reality, these dedicated youngsters thrive on every shred of attention they get, such as a girl next to an amazing rendition of Mortal Kombat’s Jade. She just walked herself in the picture, whether that was convenient or not. There will be a gallery of pictures below the article to illustrate the convention’s many facets. For now, it’s time to move on.

I once coined the term "Japanorama." I think this fits it well. Smackdab in the middle.

Another noticeable change this year, perhaps in line with geek culture popularization, was a broader scale of topics and a expo hall rearrangement that ultimately had less to offer than last year. The hall with all possible memorabilia and attention points was merged into 1 giant room, which left less room for stands and crammed everyone in the same place. It gets even more cramped when a ton of room is lost on a Star Wars stand, which is slowly losing its majestic stature. More so, an entire portion was sectioned off for Japanese culture, where martial disciplines were presented, along with annoying and unfitting drum music. If you’re in a hall for 6 to 10 hours, you won’t want to hear a bunch of people banging on things every 20 minutes, believe me.

These gentlemen will never know, but I indirectly have a tattoo of them.

There were less notable celebrities than last time, but that just centered everyone on a few, such as Norman Reedus of The Walking Dead. This man had such a drawing that before his Q&A with his Boondock Saints buddy, it was announced that the amount of people could collapse the structure if they were to lean against the sides. Later, a photo-shoot of Mr. Reedus would spread a queue all the way across the building. I gladly fell to this pop culture, since that show is amazing. The new season just started and already produced some golden moments, so I advise watching it. More so, if I could completely go on a tangent, Telltale Games will release a Collector’s Edition for their Walking Dead episodic game that features the comic’s compendium. If you haven’t played the game yet and are waiting for the last episode, we recommend getting this special retail edition.

If I were an Assassin's Creed fan, this would be a great deal.

The most notable change, at least from our point of view, is the slow but steady rise of gaming’s profile at the convention otherwise overrun by anime, then movies and then figurines that costs as much as an affordable vehicle. More stands hold fan favorite items, such as hard to acquire Euro version of Shin Megami Tensei or Suikoden. I even desperately tried to convince a girl to drop her search for Dark Cloud for a shiny copy of Dark Chronicle. Ever the gamers, we couldn’t see past our respective points, as she told me they’re completely different titles. I can tell you; they’re not. Dark Chronicle is the magnum opus sequel of the former. I’ve managed to pick up some titles myself, among which a Captain Planet game I didn’t even knew existed. Hell, I wasn’t sure people back then were so sentient of the series that it received its own game. This is one of these titles that you don’t want to own because you think it’ll be great. In fact, it would probably be terrible. You want it, because it’s a nostalgic trip.

Just a few more days. Check out our coverage!

Still, the same couldn’t be said for the actual game companies present. Even if they received their own hall this year, they managed to stock less games in them somehow and leave tons of dead space. No, I’m not talking about the game. Ubisoft was the main draw, but again it built the entire stage around Just Dance, minus the porn star appearances once more. I checked. The present ladies were all too busy to rile people up to go ridicule themselves on stage. I couldn’t address them to play one of the only 4 demo stands for Assassin’s Creed III. I did, along with other games in the end, but we’ll discuss them separately as this article is too long already. The stage was also used to annoy hype people by coercing people to proclaim their love for the publisher to receive items like a tomahawk. What it did for me is effectively remove myself from that to come back later. They did have an obscure side show for Rocksmith in a corner, but that noise was barely tolerable as well; too bad, as it looks like a great tool otherwise. More so, I skipped the Far Cry booth, as it was just a tech demo and I’m sure you’ve read enough about games that were merely viewed and not played.

That's actually me playing ni No Kuni, right there. Kind of strange to see.

The other side was reserved for a big XCOM booth, where I saw a lot of confused faces and people prematurely leaving their games, with no support from booth attendants rolling up posters. I’m not sure what 2K Games had planned to create there, but it’s nice to see a game with less exposure get some spotlight attention. My time would better served at the Namco Bandai booth, which did make a sizable effort to promote itself. The main draw was Epic Mickey 2, which struck me as odd, since they also had a Ni No Kuni booth and anime is the headliner of this event.  I tried both games, though had to return to Mickey’s adventure, since my first try was met with great “ennui” at its strange choices. I hope you’re as excited as me to hear more about these titles later in their own previews.

So much wasted space and still these folks managed to offer a ton more titles.

The publisher also had a giant section for Star Trek, both the movie and the game. Again, these were hands-off. I’m not sure how that’s supposed to entice people, given these games have been plastered on game trailers everywhere. Perhaps the sheer loudness should catch our attention. It does, but not in a good way. There was even a large section to get a picture with two Star Trek booth attendants, which served no purpose. I’ll never understand that. So much room was wasted on what could bring a lot more games to gamers. A little further down there was a huge section of old game stations, ranging from Atari’s to PS2’s and import titles. That’s how it’s done. So if some classic gaming enthusiasts can do it, why can’t companies follow suit? Maybe that’s why Nintendo doesn’t even bother showing its face there, even if they have a huge fan presence attending the event. I did spot one sad little New Super Mario Bros 2 pod stuffed away somewhere, but we already reviewed that game. It didn’t even trigger my 3DS, which I experimented with like last year. We’ll talk about that in the next article.

My personal haul: Less this year due to less to see. Sorry for the personal boast.

Now it was time to leave. In all, there was much to behold again and I am glad that the gaming section is growing itself into more than just a side attraction to bide time for Q&A’s and cosplay contests. It definitely still needs work and big names like Sega or Nintendo should be made aware that there is a crowd there for them. However, progress is not made overnight. I already anticipate next year’s Facts.

We'll leave you with the rest of the pictures taken across the convention:

I hope they get some sales out of it. It sure didn't look like people were enjoying it.

I imagine him tweeting: "Having a blast, everyone! lol"

The R2D2 building club was back. I love these guys. It's fully operational too.

Magic also had demos, but the largest was Warhammer with a huge stand.

These people are cool. They personally helped with a problem, even if they're huge.

One of the last Star Wars remnants in the halls. But it was HUGE.

A good picture of your mother-in-law, am I right?

I got a gig, man!

Just a figurine wall.

Overpriced controllers for your PC.

If I had friends, I would've loved to buy this game.

Because I know how you guys love your Valve. Did you notice the TF2 above?

Some posters and loot already found their way around the room.

Gallery

Daav Valentaten, NoobFeed. (@Daavpuke)