EA at TooManyGames 2017
Another exciting time at TooManyGames has come and gone, leaving behind great nerdy moments to retell over and over again. Our annual trip out TMG in Oaks PA is three days of hang out with friends, playing a ton of game, stocking up on merch and making some hilarious memories. With over 12,000+ attendees this year, TMG has grown to be many gamers weekend gaming destination.
This year’s theme was based on the Sega franchise Sonic, and things this year went really fast. From panels, concerts and booths to explore, there were plenty of things to do to that blurred out the time. I had done a little bit of everything this time; did some vending at a table, entered a tournament, and got to hear a few of my favorite bands perform, and cracked a few too many cold ones with the boys.
Booth Babe Work
Having good friends at a convention is great. Having good friends with a booth at the convention is better. This year, I worked a bit at the A Video Game Con booth promoting the soon to be AVGC 2017 (September 9 & 10) and selling our extra games and collectibles. Working the table along with me was Dave and Paul, some of the con heads of AVGC. It was nice to have a spot to meet up with friends, store our loot and a space to dance around in. Literally.
Game Developers
One of the awesome highlights of TMG is meeting a wide range of game developers looking to showcase their projects. It’s an great experience to talk to the developers face to face and hear their experiences about making games. Game development is a time heavy project, but it’s always fun to see some games start from basic demos and become full packaged games.
Pixel Metal
SWDTech Games
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YRo6h4hd9N0
Semag Studio
Inti Creates
Wimbus Studios
Concerts
TMG has a large concert hall to give a musicians, cosplayers and dancers the package hours of entertainment through out the day. I was able to pop in and out a few concerts to listen for a bit, and managed to stick around between all the gaming and panels to snag a few photos and record some videos.
The World is Square
Nerd Surge
Auralnauts
Mega Ran & K-Murdock
@randombeats & @neosonix performing at @tmgexpo #megaran #kmurdock #ff7 #toomanygames #tmg
The Make Sega Great Again Panel
A bunch of my friends were in a panel to do a talk about their favorite sega games and what sega should be doing to get the brand back to it’s glory days. The panelist were Adam Koralik, Shane Luis, Dave Crosson and James Reiner. It was an interesting panel that got the audience talking about their own experiences and which sega franchises that loved to see make a return. You hear that Sega? Make fun games and people will come to play.
Games Too Many
In my opinion, the free play and arcade room is the crown piece to TMG. There are a variety of arcade cabs to play (No quarters required) and fan favoirte console games are set up for anyone to enjoy. It’s also where all the gamers come to challenge each other, and friendships are created and destroyed.
This year, I was looking forward to one tournament in particular: The PuyoPuyo Tetris tournament presented by Geekade and Stone Age Gamer. Tetris is one of those games I play montly when I get the urge and its a marathon session. I was hoping that it would be for everyone in the tournament since most casual puzzle gamers aren’t familiar with Puyo Puyo. I’m still trying to move beyond the rookie Puyo Puyo techniques, I didn’t grow up playing a lot of Puyo games and it was definitely my weakest abilities in the game. Given that I had about 2 months of Puyo training under my belt, I signed up and dropped some blocks the competition.
It was a 24 person tournament, and the competition was pretty tough. The winner of the tournament then had to take on Geekade’s own Kris Randazzo for the title of Puzzle Master of TMG 2017. Something I would’ve like to own, but as it turns out, the Puyo Puyo skills are strong in a few more people that I thought.
I survived 3 rounds, and came in 10th place, winning a gift card and shirt for my prizes. 10th isn’t so bad, but it’s back to the training grounds to get better than that next year.
One arcarde that caught my attention was Golgo 13 arcade cab. I was familiar with the anime series and a few of it’s games, but never heard of the sniper arcade game. Similar to Konami’s Silent Scope, the Golgo 13 arcade game features a series of missions that require a skillful shot from a sniper light gun, featuring a digital scope and almost realistic gun control. Duke Togo is master marksmen, so a sniper game fits perfectly into the gaming experience. However, this game is very hard with a short time limit and a 1 shot 1 kill rule that ends a lot of rounds in failure.
The Final Boss After Party
After a long day playing games, listening to panels, and talking smack to teenages in a puzzle game, a cold drink and loud music is a must. TMG’s after boss party is filled with geeks that want to party the night up and ramble about geek facts into the late hours of the night. In the tradition of the last TMG, I got two cup of Etcho Clear and headed for the crowds.
I snagged a quick pic of both Nathan Barnatt after watching him bust moves on the dance floor. I don’t know how this guy has the energy left to boogie after moving around all day.
The Morning After
Sunday was a still packed day to see panels, concerts and last minute shopping, all while with a slight headache from the night before. It’s like experiencing a convention on hard mode, where HP is low, money is low and you have a time limited.
One of the items I was hoping to get was a Mega Ran shirt. It’s got a Top Gun style font and a the Mega Ran style Mega Man, so I had to pick it up to show my fandom.
I was able to find a copy of Covert Ops: Nuclear Dawn, a game I remember seeing in magazines and resembles old Resident Evil games. It’s nothing special and is a common find, but I wanted since I a kid and its the closes things I get to playing Under Siege 2 anytime soon. I also wanted to complete my GunGrave collection by picking up the second game in the series. GunGrave: Overdose is a cult favorite, and was a bit harder to find when the anime series was released. Again, not a hard game to find, it was something I was looking to collect for awhile. I also learned a bit about retro game collecting and how Sega CD discs are slowly becoming unstable without the proper care at this point. So people who very large collections of Sega CDs should look at for Disc Rot in the coming years. I never owned a Sega CD and missed out on the classic Sonic CD, but maybe a release of a Sega CD Classic would fix that? Every retro console is getting their own reboot, so it’s not too crazy of an idea.TMG is a great event to meet like minded geeks and learn about different areas of gaming with a great community. By the end of the three days, TMG was everything that I was looking forward for it to be. Tons of games to enjoy, making friends and instilling puzzle nightmares into a younger generations of gamers.