Australian Gamer Feature

WE PUT THE 'EEK' INTO GEEK

GO3 Report

Brett attends the GO3 Expo in Perth and reports on all the glorious moments from the expo, as only he knows how.

PAGE 1 (Day 1 / Gamers Meetup) : PAGE 2 (Day 2 & 3 / Podcast)

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"Terribles Casino", just off the Strip in Las Vegas do a great buffet. I'm expecting a full review and some very interesting pictures from one lucky Auran Rep very, very soon.

But that's jumping ahead of ourselves, lets go back to the opening address of GO3 and relive all of Australian Gamers glorious moments from the expo.

DAY ONE
PERTH, VERY NICE, AND NICE.

As soon as IGNAU's Bennett Ring ran up to the microphone during the GO3 opening address question time wearing his poorly fitting $14 Target shirt, I knew that this was Australian Gamers opportunity to go two - nil up in our battle for "Super Internets Gaming Champion Site of The World". The man can't make a Green Jelly to save his life and now he was about to embarrass himself and his low hit site further by asking :

"So, I'd like to ask all the panel, what do they think of Perth and do you see it as a potential location for future game development"

To place this in context, a good part of the previous 45 minutes had been spent discussing Interzone, a new software house starting up in Perth and how Perth could be a potential hub for new game developers. We'd also been asked by the Channel Seven Weather Girl / Presenter to ask questions specifically to individual panellists.

The rather dodgy translators voice kicked in on my headset :

"Perth, very nice, not far from Japan, eight hours, very nice, maybe, with government or corporate help, so, yes, its very nice"

My mind wandered, if I could get into that translators booth, knock her out and then take over the commentary then I could change history :

"Perth, very nice, we are moving here to do the port of Metal Gear Solid 4 for Xbox 360, very nice, except port will have extra features to PS3, and be better, because we are no longer making the PS3 version, only 360 from now on, its very nice"

The inspiration to go stealth ninja on the translators booth had come too late, so I reverted to throwing tic tacs at Bennett from behind, trying to lodge them in his greasy hair so they would look to complement his already giant blobs of dandruff. It wasn't until I began sucking on the tic-tacs first that they had the correct tacky texture, at which time my supply of white missiles was dwindling, but none the less I scored a few hits on the enemy base.

Miss Channel Seven finished her awkward introduction, only really having a feint idea of what she may be talking about when she mentioned the Xbox 360. I wondered what her or the Minister for Industry's reaction might be should they be shown the tentacle rape sex scene in Killer 7. Could the Minister endorse Perth becoming one of the worlds foremost locations for the production of violent mutant squid video games with sexual content? I could only hope so.

The lights came up and I contemplated taking the translation headset home. Quickly checking the chairs for dropped wallets or left behind cameras came up a bust so I hustled into the foyer and began hoarding biscuits from the coffee stand into my camera bag. The scab grab was on. A lady was handing out bags of Nvidia merchandise to anyone willing to smile and tell her that the introduction went well, so I swallowed some pride and took a bag.

The Nvidia bag held a useful coffee mug, a far less useful mobile phone strap and a completely useless hand held fan. Perhaps the fan is for cooling the coffee so you can reach into it and get your mobile phone out that you dropped in it by accident when the strap broke? My fan went on Ebay, and bidding is fierce so I urge you all to check it out.

The chorus of disapproval went up around the crowd regarding the lack of biscuits left, and I knew it was time to leave to explore the expo floor for a while, and perhaps change shirts so as to be less recognisable. The convention centre was slowly filling with school children, forced to visit the Careers Expo next door to GO3 so as to ascertain their lifelong future profession at the age of 13. One asked me for some free stuff, so I gave him some free advice "Pay attention in school kid, or you'll end up smoking crack on the street and whoring your bum out to seedy old men". If only someone had shared this information with me fifteen years ago. I also told him where he could score some tic-tacs.

Three phone calls later and I'd found Yug and Matt at the Auran stand. To call it a booth would be incorrect, it more resembling a shiny long blue fluoro light. Some promotion girls for Razor stood nearby handing out lanyards in short shorts but my bag was still full of Kingston biscuits and sugar sachets. Fury, the game that Matt and Yug were promoting looked like it didn't contain rally cars or flying vertically up the screen in a space ship shooting things but I had a quick go to be polite, let out a couple of moans, then pretended I had a headache. I think only Matt knew I was faking it.

Microsoft started blowing up their inflatable Xbox 360 booth next door so that was next on the impromptu agenda. I asked one of the crew if E.T was still inside or if the men in hazmat suits had taken him away already. Then I left because he looked surly. Later that man would refuse to give my girlfriend a glowing Xbox 360 necklace. I started to regret not buying a PS3 yet.

Further exploration revealed a slew of booths not set up, or without power. I thought back to the initial jokes about Perth being backward and not having electricity and sadly ate a biscuit from the supply bag. Perth truly is a city where the majority of people could cosplay as Cletus from the Simpson's just by wearing their everyday clothes and acting normally.

Gary from Cyberkart was one of the few distributors who had his stand ready and power running to it so I decided to see him next. The Cyberkart is essentially a frame for you to sit in while you use a wheel and pedals to play racing games and whilst it's a little pricey it does give you a realistic experience and is a lot better than sitting on the couch trying to balance the wheel on a coffee table whilst jamming large Uni books that you never used behind the pedals so they don't slide away. We chatted for a while before I was strapped into a F1 car to show off my driving skills. As I played a small crowd grew and my oversteering lead foot / heavy breaking driving technique drew chuckles of mirth from everyone. Some video footage of my bad driving in the Cyberkart will be up soon in the AG archive.

It was time to get dosed up on more coffee so I left the Convention Centre for a while and found a Muzz Buzz Coffee Bar. It wasn't a drive through one, although in a strange twist you ordered at a bar that was in the shape of a car. It was someone's concept of marketing and it failed, mainly because it was a stupid idea. The coffee however was reasonable and soon my intolerance to pretty much everything kicked in and I was inspired to return to GO3.

The electricity crisis was still on at GO3. Surely we can get stationary bicycles for all those refugees locked up in detention centres so they can pedal WA to prosperity through free power? How can we be expected to think outside the square when our State is shaped like a giant triangle? One booth that didn't need power was the WA Police Cyber Predator display and what followed was possibly the shortest interview ever on Australian Gamer :

START INTERVIEW TRANSCRIPT

Brett : Thanks for taking the time to talk to Australiangamer.com

WA Police Rep : Thanks for having us.

Brett : So, why exactly is the WA Police Force advertising for more Cyber Predators? Shouldn't you be discouraging this sort of thing?

WA Police Rep : If your not going to take the interview seriously, then your just wasting our time.

Brett : Ok, I have no more questions.

END INTERVIEW TRANSCRIPT

Acting the fool around Police is fun, but being an annoying bastard to in house security is better. I was getting peckish from all the caffeine and part of me wondered what the beautiful people were having for lunch so I decided to find the Convention Centre VIP Room.

For those of you wishing to try gain access to this inner sanctum in the future, I've drawn a map, using MS Paint.

Its not to scale, but you get the idea. Basically, at the main auditorium, go down the small set of stairs and veer left and then right down the corridor. There was security on the door, but I had a plan. I strolled up to the door trying to look as cool as possible, the door man stopped me as I grabbed the door handle.

"VIP room mate, you can't enter" the security grunted

"But I'm Peter Molyneux" I replied

"Your name tag says Brett"

"I'm in disguise, researching a new game type, stealth incognito, it's a god game, like Populous, which I also made" I countered

"Yeah, well I don't have no Peter Moly dude on this list anyhow, so get lost"

It was at this moment that I realised that not even the organisers from GO3 like Peter Molyneux, perhaps its because he's an egotistical know it all bastard who smells like Swiss cheese, I'm not sure, just a hunch. Regardless, the VIP rejection meant my adventures were over for the day, I decided to head home and rest up. Tonight was Friday night, Ladies Night. Tonight was the AG Meet.

THE AUSTRALIAN GAMER MEET
CRAZY CRAP ON THE WALLS

Fast Eddies is a rather dodgy burger shop with crazy signs and crap on the walls. Its designed to be a distraction to the bland food and expensive Coke. Being a relatively public place we felt it was a good meeting point for the Australian Gamer get together, just in case someone was even more unhinged in real life than they are online and we needed help from other people or possibly law enforcement to take them down. A couple of the PALGN guys came along too with an exercise book of notes and I started to regret not having any permanent record of any breaking stories from GO3. Thankfully, there were none.

The Vooks lads came along in the Vooks mobile, as well as a few of the lads from the forums and we managed to "clock" the table size for Fast Eddies and spill over onto another couple of tables. We scored a couple of free drinks, probably because we were so charming and I enjoyed myself except for the World Of Warcraft discussion which left me bewildered as I don't play it. I can't see why we couldn't have a discussion about BorderDown :

"You fly vertically up the screen"

"You shoot stuff."

"What a Top Game!"

Outside I spied on Tetsuya Mizuguchi as he enjoyed a Eddie Burger with Fries. Eager to see if by eating the same food I too could become one of the worlds great game developers I ordered an Eddie Burger for myself, picked out the tomato and left the fries just as Tetsuya had. I then grabbed Matt and asked Tetsuya's girlfriend to take pictures of us. We all smiled for a while before realizing that we couldn't speak each others language so I went for the two handed handshake and a small head bow that I can only hope was respectful. Matt said something in Japanese, the photo was taken and I went away happy.

PIMPING FOR AURAN

A succession of drinking establishments followed and a better man would draw a shroud of secrecy over the actions of our Auran friends. Unfortunately I am not that noble. Everyman has his price but one particular Auran employees was pretty damn low. How low? Well here's the RRP:

$30 in cash
55 cents in small change
A voucher for 25% off a Tee Shirt
A Two For One Buffet Voucher at Terribles Casino Las Vegas
A TimeZone Card with $1.00 on it (all games are now $1.10 or more)
A PSP

With the man-whoring out of the way, our next destination was Ambar, an establishment where the steps down into the club are metaphorical as well as physical. The longest pool game ever (including twenty minutes spent trying to put the money into the table) resulted in a victory for the AG pool team. Elsewhere the Auran grey cardigan was causing endless swooning from the many attractive women in attendance.

Knowing that after the almost non event of Day One of GO3 that Day Two would be massive, I wisely left the venue after a couple of Corona's and headed back to Brett HQ. Tomorrow would be another day.

CLICK HERE TO CONTINUE ONTO DAY 2

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