reptilescorpio
Member
Bold is what I would want to see at this point. Arcade Fire put on a good show though.
-
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AusGAF 9 - F*** Off, We're Full (Of People With Different Ethnic Backgrounds)
- Thread starter Kritz
- Start date
Bold is what I would want to see at this point. Arcade Fire put on a good show though.
Planet_JASE
Member
reptilescorpio
Member
That's pretty bad.
Box of Bunnies
Banned
So many heatwaves.
Box of Bunnies
Banned
Note: plurality.
Soon
Ruthless_Barbarian
Member
$199 in Canada now via BestBuy
Box of Bunnies
Banned
Planet_JASE
Member
Don't be. I was hoping for that response and you delivered, sir.
Sorry.
I like you.
Not fucking bad.
reptilescorpio
Member
Too fucking late Potatomoto. The peas starved to death, bought pea-seas or developed Tourette's.
Is that for real? Yikes.Sweet, new Watch Dogs trailer!
....
Oh.
Still gives me a Saboteur vibe. Except in the case of that screen, Saboteur looks WAY better.
Something something cold. dead. hands.
See, this is perfect. I can spend $5 on getting stuff AND protest Volition's shonky PC-support practices by donating it all to charity (and a bit to Humble).
Given that the SR3 DLC and SR3 things mentioned as separate things and I really only want the DLC, chances are I'll have a free code for SR3 to give away.
Actually, I'll probably just give it to Jase seeing as I wouldn't dream of putting anyone else on AusGAF through the hell I went through with that game.
SR2 is apparently a pain to get running right on PC as well (I never tried, played it mostly on 360) but I only tried once, gave up and played something else instead (probably PGR4). So I'll have a key for that as well if anyone wants. PM me and if you're lucky you'll be playing something for nothing soon!
Christ, he still hasn't grasped that "shorter is better" thing when it comes to comics, has he? Or the "funny" thing.
Oh shit, before I forget! If you have PS+ and haven't picked this up yet, do it now before it's too late!
reptilescorpio
Member
BeatTheBomb had 3 copies of New Super Luigi U for $40.88 posted & 1.5 copies of Pikmin 3 for $46.94 posted. What a joke.
Box of Bunnies
Banned
Can you blame them for not wanting to stock much more than that given the numbers that came out today?
reptilescorpio
Member
I guess
I hope Ninty stop their price hold shenanigans in light of how fucked the WiiU is. Get marquee titles into households for bottom fucking dollar. Flood the people who do own WiiU's with cheap, quality games so word of mouth improves and people can see the console doing awesome things.
This is THE ONLY WAY things will improve. People think it's a fucking add-on. Put games in households otherwise people won't understand it doesn't do the same thing as the Wii.
Fucking muppets.
I'm pretty sure every Sega add-on has been more successful than the Wii U.I guess
I hope Ninty stop their price hold shenanigans in light of how fucked the WiiU is. Get marquee titles into households for bottom fucking dollar. Flood the people who do own WiiU's with cheap, quality games so word of mouth improves and people can see the console doing awesome things.
This is THE ONLY WAY things will improve. People think it's a fucking add-on. Put games in households otherwise people won't understand it doesn't do the same thing as the Wii.
Fucking muppets.
Edit: BTW no extra keys, as Dead Island and SR3 DLC are bundled together, as are all the other games. Sorry folks.
HEY GAZUNTA, SOON EVERYONE (who has XBL gold) WILL HAVE THE AWESOMENESS OF CRACKDOWN THRUST UPON THEM.
I know, right? I enjoyed the shit out of the chips that were around last year (I think?) but Vegemite Twisties... god damn. (although I've never been much of a cheese + Vegemite fan until relatively recently)VEGEMITE TWISTIES
This has the potential to change everything.
Also guys, NEW BULLY ON THE CARDS? I hear it's based on Jase's childhood, and they've flipped the series on it's head as you play a kid who just gets bullied *constantly*.
VEGEMITE TWISTIES
This has the potential to change everything.
Holy shit. Those chips were rad and only made better by the fact Coles kept selling them for $1 per packet.
Jables Swan
Member
VEGEMITE TWISTIES
This has the potential to change everything.
I don't know how I feel about this. My son would love them though.
reptilescorpio
Member
FFS. Forgot to record the new Offspring episode tonight for the wife as the son was being a handful. Fucking episode has been up for streaming on their website since Monday. Lets you watch it on PC but running it on Chrome for some reason they block it. Even forcing regular website mode it is blocked.
WHY
WHY THE FUCK WHY
ALSO COME ON GOOGLE LET ME INSTALL EXTENSIONS ON MOBILE CHROME
WHY
WHY THE FUCK WHY
ALSO COME ON GOOGLE LET ME INSTALL EXTENSIONS ON MOBILE CHROME
Have yet to taste Vegemite Twisties - Tomorrow is the day.
-
PAX Thoughts:
The PAX Survey went up this week, and now that we've had time to digest it I thought I'd share my thoughts on it.
PAX, in it's current form, is a reasonably well organised event that partially succeeds in all the facets of nerd culture it tries to cover. The event knows its audience and caters to them well.
That said - I don't think the event is for me and I doubt I will attend future PAX's. Despite playing a lot of video games, I don't identify with nerd culture. Aperture Science backpacks; Gameboy iPhone covers; recent internet meme t-shirts; Chiptunes; collectable anime statuettes and all that fluff just aint for me.
At its core PAX Australia tries to hit all the same beats as its American predecessors. However, from talking to attendees of US PAX events, PAX Aus doesn't heat those beats as strongly. At the American PAX events there's (supposedly) all the same things, just more of them: bigger gaming areas with shorter lines, larger exhibition halls with shorter lines, more talks/seminars with shorter lines, more tabletop facilities with shorter lines.
The real challenge for an event like PAX is satisfying the niche-interest attendees as well as the generalists who want a taste of everything. There is a lot to do at PAX (provided you can endure the long lines) and one person's experience could have been completely different to anothers. For competitive gamers, their entire weekend may well have been spent in front of their PC or leaning over a tabletop wargame, and that may well have been the entire sphere of their experience at PAX.
For thousands of people, PAX Aus was likely Christmas in July. There's probably some kid out there who spent hours in line playing 3DS games or Magic: The Gathering whilst waiting for an Omegathon event and for him that was probably the best thing ever.
The event organisers achieved what they set out to do largely without a hitch, but as a first-run event, PAX 2013 can be improved on vastly for next year.
But for po-faced old me, PAX couldn't keep me entertained for a full day. The prospect of waiting in long lines for talks that I only have cursory interest in is completely unappealing. I'm thrilled I got to see Ron Gilbert (we were also very lucky to get in) but there is no fucking way I'm gonna spend a large chunk of my day waiting to sit in front of Microsoft and have them sell me their stupid product.
What was my weekend at PAX like?
Fri: Arrived for the opening, waited in line. Met a few AusGAF faces amongst the throng and went immediately to the Ron Gilbert Keynote. Enjoyed Ron and stuck around for the Q&A session which I found incredibly awkward. Wandered around, scoped out the whole venue, tried to attend a talk or two, played a boardgame.
Sat: Tried to attend a few talks. Gave up completely by lunch. Played board games for the remainder of the afternoon.
Sun: Considered not attending. Arrived anyway and went immediately to board games where we remained for 7 hours. We'd given up hope of being able to do anything else so invested our time in something we knew would be fun.
Highlights for me were:
- Ron Gilbert's talk. Apart from a Gabe and Tycho Q&A (immediately following Ron), that was the only talk I was able to attend.
- Gazunta calling me an arsehole to my face.
- Sitting next to evlcookie, someone I've been talking to for YEARS online, introducing myself, not hearing his name right, and then having to re-introduce myself once I realised who he was, then shooting off a rambling tirade of apologies and thankyous for my general cuntiness and his giving of free Steam games. Thanks evlcookie, sorry evlcookie.
- Playing 'Spot the Neckbeard'. There are no winners in 'Spot the Neckbeard', only losers. Hint: the losers are the ones with Neckbeards.
- Realising (too late) that booze could be very easily smuggled into PAX
- Hitting the piss with Mar_, Shaneus and Agyar. I'd never met Mar_ before and he is a quality drinking teammate. The four of us chatted like we'd known each other for ages. Yes, that night was probably my favourite thing.
- Paying $45 for lunch. Oh no, that was my LEAST favourite thing.
- Playing Lunar Flight.
- Playing Lunar Flight on the Oculus Rift.
- Meeting the guy who mad Lunar Flight.
- Telling the guy who made Lunar Flight that he made a cool cool game and that I love it and play it all the time.
- Scaring the guy who made Lunar Flight.
- Making fun of Reptilescorpio for being an old man and a dad and for being soft when we wanted to hit the pubs.
- Reptilescorpio calling me an arsehole to my face.
- Confusing Ridonckulous with the Maitre D' of the restaurant, giving him all the food money, and then leaving the restaurant.
- Pitching my new game idea to Gazunta: 'Hooker Butcher'. It's a video game about murdering, dismembering and disposing of prostitutes. Gaz you should totally make it.
- Food options were actually pretty good, despite being expensive. If you're a cheeto-fingered fatshit who wants to subsist on wedges all day, then PAX has got you covered. If you want to eat something that won't immediately block your left ventricle with lard, then there are ample food options available. Good on you PAX for having decent food options, albeit overpriced.
Crappy things:
- Rain
- Cold temperatures
- Long lines for everything. We're talking ONE TO TWO HOUR WAITS HOLY CRAP.
- Transportation clusterfuck on Friday night.
- People I don't know holding my arm and patting me on the back. Stop. Please stop. Don't do that it's weird.
- Not enough boardgame tables.
One thing I'm not happy doing is paying to receive marketing material. That's what the exhibition hall was: a big hall full of advertisements. EB Games is essentially the same thing, and neither PAX nor EB Games Expo offer sufficient early-play or preview material, or opportunities for non-press to talk directly with game developers. If you want ads, go to Gametrailers.com. The Nintendo booth was pretty good, but that was about it.
Overall, I'm happy I went. I got to meet a lot of AusGAF people, it was a good excuse to visit Melbourne, but it wasn't really an optimal use of my time.
Was great to have met some of you and am happy to catch up whenever I'm in Melbourne.
-
PAX Thoughts:
The PAX Survey went up this week, and now that we've had time to digest it I thought I'd share my thoughts on it.
PAX, in it's current form, is a reasonably well organised event that partially succeeds in all the facets of nerd culture it tries to cover. The event knows its audience and caters to them well.
That said - I don't think the event is for me and I doubt I will attend future PAX's. Despite playing a lot of video games, I don't identify with nerd culture. Aperture Science backpacks; Gameboy iPhone covers; recent internet meme t-shirts; Chiptunes; collectable anime statuettes and all that fluff just aint for me.
At its core PAX Australia tries to hit all the same beats as its American predecessors. However, from talking to attendees of US PAX events, PAX Aus doesn't heat those beats as strongly. At the American PAX events there's (supposedly) all the same things, just more of them: bigger gaming areas with shorter lines, larger exhibition halls with shorter lines, more talks/seminars with shorter lines, more tabletop facilities with shorter lines.
The real challenge for an event like PAX is satisfying the niche-interest attendees as well as the generalists who want a taste of everything. There is a lot to do at PAX (provided you can endure the long lines) and one person's experience could have been completely different to anothers. For competitive gamers, their entire weekend may well have been spent in front of their PC or leaning over a tabletop wargame, and that may well have been the entire sphere of their experience at PAX.
For thousands of people, PAX Aus was likely Christmas in July. There's probably some kid out there who spent hours in line playing 3DS games or Magic: The Gathering whilst waiting for an Omegathon event and for him that was probably the best thing ever.
The event organisers achieved what they set out to do largely without a hitch, but as a first-run event, PAX 2013 can be improved on vastly for next year.
But for po-faced old me, PAX couldn't keep me entertained for a full day. The prospect of waiting in long lines for talks that I only have cursory interest in is completely unappealing. I'm thrilled I got to see Ron Gilbert (we were also very lucky to get in) but there is no fucking way I'm gonna spend a large chunk of my day waiting to sit in front of Microsoft and have them sell me their stupid product.
What was my weekend at PAX like?
Fri: Arrived for the opening, waited in line. Met a few AusGAF faces amongst the throng and went immediately to the Ron Gilbert Keynote. Enjoyed Ron and stuck around for the Q&A session which I found incredibly awkward. Wandered around, scoped out the whole venue, tried to attend a talk or two, played a boardgame.
Sat: Tried to attend a few talks. Gave up completely by lunch. Played board games for the remainder of the afternoon.
Sun: Considered not attending. Arrived anyway and went immediately to board games where we remained for 7 hours. We'd given up hope of being able to do anything else so invested our time in something we knew would be fun.
Highlights for me were:
- Ron Gilbert's talk. Apart from a Gabe and Tycho Q&A (immediately following Ron), that was the only talk I was able to attend.
- Gazunta calling me an arsehole to my face.
- Sitting next to evlcookie, someone I've been talking to for YEARS online, introducing myself, not hearing his name right, and then having to re-introduce myself once I realised who he was, then shooting off a rambling tirade of apologies and thankyous for my general cuntiness and his giving of free Steam games. Thanks evlcookie, sorry evlcookie.
- Playing 'Spot the Neckbeard'. There are no winners in 'Spot the Neckbeard', only losers. Hint: the losers are the ones with Neckbeards.
- Realising (too late) that booze could be very easily smuggled into PAX
- Hitting the piss with Mar_, Shaneus and Agyar. I'd never met Mar_ before and he is a quality drinking teammate. The four of us chatted like we'd known each other for ages. Yes, that night was probably my favourite thing.
- Paying $45 for lunch. Oh no, that was my LEAST favourite thing.
- Playing Lunar Flight.
- Playing Lunar Flight on the Oculus Rift.
- Meeting the guy who mad Lunar Flight.
- Telling the guy who made Lunar Flight that he made a cool cool game and that I love it and play it all the time.
- Scaring the guy who made Lunar Flight.
- Making fun of Reptilescorpio for being an old man and a dad and for being soft when we wanted to hit the pubs.
- Reptilescorpio calling me an arsehole to my face.
- Confusing Ridonckulous with the Maitre D' of the restaurant, giving him all the food money, and then leaving the restaurant.
- Pitching my new game idea to Gazunta: 'Hooker Butcher'. It's a video game about murdering, dismembering and disposing of prostitutes. Gaz you should totally make it.
- Food options were actually pretty good, despite being expensive. If you're a cheeto-fingered fatshit who wants to subsist on wedges all day, then PAX has got you covered. If you want to eat something that won't immediately block your left ventricle with lard, then there are ample food options available. Good on you PAX for having decent food options, albeit overpriced.
Crappy things:
- Rain
- Cold temperatures
- Long lines for everything. We're talking ONE TO TWO HOUR WAITS HOLY CRAP.
- Transportation clusterfuck on Friday night.
- People I don't know holding my arm and patting me on the back. Stop. Please stop. Don't do that it's weird.
- Not enough boardgame tables.
One thing I'm not happy doing is paying to receive marketing material. That's what the exhibition hall was: a big hall full of advertisements. EB Games is essentially the same thing, and neither PAX nor EB Games Expo offer sufficient early-play or preview material, or opportunities for non-press to talk directly with game developers. If you want ads, go to Gametrailers.com. The Nintendo booth was pretty good, but that was about it.
Overall, I'm happy I went. I got to meet a lot of AusGAF people, it was a good excuse to visit Melbourne, but it wasn't really an optimal use of my time.
Was great to have met some of you and am happy to catch up whenever I'm in Melbourne.
I'll probably eventually do some kind of impressions of PAX in the auspax thread, because so many of us in AusGAF are on exactly the same page when it comes to this event.
It was three days of uninteresting panels, too many lines, not enough room, barely any attractions on the expo hall worth a damn, too much floor space given to Magic compared to board games and classic console play areas, there was too much lol for my tastes although the people who enjoy lol seemed to really like that stuff. I think I'd have liked some dota repping. The public transport - the trains, rather - were pretty good but the trams were fucking horrible. Don't think that's the organiser's fault though. The venue wasn't terrible it just wasn't ideal for the numbers that the event bought in.
But, board games with AusGAF were fun. Board games with friends were fun. Playing Boxing on the Intellivision with a friend was great. The internal food venues weren't really my thing but there was some brilliant italian and chinese food 5 minutes outside the venue which I thoroughly enjoyed.
I won't be going next year. It's such a huge time commitment, and a fairly annoying financial one too, and there's a lot of stress and planning that went into getting my ass from Tas to Melb (especially since I was on the plane to Melbourne as I was supposed to be in an exam). I really just cannot justify going again so soon.
But, hey. If next year's report is good, if their expo hall looks cool... I'll go in 2015.
Also, totally fine with the event being on during Winter. I'm from Hobart, I like the cold.
Not as fond of the Melbourne rain.
It was three days of uninteresting panels, too many lines, not enough room, barely any attractions on the expo hall worth a damn, too much floor space given to Magic compared to board games and classic console play areas, there was too much lol for my tastes although the people who enjoy lol seemed to really like that stuff. I think I'd have liked some dota repping. The public transport - the trains, rather - were pretty good but the trams were fucking horrible. Don't think that's the organiser's fault though. The venue wasn't terrible it just wasn't ideal for the numbers that the event bought in.
But, board games with AusGAF were fun. Board games with friends were fun. Playing Boxing on the Intellivision with a friend was great. The internal food venues weren't really my thing but there was some brilliant italian and chinese food 5 minutes outside the venue which I thoroughly enjoyed.
I won't be going next year. It's such a huge time commitment, and a fairly annoying financial one too, and there's a lot of stress and planning that went into getting my ass from Tas to Melb (especially since I was on the plane to Melbourne as I was supposed to be in an exam). I really just cannot justify going again so soon.
But, hey. If next year's report is good, if their expo hall looks cool... I'll go in 2015.
Also, totally fine with the event being on during Winter. I'm from Hobart, I like the cold.
Not as fond of the Melbourne rain.
Sutton Dagger
Member
I'm hoping we will get a WiiU bomba price in the next few months, can't see myself paying more than $200 for it.
Edit: I didn't go to Pax but from what you guys are saying it looks like the EB expo has them beat, there are plenty of things to play.
Edit: I didn't go to Pax but from what you guys are saying it looks like the EB expo has them beat, there are plenty of things to play.
reptilescorpio
Member
Woo! Shawn!
ah crap..Ryan's hosting the spoiler show vid...
anyways
Oh yeah I'm like an uncle now, which means I'm officially old and creepy! Kinda sucks that I'm not home to prod n poke a fresh born baby, but oh well. It'll be more fun when I go back for a visit maybe January.
It's also got me thinking I should probably get off my ass and seriously find someone decent...start looking into this starting a family deal
anyways
Oh yeah I'm like an uncle now, which means I'm officially old and creepy! Kinda sucks that I'm not home to prod n poke a fresh born baby, but oh well. It'll be more fun when I go back for a visit maybe January.
It's also got me thinking I should probably get off my ass and seriously find someone decent...start looking into this starting a family deal
What?
Echo your sentiments about everything. Especially the point about hanging out with me. I always think that's pretty awesome.
Fuck it, next year we should hold our own PAX. Except with blackjack. And hookers. Seriously though, I think that would be the better thing to do, should we think about doing something like having one big meetup thing again. Cheaper for the majority, too. Even cheaper still if we do it in Geelong!
Pretty much the same, except I didn't get into the board games at all (although I'll definitely try to make more of an effort to get into them this year). But I came away with a medal for BEST TEMPEST 2000 PLAYER EVER, SUCK IT GAZ AND MAR_ and qualified for a pinball thing. If it wasn't for those things and catching/meeting up with everyone here, then I would've considered it a complete waste. Somehow misplacing my iPad AND Android phone doesn't help either, but eh, they weren't that painful to be honest.
Ruthless_Barbarian
Member
+1 for Geelong.
Damn good post Bern and thanks for reminding me about your gold game idea
Fffffuuuuck I wish I had time to write an equally detailed bunch of thoughts on PAX but I've spent an entire night making this comic about Mike Tyson's Punch Out.
Need more tiiiiime
Fffffuuuuck I wish I had time to write an equally detailed bunch of thoughts on PAX but I've spent an entire night making this comic about Mike Tyson's Punch Out.
Need more tiiiiime
reptilescorpio
Member
Don't make your hobby your day job!
You all played Colossatron right guys?
My PAXAUS experience wasn't particulary good either.
Started off on the wrong foot entirely. Our 10:40AM Flight from Brisbane to Melbourne was delayed by 5 hours. What a bloody mess! Me and my mates ended up doing a pub crawl through the Airport!
Thankfully, the Apartments @ Docklands where we stayed were really great. Nice view, well kept, everything was in order. Great place to stay!
Went Friday and Saturday, didn't even bother with Saturday (went to meet my Grandparent instead). It was fucking freezing the whole time even with my winter clothes.
Getting home on Friday was a complete shitfest (Apparently cabbies are all jerks and don't pick people up?) and eventually went home on the Train after waiting in the rain for an hour.
Friday I went to the Halfbrick show (naturally, as the other hall was completely full anyway), saw a couple of games, caught up with a few other guys, didn't end up playing too much.
Sunday was probably my best day. I tried the Oculus Rift HD after a 1/2 hour wait and honestly feel pretty flat about the whole thing after so many people saying it was amazeballs. Better than the Alienware booth on the Friday that had the regular Oculus Rift on show, which was plugged into a bad laptop, and they had a car demo set up that was on the lowest settings, so it ran at 10fps and looked worse than a N64 game. Bleh. The Oculus HD LOOKED far better, but it didn't really wow me at all.
Sunday I also saw two panels - the Xbox One thing and the Jeff Cannata talk. The Xbox One thing actually wasn't too bad, they showed off the Kinect 2 a lot and compared to the original it's pretty amazing. The 2N1T talk was pretty good to see his new show, but his talk was also with a Hyper guy and some other dude, Apparenlty Jeff & Ryan from Giant Bomb were going to be there for him, but well.. you know.
Probably my highlight (outside of the sweet Halfbrick booth) was the Nintendo Booth. 3DSs everywhere, great demos of Pikmin 3 and Super Mario 3D World. Want to buy a Wii U now (assuming a Price Drop is around the corner)
Lowpoint is basically the other guys - Sony and Microsoft. Seriously, not a fucking thing to do with the PlayStation at this whole thing. Not PS3, Not PS4, not Vita. Seriously, after a big-ass Nintendo booth, Sony couldn't even do anything? Microsoft didn't have a booth either, just a corner where you could take a picture of the Xbox One? What a shit show.
Also kind of disappointed with the Indies shown there. As a guy who finished and purchased every puzzle in Puzzle Retreat, I have zero interest in Voxel Agent's Toy Mania. It kind of looked bad and wasn't particularly fun. I really like the idea behind Defiant Development's Hand of Fate with the card system for levels and going through battles, but the battles themselves were just another bad 3rd person action game, which I've seen a million of on XBLA the past year or so. Maybe we'll see something more in the future.
Another issue - stupid Yuppy Melbourne not letting us into pubs because we were "too casual". We ended up going to the James Squire Hotel at the end of the Docklands (where we were staying) three of the four nights we were there. Ended up making mates with the owner, who kept us company several hours after they were meant to close!
Not sure if I'd go next year. One of the things I regret was my lack of networking. Didn't really chat with many developers or figure out what was going on afterwards. Wanted to get into some dev parties or something.
My PAXAUS experience wasn't particulary good either.
Started off on the wrong foot entirely. Our 10:40AM Flight from Brisbane to Melbourne was delayed by 5 hours. What a bloody mess! Me and my mates ended up doing a pub crawl through the Airport!
Thankfully, the Apartments @ Docklands where we stayed were really great. Nice view, well kept, everything was in order. Great place to stay!
Went Friday and Saturday, didn't even bother with Saturday (went to meet my Grandparent instead). It was fucking freezing the whole time even with my winter clothes.
Getting home on Friday was a complete shitfest (Apparently cabbies are all jerks and don't pick people up?) and eventually went home on the Train after waiting in the rain for an hour.
Friday I went to the Halfbrick show (naturally, as the other hall was completely full anyway), saw a couple of games, caught up with a few other guys, didn't end up playing too much.
Sunday was probably my best day. I tried the Oculus Rift HD after a 1/2 hour wait and honestly feel pretty flat about the whole thing after so many people saying it was amazeballs. Better than the Alienware booth on the Friday that had the regular Oculus Rift on show, which was plugged into a bad laptop, and they had a car demo set up that was on the lowest settings, so it ran at 10fps and looked worse than a N64 game. Bleh. The Oculus HD LOOKED far better, but it didn't really wow me at all.
Sunday I also saw two panels - the Xbox One thing and the Jeff Cannata talk. The Xbox One thing actually wasn't too bad, they showed off the Kinect 2 a lot and compared to the original it's pretty amazing. The 2N1T talk was pretty good to see his new show, but his talk was also with a Hyper guy and some other dude, Apparenlty Jeff & Ryan from Giant Bomb were going to be there for him, but well.. you know.
Probably my highlight (outside of the sweet Halfbrick booth) was the Nintendo Booth. 3DSs everywhere, great demos of Pikmin 3 and Super Mario 3D World. Want to buy a Wii U now (assuming a Price Drop is around the corner)
Lowpoint is basically the other guys - Sony and Microsoft. Seriously, not a fucking thing to do with the PlayStation at this whole thing. Not PS3, Not PS4, not Vita. Seriously, after a big-ass Nintendo booth, Sony couldn't even do anything? Microsoft didn't have a booth either, just a corner where you could take a picture of the Xbox One? What a shit show.
Also kind of disappointed with the Indies shown there. As a guy who finished and purchased every puzzle in Puzzle Retreat, I have zero interest in Voxel Agent's Toy Mania. It kind of looked bad and wasn't particularly fun. I really like the idea behind Defiant Development's Hand of Fate with the card system for levels and going through battles, but the battles themselves were just another bad 3rd person action game, which I've seen a million of on XBLA the past year or so. Maybe we'll see something more in the future.
Another issue - stupid Yuppy Melbourne not letting us into pubs because we were "too casual". We ended up going to the James Squire Hotel at the end of the Docklands (where we were staying) three of the four nights we were there. Ended up making mates with the owner, who kept us company several hours after they were meant to close!
Not sure if I'd go next year. One of the things I regret was my lack of networking. Didn't really chat with many developers or figure out what was going on afterwards. Wanted to get into some dev parties or something.