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This weekend marked the first of what is hoped to be an annual convention by and for gamers. Game Unicon is a joint venture between Massachusetts retail store Game Universe and event organizer Keough Enterprises. The convention, held at the Best Western Hotel in Marlborough, MA, featured free-play rooms, tournaments, vendors, panels, and live music.
Due to the copious amount of events that took place, I'll be dividing my Game Unicon coverage into two parts - the games, and the concert. Hit the link for Part 1.
After driving through a hurricane, I picked up my press pass and met the convention's coordinator. "Fighting games are down the right hall and FPSes are down on the left," he told me. I immediately swung a right.
A small sample of Mad-Gears selection
But before I got a chance to check out the fighting games, I caught a glance of the vendors' hallway. The first table I went to was the best one. Adam recently wrote an article about the best virtual shopkeepers. Well, Mad-Gear is the best real-life shopkeeper when it comes to imports. Need a copy of Panorama Cotton (with the promotional tea cup)? He's got it. Eliminate Down for the MegaDrive? Got it. I rifled through buckets full of PS2 and Saturn imports and could have easily spent hundreds of dollars on a bunch of games like DoDonPachi, Judgement Silversword, and Salamander Delux Pack, but I was able to restrain myself and settle on one Saturn mech shooter, Wolf Fang (which I've been playing constantly since then).
The dudes from That's Entertainment
Mad-Gear doesn't have an actual storefront. He sells on eBay and travels to many cons. My favorite physical store for games is That's Entertainment. They have a huge store, a giant selection, and prices even cheaper than eBay. I was surprised to see them since they're basically Game Universe's competition.
Painfully cute home-made magnets
The other game vendors were selling the standard fare - common NES games constituted most of the old-school selection while the rest of the shelf space was taken up by last-gen titles: Basically, nothing special.
Castle Crashers keychains from the same makers of the magnets
A few tables had some pretty cool homemade items like keychains and magnets. Some highlights include Castle Crashers keychains, The World Ends With You pins from Ninja-Bot, and Mega Man perler bead art from RedPepperHead. There was also a large selection of Jinx-style t-shirts and sweatshirts. Think along the lines of what you can find on Etsy.
Super Smash Bros was a crowd favorite
After spending enough time with the vendors, I made my way to the fighting games area. The huge function hall was full of rows upon rows of tables equipped with flat-panel displays and various consoles. About half of the hall was unfortunately taken up by Super Smash Brothers games. There were a few rows of Soul Calibur, and a few of Street Fighter IV. One of the best parts of the convention was checking out the custom jobs Street Fighter fans had done to mod their arcade sticks. One small table held a laptop running MAME while a few people played, for reasons beyond my comprehension TMNT: Tournament Fighters. If you were a fan of newer fighters, you were in luck. If you fancy anything prior to this generation, though, and you'd have been let down.
As I walked out of the fighting game hall, I was bombarded by the cacophonous "clack clack clack" of Rock Band drums. I was lucky enough to hear the best recently-pubescent voices that Massachusetts has to offer.
Two of the three cosplayers at Unicon
After I listened to Everlong and Creep being defiled, I took a look into the free-play rooms, which were full of older systems and NES clones. If you were a fan of older games but are not a collector (or had all your games sold by your parents while you were off at school), this is where you'd be hanging out.
There is no "me" in Team Deathmatch
FPSes were up next. The atmosphere on this side of the hotel was tense. People weren't shouting over each other. Players were hunched over, deep in concentration unlike the relaxed fighting game players. Halo is serious business.
A nice move on the organizers' part -- there was a room dedicated to PC gaming. At the time I visited the room there was an Unreal Tournament game going on. Unfortunately there was only a handful of PC gamers at the convention and no big games of Team Fortress 2 or Counter-Strike.
The world ends with your pins
Game Unicorn Unicon isn't a convention like PAX or Gamescom where game publishers an producers come to show off upcoming titles or make announcements - it's all about playing games. I enjoyed myself and I could tell that Game Universe worked very hard to put on a good con. So if you're the type to go on a three-day videogame binge and would enjoying doing so with like-minded people, consider attending next year's Unicon - hopefully it happens.
Stay tuned for part 2 of The BBPS' Game Unicon coverage
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