Psychosk8er, a thousand thumbs up and cool points for that chaos emerald proposal! =D Thats really sweet. Man, really makes me wish I could come to one of these events one day.
Hahahahaha, I love your face there Psy. You look like you're thinking "Shall I get him? Shall I get him? I'm gonna get him!" AND THEN WE GOT HIM It was a great day overall, but I have to raise the dissenting opinion that I don't think it was good as last year. The smaller, more oven-like venue and the lack of a "Wall of Internetz" for me and OL to deface hurt sorely. And call me a 13-year-old girl if you must, but Crush 40 last year were more exciting than Naka and Iizuka this year. >_>
Not that I caught on to that conversation at the time, but if I'm honest, 2009 was probably the best of the three I've been to ('09,'10,'11). Something about it being much more low key and more calmer. Plus being in a circular room, with a Stage in one corner, Winter Olympics and SatSR being trialed, the wall of internet and the Booklet were all great about it. This year didn't really feel much more than go into one room and wait for stuff to happen. There were a few extremely crowded stalls for comics and merch, and a few, thankfully, easily accessible gaming pods. But other than that it was waiting for stuff on the stage (which is half the reason I didn't hang about) or going to the cafe for over priced drinks and food.
Amen to that, 1.50 for a can of coke? I can get 4 for less than that back down south, but I guess that is London for you. The Stalls were very unorganized, especially the Comics one, It was hard to go buy the prints with all the people getting drawings and looking at the samples. Also were the signing Sessions even announced? Was sheer luck that I realized what was going on over there...
Finally have got back in & settled from London and I must say, this year was an utter blast. Naka apologising for the Barrel (and Iizuka's reaction to the question about it), easily accessible demo pods (good job on those this year guys. I realise the XBLA/PSN demo will have lightened the load as well, but zero issues with the queueing this time!), the StC animation (the crowd's reaction on Super rising was just amazing), meeting some faces I'd not seen in person before - fantastic stuff. I'll be doing a proper writeup on the front page tomorrow after I've had a chance to get some sleep but I'll say that this has been the best of the 3 I've been to - the only swaps I'd make would be Crush 40 for Julien K & the temperature of the 2009 venue (though to be honest, with 1250+ people in a room and a 29 degrees outside temperature, it's going to get hot anyway, even with those massive fans up front). On the subject of massive numbers of people - though I said it in person, congrats again Psy! =) Balls of steel to do that in front of a crowd as big as that one.
Just realized I made a really short post answering a question but didn't even post my impressions of the day. Pretty much what everyone else said, though my personal highlight was seeing Jun Senoue play... Well, all of his set, actually. Good choice of tracks and even the Splash Hill Zone music sounded good live. Had the best day of my fucking life, no doubt. EDIT: I'll do a full write-up tomorrow too, but on my deviantART. I'm way, way too tired right now.
I actually though the comics / merch stalls were LESS crowded than last year. I know I only queued for about half as long this year to give Sonic The Comic all my money, and that was WITH Nigel Dobyn's mysterious 30-minute absence. I dunno... this year it just seemed less... Sonic-y than it has before. And more "shuffle in, hand over your cash, melt". Which I guess ties into your remark about '09 being more calm and low-key. I still think '10 was the happy medium, though. And before I get called out for bitching over something I got in to for free, let me add the caveat that it was still great day, would go again. Just... err... not as great day as 2010. :v: EDIT: Oh, I should add that the free T-shirt with doodle Sonic is great. But when you ask for "Extra Large" at a vidoegame convention, you FUCKING GET EXTRA LARGE. A year of living underground in Glasgow and subsisting on haggis and fried Mars bars has not left me a small man, but if I put that thing on I rather resemble a deflated balloon.
Ahahaha. You should have tried it on during the day, that would have been hilarious. Maybe it would have been quite breezy too? =P
Oh god, first time I've watched it with audio louder than a mouse fart (Thanks to the light sleepers I call family last night) and I teared up. Brilliant stuff and for what must be the 100th time, congrats.
Was dicking around on Youtube and saw the video; congrats PsychoSk8r! Very sweet. Also, Naka apologized for the CNZ barrel/Iizuka for Big's fishing? I hope someone got video of that.
Congrats man on the proposal, I would've gone if it wasn't the price of getting there and that I wasn't even aware of the event being on June 25th and thought it was in July. =P
Proposing at a Sonic convention with a chaos emerald has got to be the nerdiest marriage proposal in the history of wedding proposals, but it's so adorable and I love that video because of it. >_> Congratulations! :D Edit- Also, Yuji Naka apologizing for the barrel was unnecessary. I always thought that was really clever. D:
Congrats again, Psy I still can't believe what an awesome day it was! I'll post a full write-up on my dA account soon. Orenge took his camera to the event, so he's going to upload the photos we took on the day and post them on here (which should be done later this evening, hopefully). Here's a photo I took this morning, which I thought you guys might like: Words cannot describe how awesome that is. I'm seriously going to frame it. Also, here's what I purchased on the day: Yeah, classic Robotnik, at last!! That S&K is in really good condition, I'm really happy with it. And here's what I got signed: It was a case of "one item only" by the time I got to Naka and Iizuka but I'm still really happy with that!
Front page article GET http://www.sonicretro.org/2011/06/sos-2011...ersary-edition/ I've also moved this from Members Lounge into GSD. I'm not quite sure why this was in ML to begin with. o_O
Awesome. That proposal was a really cool surprise. For the first time in... ever(?), we've got the voices of fans from the US, Europe, and Japan all going into the game. Such a cool feeling, and massive props to the guys at SoS for making the day go smoothly!