Gaming at Comic-Con 2008

SAN DIEGO, CA—Comic-Con has undergone a major shift in recent years away from its comics base. Sure, there are still plenty of comic book makers and stores throughout the gigantic San Diego Convention Center floor, but the big presence at the show comes from Hollywood, as well as some game companies.

LucasFilm always has a huge booth that features all things Star Wars, including new LucasArts games like Star Wars: The Force Unleashed and Star Wars: The Clone Wars. There are always more people in Star Wars costumes at the show (slave Princess Leia being a popular choice) than superheroes.

Capcom had a huge presence, including a raised fighting ring with a dozen Street Fighter IV arcade machines from Japan. (While the game is coming to next gen consoles in February along with the new big screen movie, the arcade games will not be appearing in North America.) The line to play this game wound on forever, even on the slowest day of the show—Thursday. (Keep in mind that over 150,000 people attended the Con this year, which means even “slow” days are jam-packed with wall-to-wall people.) Capcom was also handing out exclusive Street Fighter IV headbands. Another major focus for the company was Bionic Commando: Rearmed, which was shown inside a small theater. Playable versions of the new Unreal Engine 3 game, Dark Void, were also at the booth. Capcom also had a panel that focused on the upcoming 20th Anniversary of the show.

Other game companies with nice-sized Comic-Con booths included Electronic Arts, which had a large selection of games like Dead Space, Mirror’s Edge, Warhammer Online and Spore on display. Activision Blizzard promoted Sierra’s Ghostbusters game, which serves as a sequel to the films. Konami had a wide offering of games at its booth, including the latest Dance Dance Revolution games and the new Rock Revolution band game. THQ had everything from its Darkwalkers game to UFC 2009: Undisputed at its booth. German game publisher cdv Software Entertainment, which has its US office in Cary, had a good presence, including a booth babe, for its PC and Xbox 360 game, Sacred 2. Outside of the convention center, upcoming online games like Lord of the Rings Online and Stargate Worlds were promoted on trucks and on buses.

Midway Games had its complete line-up of Unreal Engine 3 games on display at the show. In addition, they held a Mortal Kombat versus DC Universe party to celebrate the new pairing of the bloody game franchise with superheroes and villains from the DC Universe like Batman, Superman and Wonder Woman. This game marks the first time Epic’s Unreal Engine technology is being used for a fighting game. Midway’s TNA Impact game, which was playable, is the first wrestling title to use UE3.

I interviewed Epic Games’ Cliff Bleszinski Friday night after his Xbox Original Programs Panel, which he moderated. It was his first Comic-Con experience and he was definitely taken back by the experience. Comic-Con is like no other show I’ve ever been to. Gears of War 2 had a major presence at the show, including a panel devoted to the game on Saturday afternoon. Bleszinski is a comic book fan, so the show was a fun experience for him. And after the craziness of last week’s E3 Media Summit, where he did non-stop interviews, it was also a lot quieter for him—at least on the press side.

In terms of what I’m looking forward to from the show—and I have to say I read comics as a kid but haven’t picked one up in at least 10 years—the movie version of Max Payne is looking very cool. I attended the Fox panel where the cast talked about the film, and then went upstairs for a small private press conference with Mark Wahlberg, Ludacris, Mila Kunis and director John Moore. The cast is visibly proud of the film. Wahlberg actually said he feels great about it, which makes it much easier to promote the film. The gritty footage of this R-rated film could finally open up the game-to-movie business and help gamers forget about all of those horrible adaptations that Hollywood has made in the past.