Just got back from a long fun day at PAX09 in Seattle at the Washington State Convention Center:

It was amazing how big this has grown.  Even from last year: the Console Free Play area is about ten times as big as it was last year.

I was primarily there volunteering as an Enforcer for Zig21, helping with the console tourneys.  We ran Smash Friday (Viviff/F1ST beat Grayson in a Wolf vs Meta Knight final) and Street Fighter IV Saturday (Mike A beats Orlando in a Sagat vs Sagat final).  These tourneys run amazingly smoothly - single elimination tournaments for around 150 people, on around 30 setups.  Truly a breeze compared to the cat herding that is Evo.

The Capcom booth was pretty cool.  They had a small merch area: I picked up a Megaman, Servbot, and Chun-Li stuffed toy keychain for myself, some more keychains and an art book for Toshin, and some Femme Fatale 360 sticks.  They threw in a couple We Love Golf Wii-mote holders(?) and a copy of the MvC2 vinyl with purchase.  Plus everything came in Capcom bags, which I dig.  They had some cool posters and shirts, as well as some nice messenger bags - but nothing really Megaman or Vs series related enough to entice me to purchase them. The Servbot keychain and stuffed Poogies seemed to sell out really fast.  And they said had sold through 550 of their 700 Femme Fatale TE sticks by Friday, so I have no idea if any are left now.

They were demonstrating Resident Evil 5 for PC in a special closed area.  The regular version looks great, and even motion-sensitive-me had no problems playing it since the graphics are really excellent.  But it's the 3D version that will just knock your socks off.  It requires special 3-D glasses (which were completely comfortable on top of my actual glasses) and then you see the game in vivid 3-D.  It would be impossible to describe how great this looks.  If you get RE5-PC and can play it in 3-D, you should.  It's magnificent.

They had TvC and a bunch of other games set up on various free play stations.  Unfortunately, no SF4 or MvC2 series that I saw - but that's probably got a lot to do with Capcom having a zillion games.

In the Console Free Play area, I was amused to see about 1/5 of the stations set up to play Street Fighter 4.  That's pretty amazingly predominant.  One station was set up to play Marvel vs Capcom 2 for a while, so I had fun playing against the random PAX-goers for a while.

I got the Resident Evil launch party invite wristband and headed over there after I was done at PAX.  At 7:30, the line for the 8PM party stretched around the block (pic: twitpic.com/go2j3 ).  It was amusing hearing the Capcom staff say that they expected a lot of people, but not nearly that many.  Inside the launch party, there was a line where you could get your own Tricell employee ID, so we got those first.  Then we played on one of the many stations set up to allow people to play RE5-PC, got some drinks, and listened to the music.  Danny got made up to look like a Ma Jini at the Ma Jini makeup booth... strange, but ... kind of fun.  And they gave out *tons* of prizes!  They gave out around 100 copies of RE5-PC as part of a raffle, plus ~5 super high-end Intel procesors.  Very generous.  Everyone from Capcom seemed very nice, and I was envious of both their blue Capcom staff uniforms and their cool Servbot staff badges. :)  The party also had a guy dressed up as Guile: his hair was evidently real and amazing (pic: twitpic.com/go5pl ).  The guy with the Megaman knitted hat was there too - that was cool to see, even if it did look a little goofy in person. =)

That's about all.  It was a great time.  :)

I was #1 on the Marvel vs Capcom 2 Xbox Live leaderboards briefly.  It was fun representing lower tiers well. =)

On the downside, I have realized that Capcom "evilly" sorts alphabetically if two people are tied with the same score.  So as 'zachdms' ('z'), I have to be ahead of someone, not just tied.  Oh well. =)

I have the MARVEL license plate for the state of Washington.  The license plate frame is "Not Just A Man... Megaman!".  BUT!  It may interest you to know that in Washington State you cannot have a license plate beginning with "K".  That's reserved for state use.

And that, my friend, is why my license is not KOBUN. =)

I was looking back through my artwork collection, and realized that those sneaky monkeys at Capcom had changed the ending credits artwork between the arcade and console versions of Marvel vs Capcom 2.  Notably Morrigan and Spidey pose for a picture in the arcade version - but in the console version, it's Sakura with Spidey.  Perhaps it was to ease 'fears' surrounding the then-married Spiderman? :)

Anyways, here's the ending art sequence, with the differences noted:

01 the pirate ship sailing away
02 Ruby Heart inspects the Abyss globe
03 Ruby Heart discards the Abyss globe
04 the Abyss globe plunges into the sea
05 Ryu and Cyclops shake hands in front of a crocodile thing
06-Arcade: Amingo, Shuma-Gorath, Sonson and Guile
06-Console: Amingo, Rogue, Sonson, and Guile
07-Arcade: BBHood stands in front of a flexing Zangief and flexing Iceman
07-Console: Tron stands in front of Servbots climbing over a flexing Zangief and Iceman pats a Servbot's head
08: Juggernaut and Jin
09: Anakaris and Doom
10-Arcade: Morrigan and Spiderman pose for a picture
10-Console: Sakura and Spiderman pose for a picture
11-Arcade: Guile, Captain America, Captain Commando, and Gambit
11-Console: Guile, Captain America, Jill, and Psylocke
12: Wolverine and Hayato
13-Arcade: Magneto and Akuma
14: Cable and Ruby Heart
15: the pirate ship sails into the sunset

Most of the changes make sense as regards promoting more commercially important characters.  I do find it interesting that the Magneto and Akuma artwork was apparently left out of the console ports. :)

The first game I remember *wanting* to keep playing as a kid was Street Fighter II Championship Edition.  Kid Icarus and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and even Super Mario Bros were fun.  But only Street Fighter II was open ended enough that I could keep discovering new things about it, new ways to enjoy playing against my friends and brothers.  It's amazing to me that to this day I can learn new things in these deep deep games.

I was simply thinking about it today and realized it's strange that a game that takes "five minutes" has had more depth than most other games of that era.

Great work, Capcom. :)