Save our Sonic 2010 - my first con report
Something I've wanted to do for a while now is go to more conventions. The problem is finding ones relevant to my interests. Anime conventions are a nice distraction but don't satisfy me, what I really want is something gaming related (and isn't a bring-your-own-PC affair). So when I registered for Summer of Sonic 2010 I was more interested in the novelty of a series-exclusive convention than anything else. I'm sure Summer of Sonic has inspired snark about fursuits or a place the fans can all go to be miserable together but my time there erased whatever doubt I had left that Sonic is a healthy series with real fans that accept it for what it is, not just 'fans' who spend all their time complaining about the series and belittling anyone who doesn't hate it as much as them.
I left the hotel early but walking through an unfamiliar area made me to lose track of time and when I arrived it was suddenly half an hour after the doors were supposed to open. I was warned on the website that so many people were attending they had to close pre-registration so I quickly joined the long line of people wearing conspicuous amounts of blue. The doorman told me that if I left I might not be able to get back in but there turned out to be space for everyone in the end so that wasn't an issue.
Unsure about what to do at first I killed some time on one of the gaming units set up. On a whim, and to flaunt my nerdiness, I used one of the Sonic Mega Collections to play Ristar. Ristar was a side-project by Sonic Team members and the character is credited to Yuji 'spaghetti limbs' Uekawa, who did the post-Sonic Adventure character art, so it has about as much place at a Sonic convention as NiGHTS does and NiGHTS was certainly present here - the local fans seem to be using SoS as their meetup point as well as having NiGHTS-related material on display. After I finished my game I left the unit playing Ristar and hoped someone else would take the hint but the next person to come along changed it back to Sonic 2, which was the low point of the day for me.
After a walk outside to clear my head from the noise I still had most of the afternoon to kill so I knew I could afford to spend about 90 minutes queueing for Sonic 4. The line lay across the middle of the hall so I had a view of the stage while waiting. During that time Jun Senoue took the stage and jammed on his guitar for a bit and there was a cosplay contest (won by an excellent Eggman). After that I got to play a zone and a half of Sonic 4 and it seemed decent. Movement from a standing start felt stiff but the controls were good otherwise. The game isn't nearly as awkward or boring as it looked in videos and the homing attack does require timing to use and isn't just 'press this button to kill the nearest enemy without having to aim or anything'. My interest is raised a little, but not nearly as much as for Colo(u)rs.
The merchandise cabinet was amazing. It had a massive Super Sonic figurine but that paled in comparison to the three Nack the Weasel plushies and a NiGHTS Chao on display below. That's some real treasure.
Sonic the Comic artist Nigel Dobbyn was there and I got to shake his hand and tell him how I wouldn't be there if it weren't for those comics. He was selling prints of pages he drew for StC (double-sized copies on card, with or without the dialogue). I considered buying one but I didn't have any way to transport it, or anywhere to display it, so it was better that I didn't.
Late in the day the Sonic 4 line had shrunk so I went back for a second go. This time when I got to the unit I was warned by a technician that the games were going off for the concert, and sure enough after about a minute the power cut out. I left the unit and almost immediately the power came back on and the person standing behind me got to play. So I rejoined the even shorter queue only to have it end with me getting blocked from the still-playing unit by the technician who had now decided I couldn't start the game because the power was going off soon, for real this time. This might have been frustrating if the whole day hadn't been such a novelty already. After that Jun Senoue and Johnny Gioeli came on stage to rock out the last half hour with some fan-favourite themes. By this point I wanted to get back and have a shower because the air conditioning in the venue left much to be desired (Johnny Gioeli even joked about how he would pay to make sure next year's con had proper ventilation) so I forgot to smash the merchandise case on the way out and make off with one of the Nacks.
I'll definitely make it back next year if I can. 2011 is the series 20th anniversary so next year's SoS should (or should be) pulling out all the stops.
I left the hotel early but walking through an unfamiliar area made me to lose track of time and when I arrived it was suddenly half an hour after the doors were supposed to open. I was warned on the website that so many people were attending they had to close pre-registration so I quickly joined the long line of people wearing conspicuous amounts of blue. The doorman told me that if I left I might not be able to get back in but there turned out to be space for everyone in the end so that wasn't an issue.
Unsure about what to do at first I killed some time on one of the gaming units set up. On a whim, and to flaunt my nerdiness, I used one of the Sonic Mega Collections to play Ristar. Ristar was a side-project by Sonic Team members and the character is credited to Yuji 'spaghetti limbs' Uekawa, who did the post-Sonic Adventure character art, so it has about as much place at a Sonic convention as NiGHTS does and NiGHTS was certainly present here - the local fans seem to be using SoS as their meetup point as well as having NiGHTS-related material on display. After I finished my game I left the unit playing Ristar and hoped someone else would take the hint but the next person to come along changed it back to Sonic 2, which was the low point of the day for me.
After a walk outside to clear my head from the noise I still had most of the afternoon to kill so I knew I could afford to spend about 90 minutes queueing for Sonic 4. The line lay across the middle of the hall so I had a view of the stage while waiting. During that time Jun Senoue took the stage and jammed on his guitar for a bit and there was a cosplay contest (won by an excellent Eggman). After that I got to play a zone and a half of Sonic 4 and it seemed decent. Movement from a standing start felt stiff but the controls were good otherwise. The game isn't nearly as awkward or boring as it looked in videos and the homing attack does require timing to use and isn't just 'press this button to kill the nearest enemy without having to aim or anything'. My interest is raised a little, but not nearly as much as for Colo(u)rs.
The merchandise cabinet was amazing. It had a massive Super Sonic figurine but that paled in comparison to the three Nack the Weasel plushies and a NiGHTS Chao on display below. That's some real treasure.
Sonic the Comic artist Nigel Dobbyn was there and I got to shake his hand and tell him how I wouldn't be there if it weren't for those comics. He was selling prints of pages he drew for StC (double-sized copies on card, with or without the dialogue). I considered buying one but I didn't have any way to transport it, or anywhere to display it, so it was better that I didn't.
Late in the day the Sonic 4 line had shrunk so I went back for a second go. This time when I got to the unit I was warned by a technician that the games were going off for the concert, and sure enough after about a minute the power cut out. I left the unit and almost immediately the power came back on and the person standing behind me got to play. So I rejoined the even shorter queue only to have it end with me getting blocked from the still-playing unit by the technician who had now decided I couldn't start the game because the power was going off soon, for real this time. This might have been frustrating if the whole day hadn't been such a novelty already. After that Jun Senoue and Johnny Gioeli came on stage to rock out the last half hour with some fan-favourite themes. By this point I wanted to get back and have a shower because the air conditioning in the venue left much to be desired (Johnny Gioeli even joked about how he would pay to make sure next year's con had proper ventilation) so I forgot to smash the merchandise case on the way out and make off with one of the Nacks.
I'll definitely make it back next year if I can. 2011 is the series 20th anniversary so next year's SoS should (or should be) pulling out all the stops.