With the gorgeous day at hand fans came out and brought about the largest crowd of the convention so far. This crowd came out to have fun and play and some of the costumes at hand were the best of the show so far. I got to really hand it to the fans for their costume designs as some were really great design wise with some having an insane amount of detail and polish. Panels continued throughout the day with huge turnouts for some of the more popular ones like the Marvel presentation of the day.
Some celebrities were also on hand with stars such as Spartacus himself Liam McIntyre on hand to sign autographs. For wrestling fans Sgt Slaughter and Vergil were on hand doing autographs as well. One of my favorite booths to visit is the Cyanide and Happiness booth with the creators on site signing autographs and doing custom drawings for fans. This is one booth I recommend fans check out.
Headed on over to Intel’s booth to see what they had going on and I have to say I was not disappointed. First up Intel had on display were two full size F1 racers setup to play the newest F1 racing sim demo. The one with the fastest track time was up to win a prize. On the Intel stage professional league Starcraft matches were being played live for the crowd to see. On the hardware side of things the Oculus Rift was on hand for people to try out. If you haven’t tried it out stop by the booth and give it a go. While the demo for the Rift didn’t have the greatest visuals the sense of movement and being immersed fully in a 3D world were still something to be experienced.
For those budding animators Reallusion(creators of Kinect friendly iClone) were there showing off their latest software releases CrazyTalk Animator and CrazyTalk 7. The staff on hand was pointing out the newest features of both pieces of software as well as giving convention goers a deal for both pieces of software. The bundle being touted was $80 for both.
Next up it was off to see the 3D Systems booth and check out their 3D printers. Both the Cubify and CubeX printers were on hand and printing up a storm. Now while the price of the Cubify may put some people off to it I’m here to tell you it’s worth it. The printer itself is built well with good materials and some nice thought going on in the design to facilitate ease of use such a the quickly removable printing bed and filament cartridges that are easy and quick to change. The quality of the prints were top notch with no warping or other such problems known to at times occur with 3D printing. On hand were also the folks from Blokify. These guys are developing a free piece of software called “Blokify” that makes designing 3D models for 3D printing pretty easy. It’s a block based design method just like Minecraft for example. The software will be free with block pack available for purchase. It will be available on iOS, Mac and Windows platforms. For those who have the money to jump in to the world of the 3D printing without much of a fuss then the combination of Cubify and Blokify should make it easy.
On to the games and my first stop was the Capcom booth to check out the latest installment in the Monster Hunter and Phoenix Wright series . The latest installment from both series retained the look, feel and gameplay we have all known to come and love. As the crowds gathered and lined up to play these games it was a testament to how popular they really are. If you can’t wait in line or can’t make it to the show you can still download demos of the games right now.
Next up was the Namco Bandai booth with playable demos for the latest in the Naruto Ultimate Ninja Storm series, Dragonball Z fighter and Soul Caliber2 HD online. Fans of any of these games will not be disappointed as each game retains the core gameplay that has made them popular while still expanding with new moves and gameplay mechanics. The updated visuals looked great as well with good color palettes, great animation and good voice over work. Soul Caliber2 HD online looked great as well with the updated high resolution visuals making the game feel fresh again.
That about does it for my coverage of New York Comic Con 2013. Remember folks as of this posting that today is Sunday and the last day of the convention. The weather is great so try to make it down there if you can. Since is the last day try to score what free swag you can and remember you can probably get the best deals on all sorts of merchandise on this last day of the convention. We’ll be bring you interviews, previews, reviews and more on the games, software and hardware on display this at this years convention.