The 3dRudder is finally available for the PS4! It’s been available for a while for PC users, but when I’ve been virtual reality gaming on a console, I can’t think of any other uses other than to drive a tank instead of actually walking. Although I am still skeptical of using your feet (while seated) to emulate motion in an imaginary world, I feel the idea is not perfect in the long run.
It’s a shame navigating VR space for the home consumer is primitive. Go to CES, a military base or an arcade in South Asia, the likelihood of finding a hamster ball to walk around in for that illusion is better. Dedicated centres are not available worldwide. The better idea is to wait for holodecks which sadly won’t be coming anytime soon.
Mark your calendars, break out your costumes, and perfect your mad video game skills because MosaiCon will be returning in 2017. It has been confirmed by none other than Marc Gervais, General Coordinator for Nanaimo’s multifaceted fandom convention. Gervais has a table at this year’s anime and cosplay convention, Tsukino-Con, at the University of Victoria campus. Gervais was able to confirm the dates for MosaiCon are Saturday and Sunday, September 16th and 17th of 2017. Gervais informed this journalist that a meeting will be held with MosaiCon’s board to decide a location to host the con.
Heavily influenced by classic NES games such as Mega Man and Ducktales, Shovel Knight is an old-school style 2D platformer that, for two years, I’ve heard nothing but good things about. The game offers a sprite-based art style designed to remind players of the 8 & 16-bit days of the 1990s with music and sound effects to match. It’s a love letter to classic gaming and I can’t believe I went this long without playing it!
NeXus Con is a new event organized by Dwayne Morash who simply wants to introduce folks to gaming (in all its various forms). The show will be held at Saanich Commonwealth Place on August 27th, 2016 from 11am to 9pm, and it is an intimate type of event where it will be capped at 40 or so people
New players do not have the opportunity to simply try games out without buying, and this show hopes to change all that by flipping the formula traditionally found in conventions. Most shows require a separate entry fee just to play in tournaments. This event dispenses with all that and it’s going to be more like a meet n’ greet spotlighting the favourite games of past and present.
Morash is the founder/editor of Game Nexus, a local news and information site for all things related to games. Just like this website, there will be video games, tabletop miniature battles, role-playing games and collectable card games to try out. For a reasonable fee of $25, attendees can sample the best in what gaming has to offer. Trends change like the roll of the dice, and the goal of Morash is to provide a quality event minus all the hustle and bustle of one that is corporate run. He gave me a heads up about this event, and I had some questions:
Tickets: $30 weekend pass
or $15 per day (pre-registration).
LANtasy‘s motto is “Play Games, Have Fun” at their upcoming event taking place March 12th and 13th. For the fandom living in Victoria, BC, hopefully everyone can put the incidents of 2015 behind them. The final quarter of that year was less than positive: GottaCon (GC) announced they were closing their doors and Island Fantasy Convention did not happen. The reaction by the community was not kind with how the latter event was handled. However, with a new year Tsukino-Con remains strong and the technical crew behind GC decided to continue the legacy the broad-spectrum gaming event represented.
Jeff Pedlow is one of the department heads. He says this show will exist to bring people together and his group really loves the gaming community that exists here. Despite the name, they are not playing favourites over what kind of activities are being offered at this show. Yes, there will be a heavy Local Area Network (LAN) gaming presence, but there is more to the show than just that — board gaming, miniature gaming and RPGs are offered. People will be encouraged to come in costume (cosplay). Essentially, this event will be just like GottaCon in their early days. In what’s for certain, Pedlow says that his group does not take any money from the event and their goal is to throw community-centric gaming events for everyone living on the island. As their Facebook page shows, there are qualifying events taking place in and out of the Capitol Region that will lead up to the finals at LANtasy.
“If we grow in size, that’s always great, but our primary concern is throwing fun events for the community to come out and enjoy,” said Pedlow.
Even though this event is two months away, perhaps fandom should start planning. In addition to their FAQ about this event, Otakunoculture talked to Jeff about other lingering queries:
Our goal is to follow the pop culture scene of the Pacific Northwest (Victoria, B.C. especially). This can range from the arts to books to cinema to television. Our content also includes peeks into what's coming out of Asia–but even more importantly, in what we love to populate our book and video shelves with!
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By James Robert Shaw (The Wind up Geek)
By Shawn Trommeshauser
By Ed Sum (The Vintage Tempest)
March 12-13, 2016 