I just had three really fun events back to back. The first was GameCrazy, then GameStop and finally PAX. I thought I would share some of the cool stuff I did, things I learned about upcoming titles and what it’s like to do what we do.



The GameCrazy National Sales Conference is held in Las Vegas at the Mandalay Bay hotel and casino. It is a three-day experience where GameCrazy buyers and managers get a chance to check out and get familiar with up-coming titles.
Brookelyn and I worked the first night of GameCrazy event. We got to demo Splinter Cell Conviction in the XBOX GAMING SUITE ‘till about midnight. This was a lot of fun because the gaming suite was set up like a party. There were cocktails and tons of games to play like DJ Hero, Halo3 ODST, Split Second, and the new Forza. I had so much fun. That first night was my favorite part of the GameCrazy event.

The next day the rest of the Frag Dolls and Cadettes showed up!!! As we all made our way to the expo, Hannah (Shabutie) and I were looking to Just Dance!!

I had never played a dance game before. To be honest, I wasn’t too excited when I heard that was the game we would be playing. But Brookelyn assured me it was good so I remained open minded. Well, I had a BLAST!!! I couldn’t play it without smiling and laughing through every song. I am so getting this game. Not only was it fun, but it is a great work out. The game is full of songs I love and dance moves I can actually do. Just Dance is awesome.


I got to go home for two days (long enough to do laundry and change itineraries in my Frag Doll binder) and then back to Las Vegas for the GameStop event. The GameStop Managers Show was also at the Mandalay Bay hotel but with 5,000 plus GameStop managers this show was a lot bigger!!

This was a very special event for me because for a week prior I had been at home practicing the Splinter Cell Conviction demo. They needed me to be good enough at it to demo the game on stage during the Vendor Training Classrooms.  I got to do this for two days. I am happy to say that my demos were great. I hit all my marks, I was able to play it perfectly 99% of the time and I wasn’t nervous and had a lot of fun. I am so thankful to the brand managers for trusting me with this task and I hope that I have the opportunity to do stuff like this in the future. It was amazing.

GameStop was the greatest event ever!! Not only did I get to play Splinter Cell Conviction for hundreds of people but I also got to get my hands on Halo3 ODST, Battlefield Bad Company 2 and Modern Warfare 2!!!!!!!!!
A few things I learned about these games:

Halo3 ODST: will have up to 4 player co-op for the campaign, the Silver Skulls from Halo3 will be available to turn on in Firefight mode and there is a female ODST character that you get to play; she is the squad’s leader.

Battlefield Bad Company 2: will offer SOUTH PAW CONTROLLER OPTIONS for the first time, they are thinking about adding killcam (please go to their web site and let them know that this is a bad idea!!!), you will be able to hold private matches and they are working on team speak so you can talk to more then just your own squad members. They are offering fully destructible environments, so you can now bring an entire building to the ground, the online multiplayer mode is just called Rush (not Gold Rush) and you can no longer team kill.

Modern Warfare 2:
The campaign does not offer co-op, but Ashton (PMS Vulcan) and I got to play the 2 player co-op the game does offer and all I have to say was it is bad ass!! When you are down you can crawl to safty or to a team member to help revive you. Some of the bad guys had shields like in R6V2. The online multiplayer will offer customizable kill streak rewards. The map Ashton and I played on reminded me of the scene from that movie the Rock. Where the good guys breech Alcatraz through an old shower room and every one dies except Sean Connery and Nick Cage. It was just like that. The game looks and feels amazing! I went back on my lunch break to play it again.

Most of you know what the Penny Arcade Expo is but for those of you who don’t it is a three-day game festival for tabletop, videogame, and PC gamers held in Seattle Washington. It is the consumers chance to get a sneak peak at new games coming out. This was my first time at PAX and what I was most looking forward to was meeting as many Frag Doll community members as I could. This was not without it’s challenges, as I don’t know what most of you look like. So I was asking everyone I met if they were on our forums and most of the time they were. Sometimes they had no idea what I was talking about, which was a little awkward. Eventually I was able to put more faces to gamer tags this trip then ever before. I enjoyed meeting everyone, going out to dinner and hanging out at the booth.

I had so much fun, I loved PAX. It was like gamer heaven. I got to play a few new games like Avatar (a playable demo had not been available to the public before), the new Forza, No More Heroes 2 (which is wickedly awesome) and I saw a lot of other games I was interested in. I got tons of schwag. I also got a beta code for MAG that massive online PSN 256 player FPS that I am looking forward to testing out. All in all, I had a blast but I am sorry I am so lame and had to go to bed early, but now that everyone has swine flu, I am thinking that was the smart thing to do. No Swine Flu FTW!!


Photos from GameCrazy and GameStop: