...the end of the first day. NY Comic Con '09 - Day One

Set sail for image dumping.
NYCC (or Knee-Cuc, as the pros like it call it) has started off in full force and the one thing the exhibitor's floor, the largest room of the convention and feature attraction (aside from the IGN theater, filled with movie previews and premiers available at the con before anywhere else), has in spades are video game companies. And let me tell you, this year everyone's getting in on it.
Marvel is showing off it's hero-based RPG sequel, Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2. Countering the massive offline RPG is DC's MMORPG, DC Universe Online. (yeah, my image of the product is far from the most interesting)

Atari, Sega, Ubisoft, Rockstar... most everyone is in show, MISCLICK: KONAMI WAS THERE, KIJIN IS A LOSER. At the company booths, playable demos are where it's at. I promise to get shots of it for tomorrow's update, but my favorite is the Atari booth, which offered a demo of its long delayed but highly anticipated Ghostbusters game. Hopefully I'll be proven right, but when I stopped by the booth, all sides were flanked with fully-garbed Ghostbusters, including an Egon Spengler who was being interviewed by TV cameras. I hope they based the game on the original Atari classic from the floppy-disk era of gaming. Oh the memories.
Rockstar's booth (also unphotographed in hopes that I can have a podcast interview available tomorrow or Sunday) featured their newest GTA iteration, Chinatown Wars. The only game I played hands on (I mean, I was offered a free t-shirt in a wearable size for my neigh-skeletal frame for trying it out from an attractive booth girl, how could I resist?), Chinatown Wars is a DS title that plays much like the original 2 over-the-top-view GTA games, with your touchpad functioning as your start menu, where stats, equipment, relationships and other game functions can be reviewed and monitored. Car controls are much less erratic than in GTA4, while your movement controls put you at a rather slow pace (though I likely didn't learn how to run during my demo, as who has time to read controls when there're civilians to beat up and police cars to steal?). In the short time I played, I had roughly the same fun I would playing a full-scale GTA game, only with the added struggle of squinting to see the cityscape details and "enemy" units (the DS screen is quite small to play an over-the-top view game). Hopefully more from game staff later.

As for game merch, Previews offered a slew of new video game toys and mini-statues, particularly one of my all-time favorites, Metal Gear Solid. After their previous line of mini-statues, including a good number of items available as covention promotional items, the "finished" series still has much blood for fanboys. At least for me, anyway.

Tomorrow, some highlights of comic-related going-ons, the Guiness Record-break attempt for "Largest Gathering of Video Game Characters" cosplay event (which I'm upset I'm unable to participate in), other cosplay shenanigans and stuff about movies if I can mosey on over to the IGN Theater.

Emergency Edit: Anyone following- NYCC sign ups are closed; if you don't already have a badge pre-registered for tomorrow or have one in-hand, you cannot purchase a badge on-site. Sorry dudes, 56k can't get in the club.