Wish You Were Here…
So - here I am sat in a little internet cafe somewhere in Coolangatta on the Gold Coast, Australia. The weather is a lovely humid 32°C and we’ve been enjoying the break from the cold miserable land back home.
Perth was colder than it usually is at this time of year, although at 22°C I wasn’t complaining. We visited Fremantle, Cottesloe Beach and Scarborough Beach and went swimming, ice skating and shopping. All in all, it was pretty cool although since everyday had been planned out for us by Meeg’s aunt and uncle, we got little time to rest. Thankfully, here on the Gold Coast we have loads of time to ourselves.
We’re currently staying with Meegan’s Dad in a little place called Kirra on the Gold Coast, Queensland. It’s nice and warm and a real surfers town which, since he’s a surfer, is probably no surprise. We’ve really only wandered around the local town so far and been for a swim. The only interesting fact I can think of to blog is that when we go to the supermarket, we lose an hour since we have to cross timezones. Totally bizarre.
We’re probably going surfing tomorrow and then there was talk of going to a theme park. Oh, and something about going to a crazy theme restaurant called Dracula’s… Or maybe we weren’t… Who knows?
Anyhoo - must get on. I think Meeg wants to go shopping and she’s looking at me like I’m taking far too long…
Catch you all soon. :)
Xbox 360
Sure enough, I received my Xbox 360 Premium Pack on December the 2nd.
It seems some of the Origen winners received games with theirs and others didn’t - apparently this is down to their country’s Xbox representatives discretion.
No surprises then that here in England I got nowt. But since I’ve got an Xbox 360 for nothing, what does it matter that I have to buy a few games? So off I trotted to the shops and purchased Kameo, Project Gotham Racing 3 and Perfect Dark Zero.
And, even though I could do with getting the RGB scart cable (and no where has them in stock), they rock.
I mean, THEY TOTALLY ROCK!
Origen - the Event
When I said that we piled on a bus to the event, what I actually meant was we piled into more stretched hummers with some of the crew from G4 television - a gamer channel over in the US. After some rather excited interviews (featuring a whole host of thick accents) we were on our way to the aircraft hanger in the Mojave Desert.
The journey was tense and you could really sense the anticipation in the hummer I was in - even some of the guys that worked for Xbox were as excited as us.
Since night had already fallen, as we got closer we noticed a strange green glow in the distance. It was an unearthly unmistakable Xbox green and as we got closer, we slowly began to make out the hangar, uplit with lasers and lights - a foreboding sight in the Desert night.
We were quickly dropped off and shown through security where we were then led to a stand giving out free Zero Hour hoodies and free Xbox 360 memory cards. Having obtained our memory cards, we were then able to get our Xbox Live accounts migrated to the Xbox 360 and then saved to the memory cards. This would allow us to play on the 360s using our own Xbox Live accounts, since the Xbox 360 is seriously geared around online play. This was seriously cool.
As we waited for the doors of the hangar to be opened, Peter Moore and J Allard (the big men of Xbox) gave a short introduction. And then the music changed. And the lights changed. And the Origen tree appeared on the doors. And then the doors opened. The crowd cheered, stopped throwing their free bean bags about and surged into the hangar, anxious to get their hands on the wonders of Xbox 360.
The hangar was fairly open plan with hundreds of round tables, each holding 4 Xbox 360s, dotted around the floorspace. This was cleverly done to allow ample space for moving about and standing around watching. There were also two VIP sections in each corner of the hangar where only the Origen and Hex winners were allowed to go, along with the employees of Xbox. The VIP areas also had free soft drinks and snacks as well as a pretty cool chill-out area.
There was a food tent outside the hangar and several physical activities like giant table football to allow you to get up and move around a bit. Unfortunately, I’m not sure these were so important as the hardcore gamer contingent were clearly there to game for 36 hours.
There was also a stage at one end of the hangar where various things took place such as multiplayer tournaments, Kaiju Big Battel, live bands and future game demonstrations (Gears of War looks pretty cool).
So anyway, I spent quite a while wandering the floor, trying out various games - my favourites being Perfect Dark Zero, Project Gotham Racing 3, Kameo: Elements of Power, Condemned: Criminal Origin, 99 Nights and Dead or Alive 4. The games looked awesome on the HDTVs and it was hard not to be swayed by the graphics when judging the games. Unfortunately, this is where Call of Duty 2 fell down in my opinion - it looked awesome but it was far too linear to be fun. It would appear, however, that few other people noticed this since it’s been one of the best selling titles since launch…
Ah well. There’s no accounting for taste…
Needless to say, there’s not much more I can tell you about the event. It kept going and I caved and went back to the hotel for a few hours sleep before returning. It ended with the official launch of the 360 in the States and 3 trucks were brought in under police escort filled with Xbox 360s for those that had bought them at the event.
After that, 25 tired Origen winners were taken back to their original hotel via a coach and pretty much all retired to bed, ready to return home the next day in wait of the Xbox 360s they would receive on December the 2nd.
Pictures From Origen
My good friend from Origen, Zemalf, has sent me quite a few photos of our experiences. Here are a couple of good ones:
I call this “The Face of Addiction” and it’s what 4 hours solid of Geometry Wars: Evolved does to you. I just had to keep beating my highscore.
And this is what I was playing. It’s an incredibally simplistic Shoot-Em-Up but the online leaderboards really inspire you to beat yer mate’s! Notice the label on the television says “Project Gotham Racing 3” - I hijacked the system with my memory card.
I will continue to collate images in a specific Flickr set.
Origen - the Beginning
On the 18th of November, I had to get out of bed at stupid-o’clock in the morning. Not because I suffer acute workaholism, dear reader, but because I was due to catch a plane to Los Angeles. A plane that would be my official transport to Origen - Microsoft’s supposed “heaven for gamers.”
So come midday, I had bid farewell to my girlfriend and was sitting in Economy class on a British Airways 747 waiting to take off. This would be my first long-haul flight and I was relatively nervous since 10 hours in the air seems like a lifetime. Thankfully, I have no fear of flying so I was somewhat more excited than the poor chap sitting next to me who appeared to be slowly eating his fingers down to the knuckles.
“Been watching ‘Lost’?” I asked.
“No,” he curtly replied, obviously not sharing my twisted sense of humour.
Take off was uneventful and was quickly followed by our first in-flight meal - smoked salmon salad for starters followed by the quintessentially British dish, Chicken Tikka with fruit salad for dessert. The food was really quite palatable considering it wasn’t too far from a supermarket TV dinner. Having said that, maybe the wine had effected my judgement.
The rest of the flight consisted of some hardcore Nintendo DS, a lot of reading and “Batman Begins” through the dodgiest headphones I have ever heard. Trust me on this - 10 hours simply flew by.
Apon landing at LAX and sauntering through customs, I was greeted by an all too cheerful Xbox representative and led, with several other Origen winners and a couple of European game journalists, to a stretched HUMVEE limousine which would take us to our hotel. The Hummer was incredibally cool and we swiftly cracked open the complimentary Champagne whilst marvelling as Los Angeles passed by our windows.
Our hotel turned out to be just as posh as it appeared on it’s website and the Xbox reps quickly made sure we were comfortable and handed us our ID cards and Welcome Packs.
The Welcome Pack contained lots of high energy, high caffeine foodstuffs to help us through the impending 36 hour stint of gaming we were to undergo at Zero Hour. It also contained an agenda of the event as well as the news that I would be receiving an Xbox 360 apon it’s release in Europe on December the 2nd. The pack also contained an Xbox 360 beanie and some self-warming fingerless gloves since it gets pretty cold in the desert at night.
Having had a shower, gone photo crazy and unpacked a little, it was time to head back downstairs for a little quiet socialising in the hotel bar. Boy was I in for a shock.
As it turned out, the hotel bar was actually something of an “it” bar for the local jet-setters and, when I stepped out of elevator into the lobby, it was awash with stuck-up hollywood wannabes and posh young proffessionals. Having obtained a bottle of Corona at the bar, I quickly went in search of Geeks - easily identifiable by their pasty complexions and gamer oriented apparel. Thankfully I discovered that language wasn’t a barrier and had a very pleasant evening talking mostly with the journalists. I also spent quite a lot of the night explaining to Americans that I wasn’t from New Zealand and that Europe wasn’t just one country.
The next morning I awoke with a fairly minor hangover and went downstairs for breakfast. Whilst munching on a variety of fresh fruit, I was reliably informed that there would be a paid-for coach tour around LA in the afternoon so I spent the rest of the morning wandering around Santa Monica and Venice beach with Rob from MSXbox World and Morton from Console.dk.
The tour in the afternoon was pretty cool as we were ferryed from one spot to another on a classic American Yellow School Bus. Our tour guide was a lady named Priscilla (and not a stoner named Otto) and she showed us such sights as Venice Beach, Rodeo Drive, Beverly Hills, the Hollywood sign and West Hollywood. It never ceased to amaze me just how much Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas looks like the real thing. All day the weather was gorgeous - a whopping 30 degrees C in the middle of November. We were informed this wasn’t usual and was down to a Santa Ana Condition.
We returned to the hotel after dark and were all invited to a cocktail party by Digital Outlook, the agency who had organised the Origen competition. This was a fairly uneventful affair that once again resulted in a fairly minor hangover.
Come Sunday, you could feel the excitement in the air. The day we would travel to Palmdale for Zero Hour had finally arrived. Cameras primed and game-related clothing on, we were ferried to Santa Monica private airfield by stretched HUMVEEs where we were swiftly flown to Palmdale via 3 private planes. This was awesome. Our views of Los Angeles and the Mojave desert were second to none.
Apon landing we were once again ferried (by Hummer) to a new hotel where we would be able to catch some z’s at any point during Zero Hour should we wish to (a shuttle bus ran every hour). After a brief pause for some food and time to get our stuff together, we piled on a bus bound for the event…