Film and Comic Con Bournemouth

Having recently moved down to Dorset and therefore being a little out of the way of big, geeky events in London that I had had the pleasure of attending while I briefly lived there (MCM London Comic Con, Rezzed 2017…) I had heard talk of a Bournemouth Comic Con. I wasn’t expecting it to be anywhere near as big as London Comic Con (and I was right) but I do love any excuse to dress up and I don’t really mind how big it is as long as I have a good time, because of that this post will mostly be me being a bit cosplay indulgent but then I’ll write about the event as a whole nearer the end!

Cosplay

To start the plan for my cosplay I Googled the date of the event to give myself a deadline but what is this??? The 28th/29th August? Aaaah!!! A week away?! (At the time of Googling) There was no way my Mei costume would be ready in time (yes, the Overwatch obsession continues and is now making it’s way into my sewing room). I do have my Link costume from my last Comic Con adventure but that shield was heavy and being a bit of a smaller event I wanted to scope out the cosplay caliber first and do something a bit more casual. Luckily, being the fancy dress fan that I am I have a fancy dress box and I soon dug out my Splicer costume (from Bioshock) that I wore for Halloween last year (although Alice in Wonderland and Unicorn were also on the cards). Unfortunately I had thrown my Splicer dress away thinking I wouldn’t need a torn up dress any more. Foolish past me. Amazon Prime to the rescue, I ordered a cheapy chips dress at the last minute then Dan and I got to work ripping our clothes up the night before the event, we even took them outside and partially burned them, I bet the neighbours loved that. We went with another two splicers as well, one of which looked pretty scary and got very into character, small children did not like walking past us, that was until it was just Dan and I sat down and a small child walked past us and excitedly yelled “BUNNY RABBITS!!!”.

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As you can see from the slideshow above, I don’t do scary very well.

Lots of people took pictures of us though, in fact I think that almost as many people took my picture there as they did when I put loads of effort in and dressed as Link for London Comic Con. Maybe that is because there weren’t as many cosplayers so it was a bit more of a novelty to see us, but of those that were there there were some really good ones, here’s a little slideshow of some of the ones I saw.

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There was a cosplay masquerade too, which I believe was a little show where the cosplayers got to show off their costumes, but because the guys wanted to go out and travel across almost the entirety of Bournemouth in search of food at lunch time rather than just buy a sandwich at the event, and also because we couldn’t really figure out where to go to actually sign up, we didn’t get to go. Nevermind! I know for next time now. It wasn’t very well sign posted anyway though, we didn’t even know about it until someone asked if we were going to enter, they could have done with handing out leaflets or something with a timetable of events and where to find what but I noticed they didn’t do that at London Comic Con either.

Guests

The most high profile guests were John Rhys-Davies (aka Gimli from Lord of The Rings, the role I know him for) and David Prowse (Darth Vader, the body not the voice), I didn’t get an autograph or any pictures as I don’t really know them for anything other than that so it didn’t seem right where as when I met Catherine Tate I have seen loads of stuff that she does, not just Doctor Who.
There were also some Cosplay guests, one day I hope to be that good at cosplay, it’s amazing what people can make. I got a few cards so if you’re interested here’s a link to some super col cosplay people:

• Tinufel Cosplay
• Kitschy Cosplay
• Alphabety Cosplay
• Nice N Nerdy Cosplay
• Weatherwax Cosplay

 

Shopping!

Once you’ve seen 1 generic geeky merch stall you’ve seen them all really haven’t you? It’s the artists that really bring these sort of events together, selling things that they’ve handmade themselves and there were a lot of them in Bournemouth that were very talented. I’m not really one for art, I appreciate it and I’d like some to display on my walls but I don’t have the personal interest to maintain a full attention span for a long number of hours, after a while I just don’t really care, in London I was so exhausted wandering around that everyone’s work just seemed to blend into one and all I wanted was to go home, in Bournemouth though I was happy to wander round having a nice long look at everyone’s stuff. Most of what I bought was edible, I bought a brownie and cupcake covered in edible glitter and Butter Beer, being edible they did not survive long enough for me to get a picture… Oops. I also bought a unicorn ear cuff and spent an embarrassingly long time debating whether to buy an alpaca plushie wearing a top hat or not, in the end I decided against it because I wasn’t sure if I actually wanted it or if it was just me getting caught in the event hype. It was super cute though…

These seem to be all the rage at the moment

Here are some links to those lovely shops I saw:

• Glitterica (they sell lovely glasses covered with geeky logos and icons made in glitter)
• LolaArt (some art inspired by movies)
• Lauren Cox (some really cool drawings)
• T-Baggin (super cool nerdy t-shirts, and how cool is that shop name They have the DC Bombshells on t-shirts and I really want one)

In Summary…

I had a really nice time, and I didn’t set out to compare the two events at all but you know what? I actually enjoyed it as much as I enjoyed the London Comic Con. I would definitely go again, in fact I may forgo London Comic Con in the future to go to the smaller ones instead, London’s not that far away from me I guess but the stress, cost and organisation of it really takes it out of me, this one was just so easy though! London has a much better chance of having special guests that are a bit more relevant to my preferred fandoms though. Having said that all our really famous English actors and celebs seem to end up in American conventions rather than their home turf. One day I’ll get to go to San Diego Comic Con…

Have you been to any geeky conventions recently? Would you prefer going to a smaller one or a bigger one? Are you planning any cosplays in the future that you’re going to show off?

30 Day Video Game Challenge! Day 27: Most Epic Scene Ever

I have mixed everything up now. Today is day 27, yesterday’s post should have been days 25 and 26 (amended now). Thank god it’s nearing the end of this challenge, I’m losing track of it all!

So here we go, most epic scene ever.

Isn’t that a little difficult? I don’t know there are so many games that have great scenes but a predominant one doesn’t spring to mind as I don’t tend to play games that have big, epic cut-scenes… I have mentioned this before in response to a similar question but I think that the scene in Bioshock where you first get into Rapture and you’re taken to the city is amazing, especially with the splicer at the end of it, she’s so creepy I needed a lot of nerve to get out of the little submarine thing after that.

 

30 Day Video Game Challenge! Days 16 and 17 (oops)

I missed yesterday! Very sorry, I know you were all dying to know which game I think has the best cut scenes. Yesterday was moving day and today I started my new job (all went well!) so I was a bit preoccupied. I’ll do today as a two parter instead.

Day 16: Game with the best cutscenes

I guess Final Fantasy holds the record for this but as I haven’t played that many of them… I’m not sure. This one’s a bit of a struggle for me, the games that I can think of (Witcher, The Last of Us…) I haven’t actually finished yet so it seems unfair to say them but then again I haven’t finished Bioshock yet either and the beginning scene always springs to mind when I think about good cut scenes. The first time I saw the bit where you get in the lift and you are taken to Rapture it was amazing.

 

Day 17: Best Antagonist

GLaDOS from Portal, hands down. I have never loved an antagonist more. She is brilliant. I love her sarcastic, mean commentary and I was actually quite sad when I beat her in the first game. Here’s a nice lengthy quote for your enjoyment: “There was even going to be a party for you. A big party that all your friends were invited to. I invited your best friend, the Companion Cube. Of course, he couldn’t come because you murdered him. All your other friends couldn’t come, either, because you don’t have any other friends because of how unlikable you are. It says so right here in your personnel file: “Unlikable. Liked by no one. A bitter, unlikable loner, whose passing shall not be mourned. Shall NOT be mourned.” That’s exactly what it says. Very formal. Very official. It also says you were adopted, so that’s funny, too.”

I wish I had that sass.

5 games I never finished but wish I had

The other day, I switched on Dragon Age: Inquisition to further Shawty’s adventures somewhat (which you can read about here and here, if you’re interested) and I caught a glimpse of Geralt on the cover of The Witcher 3 eyeing me from the games shelf. I avoided his gaze guiltily and proceeded to play through DA:I. He was judging me because despite asking my parents to get the game for my birthday and being really happy when I got it, I never finished his game – and then I have the gall to sit there in front of him and play through a game which I have already finished twice as he grows dusty.

This got me thinking about games I started but never finished (ones that I liked that is) and my guilt worsened – so I made a list, and vowed that once I have finished juggling the 4 I currently have going on at the moment, I will start to work my way through the them.

1. The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt

   I started with this in the intro so I’ll keep on going. There were two reasons that I gave up on this game: firstly, the fighting was difficult. In the tutorial they sort of slow down time a little so that you can see when you need to block etc, but in real fights they don’t do that, and I found Geralt to be a little slow on the blocking and he would take loads of damage. I’m still unsure whether this is just me being bad at the game or if it is something that other people struggled with. If you found the same, please let me know so that I don’t feel so alone! Secondly, the map. Oh, the map. It’s VERY intimidating. I’m all for open world but oh my god. When you come out of the first part of the game and into the new area, open the map to see where you are – BAM, side quests EVERYWHERE. I know I don’t have to do all of them but I find it hard to leave them.
   

2. Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker

   This is the game that I am most upset about. I absolutely loved it and had it when I was about 9 on the Gamecube. It is the only Zelda game I have ever owned and not finished. My reasons for not finishing it are a bit silly but the main one is that I have a fear of water in video games (I know, it’s weird, more on that in a future post) and while I have sort of gotten over that now, back when I was 8, it took all my willpower to get as far as I did – at which point the Ghost Ship would scare me away. I came back to it a fair few times over the years but never got past that bit. The other reason is that I really loved the start of the game, so I would often restart it. I was happy running around on the beach chasing the pigs and just messing about. I think this is partly because I was quite young at the time, but I would still do that now. Maybe not restart it, but I would spend a good chunk of time on Outset Island.
   

3. Bioshock

   You may recall that I mentioned this in a previous post about how much of a wuss I am. So yeah, the reasoning behind me not finishing it is simply that it scares me too much. By playing only when it was daylight outside, I got as far as Sander Cohen, the demented artist that covers splicers in plaster and they all creep around and there’s a horrible Weeping Angels feel to it. Despite how creeped out this game made me, I still want to finish it as the story was so good and I love the idea behind it.

   

   This does not look like a trap at all

4. Pokémon Yellow

   This was my first Pokémon game, possibly one of the first games I ever owned (GameBoy Colour!!!) It was the special edition where you get Pikachu as your starter and he follows you around like in the TV show, and along the way you get to pick up Bulbasaur, Charmander and Squirtle. Not through battling though, people just give them to you. Everything else you catch. Throughout the years I have always tried to come back to this game and I just can’t do it. Pikachu is ridiculously underpowered because he never evolves and I used to feel bad putting him in the PC so one of my Pokémon was always dead weight. But even when I came back to it later and stored him in there, I couldn’t get past the Elite Four (AKA the Justice League, as my sister calls them.) I just found it to be a huge jump in levels and the amount of grinding I had to do was so mind-numbing that I can never be bothered to go all the way.

   

5. Baldur’s Gate

   This, my friends, was the beginning of my lifelong BioWare and RPG loyalty and love. This was my Dad’s game and I used to watch him play for hours on end. I never really properly played it, I would mess around playing through the first part of the game up to the mines, where the spiders would scare me too much to continue (looking back they are super pixelated and I can’t believe they used to scare me, but there you go). Despite me mostly watching Baldur’s Gate rather than play it, that game became the foundation of my love for RPGs. A few years later down the line my Dad bought Neverwinter Nights, from the same universe and creators of Baldur’s Gate, and lo and behold quite possibly my favourite game of all time arrived in my life. I became the epic, RPG-favouring gamer girl you read before you. While I could go on and on about Neverwinter Nights and BioWare, that’s not what this post is about (maybe another time.) I did download the remastered version of Baldur’s Gate on Steam a few years ago and tried to play through it, but this was while I was at University and my laptop was not the best for gaming so that really put me off – plus I was always a little too distracted to embark on an epic quest at the time. Now that I have access to a desktop PC again this game is high up on the list of priorities.

   

So there concludes my list of games to retry. Are there any games that you haven’t finished yet but you want to?

The Room For Improvement

I am not a big App gamer at all. I can count the games I have played with an app on one slightly mutated hand. They are: Alpaca World, Bread Kitten, Angry Birds, Cut the Rope, Pokemon Go and most recently The Room. You may notice there that The Room is a bit different to the other games on the list, mainly because it lacks cute animals/fictional creatures and cartoony colours.

I first came across The Room when I saw their creators’ (Fireproof Games) stand at Rezzed 2017 and had a go on the demo for their new game The Room: Old Sins. I got embarrassingly stuck (which you can read about here) but I think that made me more determined to master it and after talking to the lovely people manning the stand I was told of the three previous games which were a trilogy, Old Sins being more of a stand-alone one. Another big thing that drew me to it is that it is a spooky game but it’s not scary.

 

I am the sort of person that loves to watch other people play horror games. Five Nights at Freddy’s, Resident Evil and Silent Hill are some of my favourite play throughs to watch but if I had to play them myself I would be incapable of moving around and would stay rooted in what ever the “safe zone” was. Basically, I am a massive wuss. I’m not entirely sure why this is, maybe it’s because of the more cinematic feel of these sort of games which is probably why I would rather watch someone else play them.

A big victim of this is Bioshock which I love but can never finish. I have tried to play it over and over but I just get way too creeped out and can only play it in the daylight. The furthest I ever got was up to the splicers covered in concrete and then I was done. Other than that there are very few scary games I have attempted to play. I made my other half buy Layers of Fear once (which is great by the way if you ever come across it) so that I could watch him play it and he handed me the controller while he ate dinner. I tentatively ventured forward only to be spooked by a rat, screamed a little (a lot) and then just walked in a circle for about 15 minutes waiting for him to finish so he could take the responsibility away from me.

One day I will finish this game… Eventually

Anyway I digress. The Room was perfect for me because the dark colours and sounds around you are enough to create an ambiance that suitably creeps me out but as I couldn’t actually move around I knew it was very unlikely that I was going to have to defend myself against some supernatural being. In fact, the only thing you can do is look and interact with a box on a table. I was a little hesitant to download it after my failure at Rezzed but once I understood the logic of the game I got very into it.

One of the may puzzles to solve in the game

I’m definitely going to be downloading the next two The Room games and Old Sins, when it comes out, and trying to further my app gaming skills. Any recommendations?