Yeah yeah, I know guys, I need to talk about the games, but there were SO many games that even trying to get it all down in a draft version is difficult. We will come to it, I promise, but right now I want to clear out some other stuff just so I don't miss anything. And while we're on the subject of apologies, I just recently found out that a few things I may have said before were wrong. As I said, I was tired and sore, so it's likely that I've muddled words. The Kinect 2.0 WAS featured, although I never found my way to it, and the PS4 controllers are USB plugs as far as I know right now, and a recent announcement stated that basic functions should work for PC. Sorry guys.

So, we've got consoles out of the way, and games are coming soon as there's a lot in that area to cover. But what was the Expo itself like? Well, from my last update and, if you're listening to my Facebook/on the Skype group, you'd know I was pretty damn impressed with it. While it might be a little bit of excitement from it being my first Expo and from having the privilege of actually working there, there was plenty of good things to say about the Expo that I'm sure anybody who attended would certainly agree with...even if there were also a few minor problems here and there...

There is quite a lot to this as well, so this particular update might also need to be cut into parts.

The Cosplay

I know what you're thinking; "Why jump directly into the cosplay? It's not even the main part of Expo!" Well, my fellow gaming chums, working around gamers, you start to notice just how many people put an amazing amount of effort into looking their best for these expos, and with two cosplay competitions AND a parade dedicated for cosplayers to join in, you could just tell that it was one of the focuses for this year's EB Expo.

Although I wasn't able to take pictures as I was focusing on helping people with the game (I really wanted to with all the Alice, RWBY, Halo, Slenderman and some other cool cosplayers), you'll need to do a little searching on Twitter to see what I'm on about, but people went for broke this time around. Notable cosplayers included the Cerberus group who were hired (I think) by EA to dress up in full army/marnie uniform and stand around EA's proud tank, Ubisoft's hired cosplayers as Edward from AC4 and 3 different Aiden Pearces from Watch Dogs, one guy as an old school Robin who popped up on all 3 days, an amazing Steampunk Alice, a fully decked out ODST, an extremely tall and creepy Slederman, 2 Lollypop Chainsaw cosplayers and even more.

The caliber for costume quality was really high this year, and it seems like, with most games off-limits for taking photos, most people were really happy to go and ask the cosplayers for a quick snap. Of course, there were a few gender-benders, with males playing as Elizabeth (Bioshock: Infinite), Ruby Rose (RWBY) and a princess, and MANY female Assassins. Ultimately though, everbody was doing it for the fun, and it certainly gave a pretty exciting Expo a lot more life.

The Layout - Inside the Main Hall

This year's EB Expo had a pretty big dedicated space. You can still catch a glimpse of the floor plan on the EB Expo website, so check that out if you really want to know what was and wasn't there. Unfortunately, with having lots of cool things, space becomes a problem, and this year's floor plan could have been maybe slightly improved.

The biggest flaw was a bottleneck just outside the Battlefield/Ubisoft booths, that lead to the rest of the Expo as well as the main entrances for the normal audience. The people who designed the original convention hall weirdly decided on sticking a circular arena with a large rectangle hall. The problem is then obviously that the big "doorway" (except there's no door) between the two is pretty limited in size so that it fits with the circular arena's curvature. The big problem came when Ubisoft's Just Dance stage amassed GIANT crowds of people wanting to embarrass themselves or watch the others embarrassing themselves, and both Assassin's Creed and Battlefield having parts of their lines in the way of that "doorway". The already limited space quickly became clogged with people, and so getting through that section during the busier parts of the day could be an absolute nightmare, especially for the cosplayers, people who bought any sharp items at the EB Megastore (such as the various Gears of War replica Lancers) or disabled people.

One other problem was that people did have trouble finding certain things. I had plenty of people asking how to get to the EA booth, since that was tucked away in a corner reservedly, which is a really weird thing for EA to do (to be fair, they were really pushing Battlefield, every EB Game's employee had "Battlefield" on their shirt, and Ubisoft did buy out most of the EB Expo). The cafe(s) were also pretty well hidden, and it took a little getting used to when you need to find toilets, which were almost always met with long queues due to how small they were (admittedly more a problem with the venue than the organisation).

That all said though, there are some positives to the layout. Each developer/publisher/manufacturer got what seemed to be the appropriate amount of space, and each used it well (well, most of them did). The Loveseat section was a blessing, and combined with the other community stage, there was plenty of space for developers, publishers and other people to start interacting with large audiences. There was quite a large section dedicated to retro gaming which was really sweet, and the indie guys got a fantastic area which, while sadly left in the corner near the retro gaming section, displayed a lot of talent and promise from the Australian developers.

The Layout - Outside the Main Hall

EB Expo didn't just have the one little space for gamers to muddle around in. This time, EB Games offers two other arenas as well as a few other attractions on the outside which were well planned.

EB Expo featured many gaming tournaments (one my friend and I attempted to join and subsequently got our arses kicked in), and so a whole arena was dedicated to League of Legends. While I didn't spent too much time in it, the people there were very excited, and there was lots of computers and noise, so presumably the people who did spend time there enjoyed it.

The EB Action Arena was of course for the big announcements and stage shows, and it had quite the queue. While it probably doesn't begin to compare to the size of the E3 arena, it was one of the largest rooms I've been in ever, and with a couple thousand seats available as well as stands, and a pretty big stage and some massive screens, it did the job well. The strobe, pyrotechnic, smoke and other light effects were all very well done, and the camera work was top notch. Also, a blessing for them having toilets inside the action arena; I'm sure a lot of us s*** our pants when we got to see some live gameplay for inFamous: Second Son.

Ubisoft went all out this year at the EB Expo, and their monument to this was the Pirate Ship ride, one of those big carnival rides where you get on a big boat-thing and it swings back and forth, getting to almost 45-degree angles. Armed by my friends who announced some displeasure at working on it in the hot sun (which I thought was beautiful weather), it was very successful, if it was a little bit hidden (you had to go off the beaten path to actually find it, despite its impressive size). Also there was a game of Lazer Tag which was placed inside a big stadium. Although they never actually got spectators to sit and watch the people playing, the course seemed to be a lot of fun, even with the mixed reviews.

Atmosphere

There's plenty more that needs to be said, but I've got to wrap this one up here, else I might just passed out and send you all an unintelligible string of letters, numbers and symbols. Having worked in an environment which I would describe as a "ear-worm breeding ground", noise made up a big part of this years Expo, and I know what worked and didn't.

Firstly, allow me to explain; Ubisoft's Just Dance floor was LOUD. It had to be to try and attract as many people as possible over the sounds of everything WB was doing on the other side of the arena and Battlefield's tank. I was working directly behind the Just Dance floor, so you can imagine how deafening that might have been. To be fair, there were plenty of good songs played every once in a while and I struck up a bit of a dancing strut every once in a while, and it felt a little disheartening knowing that The Crew, the station I mainly worked at, was completely silent (aside from me giving out hints and instructions, and people telling other people how much they suck for hitting them during the multiplayer segment of the demo) with all of the people listening to the headsets. Would have appreciated some Glitch Mob or something to keep the mood up so we could compete with Just Dance's audience...

WB Games cranked it loud, and every explosion in Mad Max sounded like actual, real life explosions. I actually think I received permanent ear damage when I was watching the live demo up close due to how insanely high the volume was cranked up. Hell, many of the people I worked with thought something had dropped or broken, only to look at the WB TV screen and seen that they were just playing their stuff loud and proud. Battlefield pumped up massive audiences for free (and supposedly super rare) T-Shirts every 20 minutes, and they got hundreds of people to cheer like crazy for them.

EA games hired two DJ chicks to come in and play some debatably awesome songs, but much cooler was the highly pimped out Red Bull DJ van, which was stood on a platform, and boasting massive speakers played some absolutely incredible tracks. Meanwhile, the various tournaments were of course giving out their very fast paced and exciting commentary to draw people in.

Most of the above audio worked well, if maybe just a tad too loud at times. Unfortunately, as you might expect, there was some draining sounds...the announcements. I know it's a sad thing, but the amount of kids that got lost at the arena was an exercise in masochism as you had to bare through the hundreds of announcements each day. You'd think they'd start selling leashes at the front door. It was pretty funny when certain announcements clashed and were read over the top of each other, meaning neither could be heard, but when it got in the way of developer commentaries and live playthroughs, it was pretty upsetting.

Conclusion

We do have so much more to talk about, and with time we will cover it all, but at least you've now got a general idea about the place that EB Expo 2013 was. Any of the bad points made were ultimately minor to the overall experience, and indeed the good decisions shine through and are a testament to the amount of planning, organisation and work done by both the EB staff, and the staff of all the vendors who featured. I'd be more than happy to work in that kind of environment any day of the weak, and I look forward to doing it all over again.

Coming up, we'll have much more to talk about, including those awesome games, the Oculus Rift, the audience and media, the various stage shows I did attend, the prizes on offer and much more. Stay tuned guys!