GamePro Arcade

QUAKECON 2008: Get The Frag Out!

Aug. 12 11:31 PM by Andrew Ramsey

Quakecon is a festival of lights and smell. Its a convention that gather's hundreds of PC gamers together in a LAN free for all. This recipe for disaster includes tons of gamers inside of a room with no showers, tons of heat and a bad taste in nutrition. The convention is held at the Hilton hotel located in Dallas, TX and brings in hundreds of gamers every year. Custom cases, bags and lines out the door are what await you at the registration area of the convention. Getting badges and filling out all forms will grant you access to the gaming area. In here you a bevy of flickering monitors and all types of PC cases. Some will be your standard cases, while other may be made of Lego's, pizza boxes or even just an old looking radio from the 1920's. Smack dab in the middle is the LAN center where all the boys and girls jack themselves in to play with each other as well as in the tournaments being held at the event. Besides all the flickering lights and clicking's of keyboards, there are actual games being played here. Call of Duty 4, Team Fortress 2 and of course Enemy Territory Quake Wars were all present and accounted for. Being that this was Quakecon, many gamers busted out Quake 3 Arena to bring back the fond memories of good times.

Across the hall is the vendor area. Here schwag and info are given out like toys at Christmas. Numerous booths take up the middle area of the floor while stage and tournament areas take up the ends. All the major brands for PC gaming are here but a lot of smaller companies were present as well. Two very catchy ones were Tritton and amBX. Tritton makes headsets for both the PC and just recently consoles. The headset featured the 5.1 surround sound and a rumble feature built into the headset. amBX has a speaker system that uses lights to portray what is happening while playing a game. The biggest news was that Wolfenstein made its presence on the show floor with a trailer from its upcoming game being shown.

Quakecon went through its ups and downs. On the upside you get to meet some cool people thus building the gaming community. With that you get tons of file sharing, Facebook tagging and number exchanging. Making friends isnt hard to do, unless you the couple stuck in the corner wearing the dockers outfits. The only downside would be the aggression put into catching prizes. All that needs to be said is $300 video card plus tons of nerds equals ouch someone hit me in the face.Prizes were handed out, keynotes were spoken and gamers got to do what they do best! No one went home empty handed. And even though this is a PC dominated event, I have a strong feeling that consoles will be making a larger impact in the years to come.

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