ny-comic-con posts

This past weekend the massive New York Comic Con was held and the pop culture event in Manhattan served as a place for the game industry to show off and talk about a number of upcoming titles. Our sister site Joystiq was all over the convention floor and at the panels to cover the event.

New York Comic Con is run by Reed Exhibitions and has been highly successful in its few years of existence (the first convention was held in 2006). Early estimates have pegged the 2009 show as having over 77,000 attendees. The show will be moving to an October date for its 2010 edition. However, Red Exhibitions is running the upcoming Penny Arcade Expo East event that will debut in late March 2010 in Boston. We suspect the game industry will be out in force at that inaugural show. In the meantime check out Joystiq's coverage of NY Comic Con which includes coverage of a panel with Bethesda Softworks' Todd Howard and 2K Boston's Ken Levine, some Battlefield 1943 impressions, and some impressions of Velvet Assassin.

The New York Comic Con begins on Friday and despite its title there will be a lot of video and PC games on display. There will also be many game-oriented panels at the convention. One of the games on the show floor will be DC Universe Online, the upcoming Sony Online developed MMO that will put players smack dab in the middle of the long time four color super hero setting.

Before the convention opens, however, our sister site Joystiq managed to get some hands-on time with the game (pre-alpha code) as well as chat with senior producer Wes Yanagi. The preview was all about playing as a villain working with Lex Luthor (pictured above in his super-armor) and our fellow reporters seemed impressed. The chat with Yanagi goes over some topics including whether the planned PC and PS3 versions will allow for cross-platform play (the official answer is, "We would love to have cross platform play, but haven't made an official decision on it yet.")

We've already mentioned that next weekend's New York Comic Con will be full of game publishers exhibiting recent and upcoming games along with game-themed panels. This week Codemasters wanted to let everyone know that the upcoming space-based MMO Jumpgate Evolution will be front and center at NY Comic Con.

Attendees will get to check out and play with the latest code version of NetDevil's upcoming title (a revamp of their first game Jumpgate) which is scheduled to launch later in 2009. Codemasters even sent over three new screenshots from the game to promote their NY Comic Con appearance and we've gladly added them to our gallery.

Sony Online's upcoming super hero MMO DC Universe Online already has two big comic book creators working on the game. Superstar artist Jim Lee is leading the game's art direction while writer Geoff Johns is handling the storyline for the game.

But apparently there's a third major comic book creator (described in the press release as a "legend") that is also working on the game. His or her name is scheduled to be revealed on Feb. 7 at the New York Comic Con during a DC Universe Online panel. The unnamed creator will join with Lee, Johns and members of the game's development team to discuss the game during the panel. A new playable demo of DC Universe Online will also be shown at the convention where attendees will be able to see villain combat for the first time.