Anime Expo game demos - hands on and what was there

So I went to Anime Expo this year. Cosplay, Anime, Games, Industry, Music, Merchandise, so much stuff.

Game wise there was a lot to cover, but I only covered what caught my attention most. Got to try a VR headset too. Asked some devs about PS4 NEO and got a little bit back for feedback (theres some debate about the 4k content).

Games I saw for playable demos:
Dragon Ball Z Xenoverse 2
Tekken 7
God Eater 2: Rage Burst
Tales of Berseria
JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure: Eyes of Heaven
Sword Art Online: Hollow Realization
Indivisble
Skullgirls (Mobile port)
Monster Hunter Generations
Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney- Spirit of Justice
Fairy Fencer F Advent Dark Force
MeiQ: Labyrinth of Death
Azure Striker Gunvolt 2
Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night
Yakuza 0
Hatsune Miku: Project DIVA X
The King of Fighters XIV
Sonic Boom: Fire and Ice
Rock of Ages II: Bigger and Boulder

What I had a hands-on experience with:
Rock of Ages II: Bigger and Boulder
Pretty good. physics are a bit off but it's in pre-alpha stages so that's okay. Unreal 4 being used is neat too.

Sonic Boom: Fire and Ice
Was good honestly. I personally hate the controls most but that's probably me never using a 3DS prior.

Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night
PC version sent to backers. Was nice. Pretty simple, short but looks and feels good.

Azure Striker Gunvolt 2
Not my type of game but was nice to see a new character added to the mix. Was nice to see Takuya Aizu and Keiji Inafune do the panel as well to announce a Gunvolt OVA

Skullgirls (Mobile port)
So it's a fighting game, but now on mobile devices (with 300 available beta slots available if you go to the skullgirls site). Uses gestures to fight and honestly it's really solid. The game itself was great already but this is just reaching a level that even I thought couldn't be done.

Indivisible
Pretty basic. Has a lot going for it and tons of potential. I really like to see people taking so much care for a game even when they're at an event hosting a booth and panel. These guys at Lab Zero are really caring for how something turns out.

Hardware I saw:
2 IS-SPR-DEBUGGER&CAPTURE kits(4gb model)
40+ Xbox One Demo Kits
2 PS4 Testkits (one with a matte finish, one with a smooth glossy finish)
A special arcade board for Tekken 7 (couldn't get pictures of this. They yelled at me for even trying when everyone could see it)

Some pictures if you want
Games (sorry for poor quality on some. They were very hard to get)

Spoiler

Some pics of the hardware (I was requested to delete the PS4 ones, as per request from the lead programmer of one title)

Spoiler

And of course, no AX is ever complete without this.

Spoiler

I have some cosplay pictures as well but this is for games (mostly).
And here's a picture of the Inti Creates panel going on. Wasn't lit well til later.

 

WELL DONE MAH BOI! YOU CAN COME ON HOME!

 

The Tekken 7 nonsense still bugs me.

For those that missed me being upset; The staff for the Tekken 7 booth (from Bandai themselves) were having some Xbox One kit issues so they were having to fix them manually with a commandline and a wire to the Xbone from a laptop.

While they were working on one they had a second one that needed installing of the game, so this second staff member of the Bandai team gets the disc that's clearly just a BD-R with a burn of Tekken 7 on it. He signs into the Xbone kit account and then walks away to the booth with the guy fixing the other one.

So now we have 2 Xbone Demo Kits, one with the Bandai private wireless network password showing (you know because no LAN since it's a mess anyway), a laptop with FULL ACCESS to one kit with a commandline, and a Tekken 7 disc sitting face-down on a table where anyone can walk by and just pick it up and be on their way.

Now because I don't need to ruin a tournament (the area was for tournaments for a DBZ, One Piece, Naruto and Tekken tournaments) and don't need to have someone on my ass, I didn't take the disc, but now I was wondering how much more would this happen? Like I can understand it being perfect bait for anyone that wants to steal a build, but there's no undercover people
(badge shows if you're volunteer, staff exhibitor or normal attendee), no cameras in the area (though there's likely cameras in some spots but not that room specifically), the only way they would know if someone did it is if another person said it happened (aside from a missing tournament disc since they system linked each Xbone to another instead of just having people fight on the same one). But even then there were plenty of spots each day where someone can walk up, hit eject, and then walk away with a disc (I had to charge my phone a ton and the entertainment hall has walls of chargers and air conditioning so I got to watch the Bandai area a lot).

Luckily nobody took it (myself included) but making it so easy with little to no way of knowing who did it? Like come on Bandai.

Edit - here's how much I know about one of the 8 discs (maybe 10)
-It's a BluRay
-Blue marker and black marker in handwriting (this one was blue)
-About 10-12gb of data is used on it (I once did a project regarding visually IDing how much data was burned to discs just by seeing the back)
-It's for Xbox One

 

The big question is why was it on disc at all, those XBO kits should be able to run that build from HDD and its not like that would change performance considering all XBO games must install and run form HDD anyway.
If anything it degraded performance by being on disc.

 

Are we really at a point where someone feels the need to justify not stealing something?

 

Would YOU have taken it? I mean this is the first day of the con we're talking about here. If you got caught in any way you lost all access for that one and maybe future ones.

While I'm at it, while talking to the Lab Zero folks, we were talking about ISPs and such, and we were specifically naming Comcast and Timewarner and how they shaft their customer for even the smallest piracy actions. So I said "I pirate seas of things-" and the one I was talking to got a bit upset (which in every right is understandable) but my reason for game piracy is because I wont want to drop money on a game without getting to try it first. I set myself a limit of 1 stage or 30-45 minutes of playing said game. If I want to play more, I'll buy the game. If I dont, then I wont play the game any further and wont buy it. They agreed that it's a fair reason, but the fact I still grabbed a pirate copy is the issue (I'll be buying 2 copies of Indivisible in front of them next year).

I at least try and be ethical about piracy and stealing - that said, if it happened a second time, I would have probably taken it.

Funny you mention this.
There was a power surge for that table and all those Xbones got wiped in the process so they had to use that disc to reinstall it. I hadn't laughed that hard in a while.

 

...I think you misinterpreted my post to the point that you think I was saying the exact opposite of what I said. Someone shouldn't feel a need to explain why they DIDN'T just steal something - it should be pretty fucking obvious.

 

That had to have been one hell of a power surge to wipe the HDDs....

 

Could be a security thing? Dont know if there is a "wipe if lost power" setting hah.

 

Im thinking this is the reason honestly. A power surge should wipe a drive unless it broke it.

Was still nice to see them put in the password for the bandai wifi netowork. The manual fixes they were doing were with save data. For some reason they weren't able to remotely delete some corrupt data so thats why they had to fix it with a laptop like in this image. (What laptop is that anyway? I haven't seen it before.)

Justifying stealing shouldn't be a thing because it's still stealing, so I got that part, but I should still say my pirating side needs justification in some way. Stealing a disc that they just left there? Yeah no that's bad.

 

I've had HDD's wiped in a power surge while writing to them. Also that laptop looks like a surface book although I would have to see the front/side to confirm it.

 

Had a small lip to open it. The hinge was like segmented for a more flexible angle.

 

Surface Pro or Book

 

Yeah sounds like a surface book with the hinge design.

 

Thanks. They seem pretty neat. I'd probably buy one if I had a reason honestly.
Here's a slight angle change if you wanted to see how many there were off to the side (and you know, the laptop)

Of all the kits here, only these 40 demokits and the IS-SPR kit were in reach of people (aside from the PS4 kits which were closely guarded)

 

Anyone scan the QR codes yet?
(Im a lazy sausage)

 

are my pictures even good enough to do that? i think thats a question that needs to be asked first

 

Tried it but my phone couldn't tell there was a code at all but maybe someone with a higher rez monitor could get it working.

 

Yep.

 

Stipo pls
Listen I'm more inclined to complain about a tournament for an unfinished game, but I'm not losing my badge and probably being banned from any future AX just for 1 build