Last night, D3Publisher invited everyone in the Los Angeles area to come down to Meltdown Comics to celebrate the launch of Puzzle Quest: Galactrix. Since everyone loves Puzzle Quest, some of the DtoidLA regulars and I headed on down to check out the event.
Although, to be honest, I’m pretty sure a couple people just came for the nerdcore girls, and Galactrix just happened to be a nice added bonus.
Hit the jump!
One of the big draws for the party was that they would be giving away an early copy of the game to the first 50 people in line who brought their DSes with them. Dexter, Naia, and ZeroAtma, being the Puzzle Quest fanatics that they are, got there super early to stake out their place in line and ensure that they got their copy. I had work before, so I only got there 30 minutes before it started. Luckily, I somehow managed to snag one of the very last copies they had, so I guess the LA traffic that probably held everyone else up in getting there is good for SOMETHING.
When the doors opened, we all headed in to the back room at Meltdown. The setup they had going was pretty cool; the walls were covered in some really cool Galactrix graffiti. Right when we walked in, we were directed to the food carts — a hotdog stand (free hotdogs!) and by far the most exciting and futuristic treat of all: DIPPIN’ DOTS! After standing in line to get our free teeshirts, D3 announed the tournament they would be having; everyone who had gotten a copy of the game was entered, and it would be a one on one match against someone else in the crowd. Everyone who won would be entered into a drawing to win a sweet custom Galactrix DS created by a local artist.
After announcing the contest, they gave us about an hour and a half to practice. For those who didn’t win a DS copy of the game, they had a bunch of kiosks set up with the 360, PS3, and PC versions all up and running. They also had a bunch of girls walking around with DSs strapped to their waists, so that people who wanted to try out the DS version but didn’t have a DS (or, for people like ZeroAtma, who forgot to charge his DS the night before) could check it out as well.
As we all settled down to practice, the funniest thing that happened all night occured. She is going to be pissed I’m telling this story, but I don’t really care.
So, we all sit down and open our copies of the game. I look over and see that Naia has taken the instruction book cover, shoved her face in it, and is taking creepily deep breaths and making a bunch of sniffing sounds. A girl with a big fancy camera has noticed as well, and is sneakily taking pictures of Naia doing this. With her face in the instruction book, Naia doesn’t really notice and just keeps on sniffing.
Finally, the girl walks over and asks what she’s doing. “Oh, I always smell my instruction books. In fact, when I was a kid, I though the better the instruction book smelled, the better the game was!”
Awkward pause.
“Oh, um, neat!” says the girl with the camera. “Anyway, I’m from GameGirl.com and taking pictures and doing quotes for the website! Bye!” Then there’s another awkward pause as Naia realizes she’s probably going to be plastered all over the site with her awesome quote. Fun times! (<3)
By this time, KyleGamgee has joined us as well, and there’s only two things on his mind: hot dogs and the Nerdcore girls (and I guess Puzzle Quest too). This is the second event that DtoidLA has been to with the Nerdcore ladies, and it always surprises me that it seems like they’re genuniely having a good time. Most girls at cons and stuff look miserable, but at all the events we’ve been to, they really seem like they’ve having fun. At the Nerdcore calendar launch we even saw a few playing on their DSes during downtime. Either they really do like their job, or they’re REALLY good at faking it. I like to think it’s the first one.
Once the picture taking is done, the tournament starts. After jumping into multiplayer mode and finding our opponent, we’re told to pick the same specific ship to make things fair. With a huge selection of ships to choose from, it takes me about 5 minutes of looking because I accidentally pass it twice. No sooner do I start my game than I hear Dexter start muttering in frustration — a very common occurance for the frequent Puzzle Quester (well, muttering if you’re in public, screaming obsenities if you’re alone). He’s somehow lost his match in the first two rounds, taking over 150 damage in a glorious chain of death.
Bad luck.
My match lasts a while longer. We go for about 15 minutes staying within about 10 life points of each other. Then, I make a move without thinking about the gravity grid and set up my opponent for a huge chain combo that will kill me.
And he mistaps with the stylus and loses his turn to an illegal move. VICTORY FOR ME! I am so good at Puzzle Quest.
While I got entered into the drawing, a redhead kid named Aaron or something ended up winning the DS. Boo. It’s too bad since if I had won I obviously would have immediately given it away on the site because I’m such a nice guy. Too bad that didn’t end up happening.
Overall, we had a great time. Puzzle Quest: Galactrix is fucking awesome, as expected, and everyone should go out and buy the DS version immediately as soon as it’s released on February 24th. Even though I now have the DS version, I’ll probably be picking up the PC version as well when it comes out. The guys at D3 were super nice, and it seemed like everyone at the even really enjoyed themselves. The only downside to the evening was probably the fog machine that kept spewing out fog that tasted like ass, but eventually we all got used to it.
As we walked out though, we prepared to move on to the real best part of the night: SURVIVOR THURSDAY AT CHAD’S! Usually it’s just me, but I convinced everyone to come along, and it was amazing, even though I am sad that the most perfect pair of breasts that have been on the show in a long, long time got voted off last night. As Chad said: “Her sweet, ebony chocolate milk jugs. :(” However, since this has nothing to do with Galactrix, I’ll stop talking now.
Check out the rest of the gallery to see the other medicore pics I took with my crappy camera! Do it! There’s a picture of Luna at the end!
