Wednesday, Feb. 28, 2002. 10:30PM.
Sony Metreon. San Francisco, California.
The party is officially over. The Metreon shutdown the arcade games promptly at 10:30, giving us our cue to exit. The PortalOne arcade was great, with lots of high-end games. HyperBowl is one of the most bizarre, allowing contestants to bowl across giant forests or the streets of Tokyo. The game parlor also has some choice motion simulators and a host of traditional arcade games.
Bill and I arrived at 6:15, just before the party started. The four hour party was designed as a “Meet The Engineers” session, a chance to talk to Intel’s chief developers. Like most of the partygoers, I skipped this for a few hours of free food and arcade action. I already knew many Intel engineers from my speaker track. Come to think of it, I knew a lot of people at this party. There’s a common industry crowd at these tradeshows, so I have small group of “conference pals” to hang out with.
Traditional video games have been a part of my life for over two decades. The new generation of games are the ones I’m not used to. Stuff like “The Grid” is okay, since it’s just an arcade third-person shooter. I’m not really talking about new game titles, but new styles of video game … games that require physical interaction, like “Dance Dance Revolution”. These games require physical skill beyond the basic eye-hand coordination associated with most computer games.
Matt, one of my “conference pals”, talked me into playing “Dance Dance Revolution”. He has this game on his kid’s Playstation, and attributes it to loosing twenty pounds. For those who haven’t seen the game, the object is to perform step patterns displayed on the screen. This requires the player to hop, jump and skip in time to the music. Points are awarded based on accuracy, both on hitting the pattern and staying in time with the music. The game is a huge hit in Japan, and is gaining popularity in the US.
Matt, a 40-ish computer company president, kicked my ass. I actually think I turned my ankle trying to keep up with him. Dancing is not one of my strong points. While I am a drummer, my rhythm is limited. I have great rhythm when holding sticks, or seated behind a drumset. If you stand me up on a dance floor, I become as white as a bag of rice in a bleach jug. I leave Matt to his dancing frenzy, escaping the localized effect of my whiteness to obtain another beer.
After ingesting some fermented carbohydrates, I decide to try the skateboarding game. While it requires some physical skill, it looks less hazardous than the virtual disco hell Matt put me through. Kim, one of the media staffers that runs IDF, shows me the basics of the game. While never conquering the game, I manage to pull off some good tricks. Kim is one of my new “conference pals”, somebody I recognized from past conferences but was never formally introduced to. After HyperBowling with Kim’s crowd for a while, we escape into the night with the rest of the attendees.
It’s not very early, but everybody decides to call it a night. Three nights of convention duty have taken their toll on Kim, who has to shutdown the show tomorrow afternoon. My company’s crowd has retired, along with the rest of my “conference pals”.
Methinks I need sleep.
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