Thanks to Sony for hosting the excellent Playstation Blog meetup at GDC 2009!
The evening started out with a journey via the strange public transportation system known only to denizens of San Francisco’s knowledge underground as “The Muni“!
After many stops and about 45 minutes worth of insane ramblings from the drunken creatures who inhabit this above-ground septic system our “N-Line” “train” moved underground.
Some time later I was able to find an exit from this disturbing cacophony of subterranean lost souls onto Montgomery Street in downtown SF whereupon I journed into the hipster grotto of the W Hotel.
Those who dared followed the signs upstairs were greeted by greeters of a most Playstation-nature. A token of good-faith was required to enter and then you would be presented within the hidden cavern containing the Playstation Meet-Up:
If you were snacking, you might eat some courtesy treats or feed them to a “Fat Princess“:
After a while spent chatting and playing “Fat Princess” lord of the Sony-Morlocks, Jeff Rubenstein invited my “Team” to play Resistance: Retribution for the Sony PSP. A winner must first defuse the gamecube:
Actually all you had to do was play in the tournament of 8 people in a deathmatch Free-For-All and make it into the top two players once to make it to the finals, at which point players had a chance to compete for a GameCube Playstation 3 (MGS 4 edition).
This was my first time playing Resistance on the PSP, though I got very lucky and was able to win 140 to 120 in the first round, beating out a team of fierce GDC atendees who had also never played the game before. My luck was mainly due to running across the rocket launcher or grenade launcher more often than my competitors. The only skill in playing for me was that I had to get above the enemy on the catwalks.
In the second round I got off to a poor start and the competition was much more fierce. The main issue here is that each match lasted ten minutes and on a completely unfamiliar map I was no match for those who had played on it previously. I also unwittingly fell into the trap of the UI where it implies that you have a chance in the leaderboards by showing only your score and the first place player’s score.
While I very shortly held first place in the finals, when it was lost I always thought I had a chance due to that display and the lack of any other scoreboard.
At the end of the finals when the game was over I had come in third and the winner was presented with his PS3. Fortunately, to my surprise, when it came time for us to remove the tournament copies of Retribution from our personal PSPs all finalists were allowed to keep them! After being handed the case and a poster I departed once back to journey through the Mines of Muni and home again.
Thanks again to Sony for hosting the event, a good time was had by all! There is another write-up of the meetup at Playstation Lifestyle where the winner of the tournament has some better pictures.
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