ComicCon 2018: Two Main Highlights for Avid Geeks

Montréal's 10th annual ComicCon ended on Sunday after a three-day celebration of geek culture. This being my first Comic-Con, I wasn't really sure of what to expect, but I was still pleasantly surprised. I attended a variety of events, but I'm going to talk about the two I enjoyed the most: BattleCOM and the DreakHacks Gaming Zone.

BattleCOM is a comedy show that involves comedians battling about geeky topics for a set of rounds. The Montreal Comic Con edition of BattleCOM was mediated by Paul Ash, who is the creator of the game. The contestants included comedians Viveth K, Jason Hatrick, Meletian Falcon (Serag Meletian), Daniel Carin and Tim Riel.

The comedians competed in three rounds: what would be the best superhero team-up movie, what’s the most frustrating video game, and who is the best female TV heroine. The audience chose the winners of the rounds based on who they thought had the best answer and who made them laugh the most. I had the most fun at this panel—it was a great way to take a load off and have some fun. I loved the fact that it was an interactive game, with the winner of each round giving out a T-shirt to someone in the crowd who they thought had the best response to the round question.

As an avid gamer, I spent quite a deal of time in the DreakHacks Gaming Zone. The room had a variety of activities, the first being an area wither attendees could play either Fortnite, Combat Strike 2, or Player Unknown Battleground (also known as PUBG). I spent some time playing Fortnite and PUBG before moving on to watch of attendees play Beat Saber on VR.

The player puts on the VR headset and are given to two controllers that detect their movements. The game combines Star Wars and Guitar Hero: the player is tasked with breaking bocks to the beat of a song with lightsabers, giving fans of Star Wars a chance to live out their dreams as musical Jedi.

The exhibition hall was filled with a ton of booths from a variety of comic book authors, video game console booths, and many more. I had the pleasure of playing the demo for the new Tomb Rider game, set to be released in September of this year.

While I didn't get a chance to attend any celebrity panels, I did enjoy my time. Until next time, ComicCon!