Ok gamers,
To start off the year right you would have had to have gone to M5 "Music and Games Festival". Basically it's a gamer's annual mega party. There, gamers get to play all types of games, rock out to their favorite videogame tunes and more.
This year at M5 I got to do a lot of things and play a lot of games. Unlike the previous one, where I was always helping to administrate, I got to experience first hand all of the activities that M5 had to offer.
The Festival was held on the border of Washington DC/Virginia so it was only a 4 hour trip from NYC for me. When I arrived Wednesday night Brendan (the CEO/Chairman) of the festival treated me and my friends all to dinner. We helped out with the equipment that came in that night to set up for the following day. M5 was a 4 day event this year.
Some of the equipment was actual arcades like Time Crisis, Dragon's Lair, Magical Drop 3 and Street Fighter 2: Hyper Fighting. They were set all to free play so you know I abused the privilege.
This year, I was not so much interested in the tournaments as much as I was in the panels and the rock concert. At the panels we discussed many topic like the evolution of female gamers and their community. It brought up many topics like what are the leading female clans and organizations out there doing to help promote the female gamer scene.
Well you know me! I spoke about GGN and how it's the number 1 female gamer network that is literately bringing the female gamer community together. We also talked about the many emerging clans out there that follow in suit of PMS and Fragdolls.
The best part about it all is that the local communities are starting to accept us as gamers now and that it's not a problem that female gamers play games; whether we are good or not. After a few more in-depth topics about the community and gamer culture, the panel then transformed into a fashion show which I'm a bit embarrassed to even mention.
The way the fashion show worked was more like a contest where they picked random volunteers from the audience to participate. They would put a series of gamer apparel on the table and then turn off the lights and have us dash at the table and grab whatever we could. Then we would have to take it out of the room and go and change. Now the fashion was based on how we wore the clothing and not on what we wore.
Although there was a lot of good stuff to choose from...I didn't get to wear what I really wanted to but I made the best of it. I won best duo with Bunny Blaze. She won best female gamer dresser. As you can tell by the pictures my color coordination was completely off but it was all I had to work with lol.
There were these random treasure chests lying around the hotel and some of them had cool prizes that you could actually take for keeps. One of them even had money. However, the key to the prizes were that whatever you took you had to replace with something else. I never got to find a chest with money in it. I do have a picture. Yeah I know ... how do I have a picture but didn't get the money? Don't ask.
Later I left the festival for a photo shoot with a private photographer that Blaze had set up for me and some of the Valkyries. We had a fun time with that. You couldn't imagine the type of props that they had at the studio. After the shoot we returned back to the convention just in time for the rock concert.
Wave Theory and Arm Cannon rocked the house. They did a mixture of Tech, rock and hip hop. They even had a rap battle. The concert provided something for everyone and that is what made me like it the most. The ball room was crowded and everyone just went crazy when they started to play some of the old game tunes like Ninja Gaiden and Metroid.
After the 4 day party was over they held closing ceremony where they let all the gamers voice their opinions about how they experienced the festival. Representatives of Atari were there and they were giving interviews with some of the gamers. I represented GGN. We talked about how M5 was a blast and gave some ideas for the next one. They are planning a summer party this year which I hope goes down. I like the pool.
OHHH speaking of which the night during the closing ceremony I had a great time just soaking in the hot tub. Oh man....That had to be the best time of the festival. There are some things that are just better than gaming...and at that time the hot tub was one of them. :p
I was a bit sad on the train ride home because I really wanted to stay for one more day but nothing that good could last forever. Well at least there is always next year.
