iGame2 took a trip down to comic con here in NYC and I must say that it is definitely getting bigger every year.  This was the first year with a very strong video game presence and there were enough controllers spread throughout the show floor to keep any gamer happy.  While the booths and booth babes aren’t up to E3 standards, there was a definite effort made amongst the companies that participated.  Atari’s Ghostbusters booth had an ice sculpture in the middle of a marshmallow covered cityscape and Activision’s green screen for Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2 was a big hit amongst the attendees.  Hit the jump for more details.

The showfloor was littered with countless unreleased titles across all platforms.  Sega showed off their strong Wii lineup by showcasing The Conduit, House of The Dead Overkill and Madworld.  Sega is definitely taking a more mature, alternative approach to the Wii this year and showing the world that little Timmy isnt the only one that can have fun with Nintendo’s powerhouse.  Sega is definitely giving hardcore Wii owners what Nintendo has been unable to provide.  EA had the recently delayed Godfather II for fans to play and their recently announced downloadable title, Battlefield 1943: Pacific.  This title is the spiritual succesor to Battlefield 1942 and definitely gave this battlefield fan an instant sense of Deja Vu.  It is being built on the Frostbite engine, which was used to power Battlefield Bad Company.  The title supports up to 24 players and is limited to Conquest Mode.  The game has a pretty bright and colorful palette which lends a nice hand to all the death and destruction.  It will be available on the Xbox Live Arcade, Playstation Network and the PC this summer.  EA also had Bioware’s much anticipated Dragon Age title but i was unable to get any on hands-on time with it.

Rockstar brought little big china to the show floor with their public debut of Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars.  This is hands down one of the most ambitious games for the DS and Rockstar pulled no punches for the development of GTA: CW.  The game is played through an isometric view similar to the early Grand Theft Auto’s and is instantly familiar to any fan of the series.  The touchscreen opens up alot of gameplay innovations and is handled pretty well.  The bottom screen is used to choose a weapon and a grenade icon can be dragged with your finger in order to control an onscreen arc for your globe of destruction.  You also have a GPS in order to plot a way to your next destination.    Graphics are nice with subtle details such as trees swaying in the breeze and physics are attached to peds for hours of fun behind the wheel of a car.  Money is very hard to come by as missions don’t pay very well, so the developers added a drug market into the game.  You can buy and sell various types of narcotics in the game such as pills and weed, in order to make some real cash in Liberty City.  The radio stations are filled with different genres of music except they are now all instrumentals so as to fit on the DS cartridge.  Rockstar did not skimp on the quality though, as all tracks are MP3 rather than oft-used MIDI format.  The game feels very grand in scope and just like the PSP version, Rockstar did not let the size of the system limit the gaming powerhouse that is Grand Theft Auto.

The biggest surprise for me on the showfloor this year was Prototype from Activision.  This third person sandbox titled was originally slated to appear last holiday season but it seems the extra time was properly utilized by the dev team.  Even at such an early stage, the game was extremely polished and the graphics were definitely something to brag about.  My biggest concern with this game when I first saw it were the controls but those concerns disappered within the first 10 minutes of playing the game.  It was extremely easy to pull off hard hitting combos and look cool the whole way through.  Running to the top of a building, jumping off and then elbow dropping a tank has to be one of the most satisfying gaming moments this year.  I was thoroughly impressed by the targeting system and what impressed me about it was that it worked.  Simple as that.  My only major gripe was that the pedestrian’s A.I seemed to be stuck somewhere between stand totally still or full on panic and there were the occasional bits of slowdown when the screen was action packed but this is something that should definitely be addressed before Prototype releases this June.

This year’s comic-con was definitely the biggest since its conception and there was a little bit of everything for everybody.  We hope to have video of the event up soon.