Midway’s Gamers’ Day Event

On Tuesday February 28th I had the pleasure of attending Midway’s Gamers’ Day Event in Los Angeles California. At the event I had the pleasure of meeting with Johner Reihl, Daniele Gaetano, Matthew Vella and Sean McCann and the chance to play some of Midway’s upcoming releases, including Rise and Fall Civilizations at War.

Take me straight to the: Rise and Fall Preview
Take me to the: Image Gallery

Arrival and My Trip down Sunset Boulevard

My flight on Tuesday left at 7:40 am EST. For those of you who are familiar with the lines and problems that afflict modern day airports will know that you should always try to arrive at the airport 2 hours before your flight is scheduled to leave. Since my flight was scheduled for 7:40 am EST, this meant that I needed to arrive at Pearson Airport’s Terminal 2 at 5:40 am EST. Considering that Pearson Airport is about 40 minutes away from where I live, I needed to get up at around 4:00 am EST. My day actually wouldn’t end until 11:00 PST, so I was up for around 20 hours on Tuesday. Suffice it to say, I was exhausted when my head finally hit the pillow. But what a day it was.

My flight took off without a hitch from Toronto’s Pearson Airport, and after a short 5-hour flight I landed in Los Angeles at around 11:00 am PST. Getting a cab and driving to my hotel wasn’t much of an experience. My cab driver was only honked at 7 or 8 times for cutting off fellow motorists or performing some other illegal act on the highway, a standard cab driver in any city.

I arrived at my hotel, the West Hollywood Hyatt, at around 12:00 pm PST checked in and went up to my room. Midway’s event didn’t actually start until 4:00 pm PST, so I had about 5 hours to kill, so I decided to make the most of it by taking myself on a walking tour of Sunset Strip and Hollywood. The one thing that I noticed about Los Angeles is that nobody seems to walk and everybody seems to drive. Between the West Hollywood Hyatt and Vine St. I think I only passed maybe two dozen other pedestrians and maybe several thousand cars stuck in almost perpetual gridlock in certain cases. The walk itself was pretty uneventful, I took a few pictures here and there of things I found interesting. Mostly the walk was just a chance to soak in what Hollywood culture is like. On my walk I passed the Rock Walk of Fame, the Capitol Records Building, the CNN Building, The Hollywood Walk of Fame, the Chinese Theater and the Kodak Theater where they were setting up for the Oscars.

After my walk I sat down for a delicious lunch of a burger and fries at a train caboose, turned restaurant that claimed to be the best burger joint in LA. When I got there, several fire trucks were out front and about two dozen firemen were eating lunch on the front patio. I deduced that if firemen know anything, they probably know a hearty meal. So I stopped in the restaurant and got a bite to eat.

By the time I got back to my hotel I had walked about 6.4 km (4 miles) so I was in need of a rest. The time was only about 3:00 pm PST so I still had an hour before the event actually started. Kicking back on my bed, I started watching a television program narrated by Leonard Nemoy on “The Stories of the Arabian Nights”. The documentary was actually rather fitting because as you all know the Persian’s are one of the four civilizations in Rise and Fall: Civilizations of War, and it has been speculated that the stories from the Arabian Nights might even trace back as far as ancient Persia. At around 3:45 pm PST, I decided it was time to get up and head over to the event. Was I ever in for a great treat!

Next: Initial Impressions
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