California Extreme 2014

Any of you guys go this year?

My girlfriend and I make a 5 hour drive each year to this fine expo. For anyone not aware, it's a pinball and arcade game convention in Santa Clara, California that features hundreds of pinball and arcade machines all set to freeplay. A few years ago there I got to meet Jeff. I also saw Ryan and Drew but didn't get a chance to say hi.

Played tons of The Grid, and Street Fighter 2 CE among others. Fun times as always, and they must have fixed the A/C or something because this is the first year that wasn't hot and stinky in the convention center. Woo!

I'd kill to go this. Was Giant Bomb there this year?

Id also love to go to this but cross-country is a bit to far for me. My favorite was always hearing Jeff and Ryan talk about going though.

I want to go one year, really waiting for my kid to be older so he might enjoy it more. One year I'll finally make it.

http://www.giantbomb.com/forums/general-discussion-30/california-extreme-2014-1488663/

Last time the topic was started only a couple of people said they were going, it didn't seem to gain much traction this year on GB for whatever reason. Maybe because it conflicted with EVO and the World Cup?

Could be. It's funny, when we went to CAX in 2012 and 2013, we saw tons -- tons of people wearing GiantBomb hoodies, shirts and what have you. I saw atleast 40 different people both years wearing GB stuff. This year? I saw one dude wearing a GiantBomb hoodie.

Kind of made me wonder if the crew talking about CAX on the Bombcast those years had to do with the interest level here. Them talking about it is what got me started going there too. They said nothing about CAX this year, so...

I think that Giant Bomb does have a definite influence on community attendance at events like these. They can get the word out to more people with more ease than a forum post or two. And the staff has been preoccupied with a lot of other things recently, to say the least. It'd be nice if they returned for CAX 2015, though. I myself have never been able to attend simply because it requires a lot of travel plans I can't really commit to.

I saw one guy with a giant bomb shirt on but that was about it. Otherwise, I just enjoyed plenty of Bishi Bashi and Come on Baby with my friends I went with.

Had to skip this year myself due to other commitments, which is unfortunate since people were reporting the Jehovah's convention wasn't taking place this year and you didn't have to go park all the way over in Bumblefuck, Egypt (Great America parking lot) just to get in. Not to mention it was looking like a nice breezy 80 degrees, versus 90+ and drought for rest of the Bay.

@mrinternet: I might have been that guy, also I played sooo much Bishi Bashi :P I was wearing my Papers Please style Giant Bomb shirt on the first day of the show, but i didn't see anyone else repping Giant Bomb gear.

Next year we should plan a Giant Bomb community get-together of some sort, that is if there are enough people that would want to join in.

I was there with a fellow GB friend! I got to go two years ago and have been wanting to ever since. So happy I could this year.

We played a ton of Puzzle Fighter 2 Turbo and Ms. Pacman. He was new to pinball so I showed him around the various well regarded tables and happily he started to get into it!

Did you try that indie game with the huge 50(?) inch screen cabinet?
I wish I had thought to check the forums here to see if anyone else was there, would have been cool to grab a drink at the bar. We spent a fair amount of time there as well...

I was there too. Pretty cool, amazing pinball machines like Tron Legacy, Matrix, and even Pirates of the Caribbean which was all gold. Played a crazy 3 player game all in japanese. I marveled at people playing a japanese rhythm game called Juebeat (I think that's the name). That game looked incredible but each play through was about 10 minutes and there was a constant line. I didn't see any Giantbomb people, fans or otherwise. Next year I'll be rocking a Giantbomb Tee.