LOOKING BACK AT ECTS 2000
Returned safely from ECTS, eventhough we did have problems on our way home since our train
to the airport broke down as well as a defective domestic airplane at Copenhagen airport
which made us wait another hour and 20 mins before we could go home, but the trip was
quite cool and I met a lot of the people from N64 IRC channels, VIC[CML], Steve--,
Count0, NEP-CML, Nagra, Hartec and Nil.
I began my trip to ECTS early morning, 2nd September. I took a plane from Aalborg to
Copenhagen where I would meet Vic, Steve and Nep later on since we had planned to stay
at the same hotel. Three hours after my arrival at Copenhagen my cellular phone rang and
it turned out to be VIC[CML], so we met and after eating a hotdog we continued our journey.
We borded the 14:30 flight to London Stansted, the food on the plane was terrible but atleast
there were free drinks. An hour later we arrived at the London Stansted airport and while
waiting to pickup our luggage, Count0 and a friend of his joined. Almost everyone got
their luggage, why almost? well one bag was missing, Nep's.
Well the 6 of us continued our journey to Paddington where our hotel was located, unfortunately
we got a bit lost when looking for the hotel, so Nagra, who would be staying at the same hotel
aswell, came to rescue.
After unpacking our stuff we decided to go and grap something to eat and after looking around
a bit we decided just to eat at Burger King, which unfortunately wasn't such a great experience,
the burger looked like it had been grilled all day, but was cold. The fries were cold and
un-salted (did come with small bags of salt though). Well atleast the coke was cold too.
After enjoying our delicious burgers at Burger Crap we went to a pub where we later met
Hartec (of Dextrose) and a friend of his.
Sunday was the first day of ECTS. We got up around 8 and ate "english breakfast" at the hotel
which was beans, an egg, 1 piece of bacon and a tiny sausage (sausage only included on sundays)
and some toast. I dont know what they "do" the coffee in england, but it tasted quite good,
am I'm usually not a coffee drinking person. I realised after the breakfast that I'm no bean
eating person either, oh well.
So we teamed up with Nagra and the seven of us (Nep, Steve, Vic, Count0, Johan
(Count0's friend), Nagra, and me) went to the Paddington underground station to catch the
train for London Olympia, actually we had to change train on the way but I doubt you would
find that interesting, or?
When we arrived there was, ofcourse, a massive que of people lined up infront of the entrance,
so it took like 10 - 15 minutes to get in. Once we got inside we were met by a giantic Intel
and Nintendo stand, and a Konami stand a little to the left which ran the Metal Gear 2 DVD,
I persume, on a giant screen. We decided to split up in smaller groups and then meet later
that day. And so the hunting for kickass free stuff began.
I headed to the Nintendo stand, ofcourse, up some stairs, since the Gameboy Advance was located
on the first floor. The GBA sure will be Nintendo next hit console, if the GameCube flop, then
atleast they know they can depend on the GBA.
A lot of Nintendo64 games were displayed at Nintendo's stand, games such as: Banjo-Tooie, Conker's
Bad Fur Day, Zelda Majora's Mask, Dinosaur Planet, Mickey's Speedway, Mario Tennis, Pokemon Puzzle,
Pokemon Snap, Mario Party 2. Most were complete except for Banjo-Tooie, Dinosaur Planet (which
crashed when I played it, so I quietly left the stand) and Conker's Bad Fur Day. Nintendo had a
lot of Gameboy Color games on display aswell such as Sonkey Kong Country (GBC version of the
SNES one) and Pokemon Pinball. Finally Nintendo has released the stupid Pikachu Nintendo64
in Europe, go figure. Some European release dates to look forward to are: 17 Nov - Zelda Majora's Mask
and 24 Nov - Mickey's Speedway.
But outside Nintendo's stand the N64 was pretty much invincible, or just heavily outnumbered
by Playstation2 titles. Ubi Soft didnt have a single N64 game at their stand eventhough they
still are planning to release a few. To their defence is that they Donald Duck game was displayed
at Disney Interactive's stand. The game is called Donald Duck Quack Attack if anyone needs
to know the exact title. Another game in the work by Ubi is "Batman: return of the joker".
THQ had no N64 games at their stand either eventhough they've got a few titles up their
sleeve aswell, Might Morphin Power Rangers and Aidyn Chronicles, however screenshots and
movies of these were to be found on their Press Kit CD, so the games should be released
in Europe. Midway had one N64 game on display, San Fransisco Rush 2049, which recently has
been released in the US. Capcom had no games on display at all, atleast not public, and
there were no word about Mega Man 64 in their press releases. Konami only had one N64
game on display, International Superstar Soccer Millenium and their press kit was damn
difficult to obtain aswell, hmmm doesnt sound like Konami at all, well blame the damn European
branch.
We did see other than games as you can see above.
After ECTS we decided NOT to go to McDonalds. Count0 and Nil, who Nagra now had introduced,
suggested a trip to KFC, but we ended up at some restaurant. Everyone was
more or less exhausted from the walking and walking and walking, and the heat at Sony's
stand, so we decided to return to the hotel, since Nil had to mod a few PS2's aswell.
Monday I decided not to go for the English breakfast, so I just had some toast. We headed
off to ECTS again for more playing and free stuff. Around 2 in the afternoon everyone had
enough of ECTS, and we went to the Picadilly Circus to buy a meal at McDonalds, oh
and take a look at some shops aswell.
Tuesday we didnt have much time since we had to leave for the airport around 1 - 2 in the
afternoon, so we decided to head off to the Picadilly Circus again to kill time. Well the
time came where we had to head to the airport, so we went to Paddington train station
and got on the Stansted Airport Express, and everything was going great. Well until the train
broke down and we had to wait for another. This meant that we entered Stansted Airport at
3:20 and our plane left at 4. It took us quite some time to find the right check-in point
and were met by a pissed lady because we came in so late.
Well we got on the plane and left for Copenhagen. I better add that we once again got
some quite disgusting food at the plane, can't SAS do any better? Well we arrived at
Copenhagen and left for the domestic flights terminal to catch a plane to Aalborg 1½ hour
later. Unfortunately the plane had a defect and we had to wait another 1½ hour.
But in all it was a kickass trip and i'll definately be there next year aswell, see you there?
2 - 4 september 2001 at London ExCel! Special thanks to Vic for the pictures, Steve, Nep,
Count0, Johan, Hartec, Nagra and Nil.
LATEST SCENE RELEASES
| 09-06-2000 | San Francisco Rush 2049 | Midway | USA | mnc-2049.zip | 96mbit |
| 09-06-2000 | Madden NFL 2001 | EA | USA | mnc-mf01.zip | 96mbit |
| 09-05-2000 | Rat Attack | Mindscape | USA | mnc-rata.zip | 64mbit |
