IGDA & Toyz Nation Gears of War 2 Launch Party and Getting into the Gaming Industry Event

Find more photos like this on Toyz Nation On a nice autumn evening in Raleigh, NC hundreds of Gears fans descended on Ess Lounge in downtown Raleigh, and enjoyed an experience of a lifetime as they got to enjoy the fruits of a partnership between, The International Game Developers Association, Toyz Nation and Epic Game Studios.Starting at 7pm the event feature a distinguished panel with Mike President of Epic Games, Colin Dwan Project Manager of Icarus Studios, and Alexander Marcus CEO of Themis Group all providing local students from area colleges like Wake Tech, NCSU, UNC, Duke, and other on the in's and outs of the gaming industry. Topics of the panel included portfolio submission, to courses to take, to current climate in the industry, to even how to form their own game development company. Students were very attentive and asked great questions which will be helpful for their careers. After the panel the student gamers became the envy of Gears fans worldwide they got to play Gears 2 with members of the development team at Epic before the worldwide release. How Cool!! Dana Cowley from Epic was also on hand to give away really cool prizes like autographed copies of the limited edition Gears comic book, novel and posters. After giving everyone a chance to get some practice the real fun began with the first ever official Gears 2 tournament in the Triangle area. 5 teams of 5 played in Horde mode beginning in Wave 10 with the objective to get thru as many waves as possible. Only one group got thru to Wave 11. I got a tip from a source who had informed me that if everyone had begun on wave one and got thru the level then on Wave 8 you could have got the grinder which would have made Wave 10 easier. But screw easy Toyz Nation was giving away a $100 footlocker gift certificate, Skull Candy Headphones, Marvel Comics T-Shirts, and Dana was giving away the Gears Branded Zune Player, a collectors edition of gears, and autographed posters. Everyone had a blast and played and partied beyond 2AM. In term of Gameplay by the way look forward to my review but the graphic and the improvement on the Unreal 3 engine are outstanding. The event went so great we are now going to do a weekly night with Ess lounge centered around gaming and music so stay tuned. Thanks to all event partners including Nick from Ess lounge who was more that a gracious host. Also check gearsofwar.com, and IGDA.ord to catch more pictures from the event than whats below. Damola

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