This afternoon we will have a new Christmas special for the Doctor Who. I hope I will watch it on BBC through an iPad app here in Italy. In the meantime I show you this computer forged inside an aluminium reproduction of the Tardis. It is an officially licensed product by BBC and it is a real computer. The price is not so low, it is sold for 1000 euros at least. It cannot travel through time, sorry.

In Lucca Games there was the Miniature Island. Yes, we were on an island in the sea of Lucca Comics & Games (and Cosplay, remember). We were only an island in Lucca Games pavilion too. Boardgames had a larger space and importance because in Italy we have various publishers on the market. This means that more money is involved in this sector than wargames one. Roleplay games are another sector and it has a respectable market. Live roleplay is an obscure sector to me and it was located in another pavilion. But the videogames market rules upon us all.

To celebrate the release of the new chapter of the Assassin’s Creed saga, the third one, an entire pavilion was dedicated to it. A polite statement to say that Ubisoft bought it. They have got the money to do it.

Around the city you could see some projections of this videogame advertisements on the walls. More revealing was the reenactment event of the Saturday, the simulation of Bunker Hill battle (1775). Almost 200 reenactors and lots of gunpowder were involved. We play wargame battles with miniatures, videogame industries play wargame battles with real men. Money makes a difference.

Another money matter. Videogame stands were huge and customised. I forgot to take a picture of the new Nintendo console and its gorgeous girls stand assistants. Among these game giants I took a photo of a wrestling videogame with the straight edge wrestler guy. Weird. Minor Threat – the band who came up in the eighties with the “straight edge” term – didn’t think about this evolution.

Just Dance is the exhibitionists videogame of the fair. Every year a new edition, every year wild girls try to hypnotise men with their rhythmic movements controlled by a game console with video camera. Some stand assistants lead the game. Here at the end of a day. I saw them in the morning, before the open of the gates, dancing without public: they were so crazy for dance to do it for fun! After 4 days in Lucca I was dead tired. And these girls?

An alternative way to utilise your old CRT computer screen: using it as a stage for miniatures.

In Lucca there is always a little modding section. This one was kitsch for sure, a gun with inside and outside various bad taste things, as Smurfs and model cars. Ugly looking.

Something better. But not so practical with that finger-eat fan. Glamorous but too much “open” to be a computer case.

A great machine! Water cooled case. Clean design, neon lights, blue-black-white colours. What can I say? It is sexy.

Paolo from Switzerland came to Lucca by train. Here while he is wearing his new computer headphones. Saturday night we walk together to a place outside Lucca where were relegated the computer geeks. They organised an all night long videogames lan party. Someone fell asleep on the floor, indeed. Instead Paolo, our hero, killed millions of aliens and took the train the morning after at 7 to the watches country.

After 5 days in Lucca Comics & Games I needed some sleep. I was among thousands of staff people and 180000 paying people. I worked heavy at the Ganesha stand but I succeeded to take almost 250 photos, so you have to wait a little to watch a full report in thematic posts on this web. However now I’m offering you some official videos to understand what is this fair. Enjoy!

Lucca Games is videogames too. Here is where the real money is on game market, not in boardgames or wargames. They had the biggest stands. And beautiful hostesses. Nintendo is always the best, with 10 girls 10.

A sexy videogame well pumped to the audience. Something to trill hormones of young players, with fast action and big breast.

Free games with computers from another planet. Thermaltake is specialised in refrigeration of computers. So you can mount monsters for playing games.

This is not for humans. I think that with the energy necessary to run this computer you can feed of energy a bakery shop.

Have you got a video card integrated on your motherboard? This one is triple card and refrigerated by liquid. And you have to be mad if you own it.

Extreme modding. Put your computer inside a tire. And play with it a videogame on car races.

This Sunday I took a break and I went to Terni to test two new games by Ganesha Games: the large battle version of Song of Drums and Shakos and a fast game for tanks. I have got photos to present them but now I haven’t time to do it. My computer passed away the last week. The collapse of HD was fatal. I think that my computer worked in this form since 2003 or 2004. I know, one day all must end. In these days I spent all my free time working on it. It is a real mess because I have to reinstall all programmes and dates, and some of them are lost forever, like a beautiful scheme for Anticamente that I wrote to help me to manage games. I must work on two big websites and now I am stopped. The great thing is that after I will recover my computer, I have to pass a lot of time on it for programming. So, no time for this blog too. And it is summer, but I can’t taste it.

For a report of the day in Terni go on Drums & Shakos blog.

Well, even this time I want to give you something, just because I prepared it before. Again with arenas.

As you can see, this arena is thought like a hole with around only an upper squared surface. There is even a handle to easily transport it, like a suitcase. Maybe all seems more a subterranean arena than a Roman arena, but this is another solution for the “arena project”.

More to read here.

I thought that videogames were something not so interesting in Lucca. Instead they were the big thing in games pavilion! Almost half of the space were dedicated to videogames and seeing the long and beautiful legs from miniskirts of the hostesses you could understand where the money is in games field.

There was space for consoles and pcs, for the WII with its remote control and for the Playstation with its new remote control. A lot of games were on but I’m not so informed about trends and titles.

Before Lucca I didn’t know the 3D for the videogames. I thought that this could be a unnecessary element, but there was a little 20 seats cinema managed by Asus with promos on 3D videogames. They were terrific! It is absolutely a new playing experience, when you have saw this potential you cannot return back! I suppose we find all new titles in 3D format, it is great even for static games. I saw a Civilisation V ad in the 3D area, it is a causality or there is other? The weird thing was to see the people in front of monitors with their technological glasses: it is just an alienating view, but with this glasses all seemed a sci-fi flick about aliens who control the world with subliminal visions…

A lot of videogames to try, but I have only saw other people doing this. There was even a videogame where you and your friends must replicate a band, and another one where you must dance according to the moves on the screen and a sensor gave you points if you are good in this. Like Lara Croft, but this is another story…