It's here! UPCON 2010 for Gauteng gaming-loving geeky types!

-
Just a reminder to all geeky, gaming-loving types in Gauteng this weekend, the first of South Africa's 3 annual gaming and comics conventions takes place this weekend (10 April - 11 April) at the University of Pretoria Conference Centre.


UPCON is the annual Pretoria con, and events, activities and attractions there this year include:

  • Tabletop Wargaming
  • Magic: The Gathering card gaming
  • Legend of the Five Rings card gaming
  • L5R Kotei card gaming (never heard of this one!)
  • Vampire card gaming
  • Roleplaying (organised by the "Hobbit" - you'll know her when you see her)
  • Assorted Anime activities
  • Cosplay competition
  • Several exhibition stalls: Outer Limits, The Underground, Exclusive Books, Novva Gaming, Legion Ink.
You can read more about UPCON 2010 here on the convention's Facebook event page.

Just one thing to note though is that if you want to get your gaming con fix on this year, UPCON is one of the few places to do it. Joburg's ICON convention, the biggest in South Africa, currently does not have a date for 2010, due to clashes with the 2010 Football World Cup, and more particularly its Final. Whether it goes ahead or not, I'm sure ICON will not be at full attendance strength this year.

This then just leaves UPCON in Pretoria this weekend, and DragonFire, Cape Town's gaming con, which normally takes place in August, on the weekend closest to the National Women's Day (9 August) public holiday.

So pick a con, mark your calendar, go, have fun and show your solidarity with the role-playing and table-top gaming communities of South Africa.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Is the rebooted Lara Croft gay? Evidence for and against...

-
Image
As some of you know, I’ve been fangirling hard over the new Tomb Raider , the first entry in the video game series since 2008, and ostensibly a reboot for the entire franchise . Taking the form of an origin story, Tomb Raider 2013 depicts the events that transformed a beautiful, if bookish, archaeology graduate into a pistol-packing adventurer with a devil-may-care attitude. We meet Lara Croft as a pretty, fairly ordinary 21 year old, brooding over her work notes, listening to her mp3 player and very much confined to the shadow of her male mentors. By the end of the game, however, she’s taken charge – she’s had to! – and, battered, bruised and bloody, she’s both a survivor and hero, right down to rescuing the princess and carrying her away in her arms. Yeah, this is probably the best point to mention that there will be some Tomb Raider 2013 spoilers in this post, so read ahead with caution. Anyway, I loved the game. Technically it’s near faultless, it looks beautiful, the ov...
Read more

Lara Croft: Tomb Raider and Queer Icon (Part 4)

-
Image
Part 4: The mystery of Lara Croft’s sexuality “Now what’s a man gotta do to get that kind of attention from ya?” – Larson Conway (Tomb Raider, 1996) Despite being an icon for many queer pop culture consumers, Lara Croft’s own sexual orientation remains ambiguous. Outside of the Top Cow comics and live-action films – where Lara is blatantly heterosexual, with a fondness for slightly scruffy bad boys (who keep betraying and hurting her) – the character comes across as primarily asexual. Kurtis Trent is the only male figure who even comes close to being a love interest in the game series. Lara's apparent sexual disinterest is despite the adventurer appearing very sexually attractive herself; a figure of desire with bee-stung lips, voluptuous breasts, toned stomach and impossibly long, athlete’s legs. Yet Lara is never dominated by sexual yearnings or romantic affections. She is very much in control of herself at all times. It’s worth noting, however, that over time th...
Read more

Ladies I Love: Part 2 - Rhona Mitra

-
Image
Following on from the first post in this series , you may realise that I have a very definite type. Anyway, today we profile model-turned-actress Rhona Mitra . This 36 year old Briton is of English, Irish and Indian descent. You'll have seen her pop up on the big and small screen multiple over the past decade and a half, although Mitra's claim to fame is that she was the second ever model (some say first if you rule out "unofficial"  Nathalie Cook ) to play iconic video game character Lara Croft . From 1997-1998, Mitra could be found in PR material, as well as at trade shows, events and conventions as a flesh-and-blood embodiment of Tomb Raider 's kick-ass archeologist lead. There have been many official Lara Croft models over the years , but as far as I'm concerned Mitra remains the best. In my mind, of all of them, she most closely resembles the video game character in terms of facial features. Plus she comes from money and had a rebellious boarding...
Read more