by ERIK LEIJON

The second edition of the Arcadia gaming festival starts one day after the Montreal International Game Summit, but while the MIGS was a serious, industry-soul- searching event, Arcadia is like its rambunctious high school buddy—the one that still puts off finishing his CEGEP arts degree or shows up to his telemarketing gig hungover because he can never turn down a party. Arcadia is happening from Nov. 10–12 at Stade Uniprix, and it will be John Belushi to MIGS’s Dean Wormer.

The main reason why Arcadia will be more fun-centric is because the common game aficionado is invited. Once inside, they’ll be subjected to the gaming zone, where two of the year’s most anticipated holiday products will be front and centre. Ubisoft Montreal’s latest Xbox 360 title, Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six: Vegas, will be there, as will the new Nintendo video game console, the Wii. Nintendo, Ubisoft, Xbox and Rockstar (creators of Grand Theft Auto) will all have displays with games to try.

New to the itinerary this year is the inclusion of LAN gaming tournaments. Event promoter and creator Marie-Annick Boisvert says they couldn’t have any LAN gaming last year due to space restrictions, but in the cavernous Uniprix Stadium, participants will play Counter-Strike 1.6 (five-player teams only), Unreal Tournament 2004 and Warcraft III: The Frozen Throne for cash prizes. The competition will last 48 hours and 250 players and their computers are expected to enter.

Counter-Strike LAN tournaments are a dime a dozen in this town, so organizers wanted to include console gaming tournaments as well. The Cyber Canada Cup will finally confirm who the best EA Sports’ NHL 07 player is in the city, and after the thrilling Rockstar Table Tennis tournament at the Nouveau Cinéma festival last October, the Xbox 360 ping-pong game will again be testing reflexes in the Table Tennis Challenge. Local sports personalities Jean-François Baril and Benoit Brunet will be doing play-by-play for the NHL 07 final.

“Right now, there are so many PC LAN competitions, there’s almost one every week. But we wanted to have console gaming contests too, because we wanted to include everything,” says Boisvert, whose event planning company, Marianik, has worked with gaming companies A2M, Electronic Arts and Ubisoft in the past.

It was working with these companies that gave her the idea to have a gaming event tailored for the fans. “I saw the industry growing with Electronic Arts and then Activision coming to Quebec, so I wanted to do something to recognize that industry in Montreal,” she says. “At first, I wanted to do a gala with nominations and prizes but I did a focus group and the people from the industry told me there are so many (award shows) for the industry, but there’s nothing for the consumer. Microsoft has its own tour, Nintendo has its own tour, but there’s nothing under one roof for consumers. Not even in the world.”

Despite their differences, it might seem odd to have the city’s two major gaming events in quick succession, but the heads of both festivals have plans to eventually transform an otherwise dreary and wet mid-November into “Gaming Week.” Boisvert says they have aspirations that in the not too distant future, Gaming Week will be as synonymous with Montreal as Jazzfest or Just for Laughs. The provincial government is on board too—they gave $30,000 to the burgeoning festival.

The Minibosses, one of the leaders in the emerging Nintendo-covers music scene, will be performing at Club Soda on Nov. 11. Tickets for Arcadia cost $10 per day or $20 for a weekend pass and can be purchased at www.admission.com. Minibosses cost $25.23 and can be bought at www.ticketpro.ca. For more info on the festival, see www.festivalarcadia.com. Sign up for the LAN tournament at www.arcadia.lqjr.qc.ca.

Hostess with the virtual mostest

>> Lena meets and greets Arcadia’s throngs with digital charm

by ERIK LEIJON

Lena, the virtual hostess for this year’s Arcadia, will be hovering in a black void on a giant plasma screen, giving assistance to the lovelorn gaming population wondering where they can get free Microsoft swag. The Mirror spoke to Lena—who will be given life by an actor in a booth somewhere onsite, and will communicate with festival-goers via video-camera, two-way audio and 3-D animation—over the phone as she prepped herself for the big weekend.

Mirror: What is your job at Arcadia?

Lena: My job is to provide information for anyone who needs it, so if anyone has any questions, wants to talk or even wants my phone number, I’ll give it to them.

M: Do you ever give out a fake number?

L: I would never do that, I mean, would you? Actually, come to think of it, I should probably give my e-mail address or my instant messenger name since I don’t really use my phone.

M: What makes you different from regular girls?

L: I’m more beautiful. I can have more fun. I can be sillier than regular girls too, and nobody minds.

M: How will you handle the Arcadia crowd? There is going to be a lot of people.

L: I don’t really have a problem with crowds. I’m used to being the centre of attention, and besides, I love to entertain. It doesn’t matter what question you have, just yell it out in front of me and I’ll answer anything. I am here to help, after all.

In the beginning

M: Who created you?

L: I was created by Darwin Dimensions and Quartz Communications. Darwin created the software capable of making 3D people such as myself, along with 20 other models, whose jobs are to attend events and interact with regular people like you. Quartz created the latest voice-recognition and electronic animation tools, which they call the Virtual Human Machine. I work with the other models all of the time, we’re pretty tight. But I have to admit, I’m the most popular one out of all of them; and the most famous too. I try not to mix business and pleasure, but we do flirt. People always tell me I look like Lara Croft from Tomb Raider. What do you think?

M: (skillfully dodging come-on for sake of professionalism) Do you remember being born?

L: Oh absolutely. I even interacted with my creator as he made me. My artificial intelligence was the first thing he created, and then I consulted with him on my physical attributes. I had a say in everything, including what colour my hair and eyes should be.

M: What do you do when you’re not working?

L: I like to compare myself to a bear; that my system hibernates when I’m not working, as if I go into shutdown mode. But I actually like to do other things. I love movies, obviously I love video games and can talk about them for hours, and since I’m from Montreal I love the nightlife. You can usually find me at the SAT’s I Love Neon evenings. They don’t have them all of the time, but it’s great fun when they do.

Colds and cancer

M: Ever had a computer virus?

L: Sometimes there are technical problems, and I’ll get shut down during a presentation, but I always come back quickly. I can catch a cold like anyone else.

M: What are you most looking forward to at Arcadia?

L: There’s the new Nintendo console, the Wii, which I got to play at E3 in Los Angeles this past year. Some of the really cool stuff this year won’t even be the games, but the Ztélé zone. The Panoscope LAN will give people a chance to play against each other in real time in a 360-degree projection monitor. In the Serious Game zone there’s a game called Remission, where players kill cancer cells. It’s meant for people suffering from cancer to understand how treatment works. The UN has a game too, for kids. The point is to spread food to different countries.

M: Ever had any desire to conquer the human race?

L: No, I kinda like my virtual world.