The Year I Finally Made It to Gamescom

For years I’ve been saying I’d go to Gamescom. Back when it was still in Leipzig. Every year something came up. But this is finally the year—I’m actually going, alone, because nobody else wants to put themselves through it again, which I find baffling since I’ve never been and have no basis for comparison.

I call myself a retro gamer, which is a ridiculous compound word, and yet I’ve never made it to a proper games convention. I missed the Tokyo Game Show by two weeks. E3 always seemed too utopian to plan for. Microsoft once invited me to CES, where I spent the entire time watching a new version of Office being demonstrated. Involuntarily.

None of that matters now. I’ll be the overweight guy with the unkempt beard and the terrible haircut, wandering the floor with a face the color of a stop sign, skirting too wide around booth staff because I’m too much of a coward to ask for a photo. Yes. Exactly that guy.

What I actually want from this: getting my hands on Fallout 4, falling back in love with Nintendo in some way I can’t yet predict, and beating Maik from LangweileDich.net at Street Fighter V. That last one might be wishful thinking. We’ll see.