Cosplay: Nothing exceptional in this category today. The most impressive costume I saw was a group that mashed up Pikachu and Tron. Pokétron? PikaCLU? There was also a creative Knuckles cosplay I spotted at the hotel. Haven’t seen her at the convention yet, so I’m not counting it. That could just be how she dresses everyday.

There was the usually scattering of Harley Quinns and Fionnas. I thought I saw an impressive Avengers group cosplay, but turned out they were just promoting the Marvel Heroes game. Speaking of which…

Games: Only went hands on with one game on the first day: Marvel Heroes, because the line was short. Once I played it, I could see why. Remember everything that was fun about Marvel Ultimate Alliance? Well, Marvel Heroes doesn’t. There are no variations or combos with the melee attacks or special power attacks, which makes combat very boring.

On the plus side, I got a free poster from their booth. Speaking of which…

Swag: I won the aforementioned poster for knowing what Wundergore was. Won some free buttons from FanGamer.net, which will go well with the free buttons they gave me with my last order. They love to give away buttons. It’s also suspicious how willing they are to give away those buttons.

Also got some CAH cards and a slap bracelet. The fact that they didn’t give out any Luigi themed Swag for his big anniversary was a disappointment. Speaking of which…

Concert: The concert nights never disappoint. Metroid Metal wasn’t there, unfortunately, but VGO rocked extra hard this year to restore the balance of the evening. Especially their insane paced F-Zero arrangement. The Video Game Choir was with them and they sounded amazing in One Winged Angel and Still Alive. VGO had a new vocalist for Snake eater. She wasn’t as mind blowing at the vocalist they had last year, but she was still great.

I didn’t stay for Those Who Kill and The Protomen. I had beers to drink. Speaking of Guinness…

Alcohol: One of my favorite parts of the BECC is the big bar near the center. The had Guinness Draught in the bottle, which is a major win. Next best thing, if they don’t have it on tap. And the bar is right around the corner from the Rock Band freeplay stage, so I could take a little break from Con-Crawling by drinking a beer and watching a 12 year old crush the drums in an Avenged Sevenfold song.

All and all, this hasn’t been as amazing as previous years. It’s still been great, but the other years just set an outstanding standard.

Final Grade: B+