The rAge Expo 2013 has come and gone, and the geek-weekend of the year is over. We attended this years rAge eXpo taking part in the NAG LAN, which is a 2400 entire-weekend gaming LAN. If you have no idea what rAge is then get up to date here.

This is our 9th rAge Expo and NAG LAN, and we sure have seen the expo going through some changes, some good, some bad. Remember the only space for the gamers at the top/first floor and you had to walk the ramp to get into and out of the Expo? Each year has seen immense growth for the Expo, proving that South Africa has a massive community of Gamers, Technology enthusiasts, and geeks! The tickets for the NAG LAN gets sold our in a matter of hours every year, leaving plenty a geek in a pool of sadness and frustration.

This year some 2400 gamers come together for a non-stop weekend of gaming, and we can officially say that this was the best rAge yet. We’ve given our reasons for saying so, as well as mentioning our highlights for the LAN, as well as the Expo.

Zero lag thanks to Internet Solutions

Zero lag thanks to Internet Solutions

  • The biggest factor that made this year the best rAge Expo yet was the massive 100 mb/s internet connection that Internet Solutions (IS) provided. This made a huge difference. With majority of all games these days play is the only way you can compete against others, and there’s nothing worse than experiencing lag. We’re waiting for the official stats, but when we left late Sunday afternoon the data downloaded counter as on 23 Terabytes.

The Expo also saw an immense crowd attendance, up to the point where fans had to queue outside and wait for people to leave in order to go in. The Expo had way too many events and attractions to mention all of them here, but our highlights were:

Assassins Creed: Black Flag

Assassins Creed: Black Flag

Batman: Arkham Origins

Batman: Arkham Origins

 

  • Games Games Games! The exclusive game play footage we saw from Assassins Creed: Black Flag, Call of Guty: Ghosts, and Batman: Arkham Origins. These games look absolutely fantastic, and we cannot wait for the release date:Assassins Creed: Black Flag – 29 October 2013
    Call of Guty: Ghost – TBA
    Batman: Arkham Origins  – 25 October 2013
  • In the queue you must wait: The NAG LAN Gamer Early Entrance – Seating arrangements for the 2400 Gamer NAG LAN is first come first seated. Which means gamers start queuing pretty early on Friday morning (starting the previous night?). Once the doors open at roughly 9:00 AM for the gamers to check in the queue start moving. This means most of us stand for roughly 3 hours in the blazing sun, carrying your PC rig inch by inch forward as the queue moves. Not so this year, NAG started checking in the gamers very early, which meant there was almost no queue outside. Win!
  • Prizes: This year saw some massive prize give-aways. From top of the range graphics cards, to mouse pads, to a $3000 gaming machine. Don;t forget the 100K challenge prize!
  • PS4 and XBox One: It may be old news already for the rest of the world, but we got our first real glimpses of the next generation consolses Playstation 4 and xBox One.

 

Browse through some of the photos:

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Gamers passing out all over the place, sleep deprivation to the max!

Gamers passing out all over the place, sleep deprivation to the max!

 

The rAge Expo 2013 was simply amazing this year, it keeps getting better and better and is starting to run like a well oiled machine. We look forward to seeing you there next year!