Hundreds ofindustry professionals and dedicated/freeloading games journalists attended a surprisingly classy Final Fantasy XIII launch party Monday evening. We say "surprisingly fancy" because this is the first such party in years where the invite said "cocktail attire recommended," forcing us to curb our usual sloppy appearance in favor of nicely iron shirts and presentable pants. Sort of like a prom for journos.
Collected here are some of our shots from the evening. While nice, they don't contain the by-the-minute lulz of our Twitter updates, so if you're on Twitter and not following, be sure tocheck out our feed.
Above: The domed entrance, complete with red carpet anddangling chandelier
Above: Inside the main room we find lit tables and a giant projection screen showcasing art and cutscenes
Above: Three massive pictures of the game's summons adorned walls above the balcony seats
Above:The left side was lined with 360 units, the right with PS3s, all loaded with a demo of FFXIII
Above: FFXIII figures were on prominentdisplay - seen here areVanille and Hope
Above: And next to them wasthe motorcycle'd Shiva
Above: As withany major FF release, there's some new kind of borderline-toxic drink for us to ingest
Above: All the tableswere topped with a "XIII"logo
Above: Then Square-Enix president Yoichi Wada took the stage, the first of many presentations of the evening.
Next page: More pics, including the night's developer panel, a DJ mixing Final Fantasy remixes and a video of Maxim girls dancing onstage. Yes, really.
