The playable proton pack, and 9 more amazing custom PC rigs from Quakecon

The place of many rigs

The above image is the very front of the line to get into Quakecon's Bring Your Own Computer hall last week. The rest of the line took around a minute to walk along. That's a long, long line. Bad for those waiting at the back, but really good for those wanting to ogle some ludicrously impressive custom machines.

And ludicrously impressive we got. Over the course of the week, my frequent trips back to that vast, barely-lit cavern of flickering neons turned up a ton of great stuff, ranging from immaculate recreations of pop culture goodness, to just plain impressive industrial light shows. My one regret is that I didn't track down the guy with the full-scale Team Fortress 2 turret. That thing was insane. As was the drivable, remote control tank. Bah, Next year...

But never mind! Click on for the rest!

The proton pack

We nearly hugged the guy who built this one. In fact it's so good, it deserves another pic.

The proton pack

And you know what? Let's have another.

The proton pack

Seriously, the lights cycle and the gun makes that brilliant 'nyiiiiiiiiiing!' noise when you switch it on.

Goddamn BMO!

His face is the monitor, and his face changes expression when he's idle. To all intents and purposes, he is the real BMO.

The Mirror's Edge: Catalyst rig

Even if the long postponed sequel never actually comes out, it will matter not, We have this. It's beautiful, and appears to be run on delicious Bloody Marys.

The Big Daddy

Fantastic. Could only be improved if it was followed around by a small laptop with a ribbon on its lid.

Apple Troopers

Wait, what? Who let a Mac into a PC convention?

Apple Troopers

Ah, right... Stand down.

The Quakecube

Keep away from the furnace.

The Quakecube

It loves you like clockwork.

Zelda and Vault Boy

Yep, those are all art beads. Yep, that must have been infuriating to make. Yep, it's rather damn brilliant. Splendid graded paintwork on the Zelda case, too.

Darth Revan

Hey BioWare, people still care. Just sayin'...

Whatever this colossal thing is

Pro-tip: Taking photos of things that keep flashing and changing colour, when in a pitch-black room, is hard.

These things too

I'm choosing to assume that they're DJ decks from a super-cool sci-fi nightclub in the future. In my mind, they always will be, and you can't change that.