Comic-Con 2012 draws a huge gaming presence

San Diego Comic-Con 2012 is packed with gaming-related panels, demos and hands-on opportunities.

San Diego Comic-Con 2012 kicks off this Thursday, July 12th, and each of its four days is packed with gaming-related panels, demos and hands-on opportunities.

Thursday features panels covering everything from machinima to Street Fighter's 25th anniversary to getting a job in the video game industry. Epic Games will be demonstrating Fortnite's gameplay during a panel, and Ubisoft will be giving a live, on-stage demo of Assassin's Creed 3 followed by a Q&A.

Friday's events include panels about the upcoming Darksiders 2 and Resident Evil 6, as well a panel dedicated to fighting games and featuring Tekken, Street Fighter and PlayStation All-Stars: Battle Royale directors.

Saturday brings a panel featuring Transformers: Fall of Cybertron talent, including the voice off Optimus Prime. At a separate panel, developer High Moon Studios is expected to reveal a new game based on Marvel's Hit-Monkey comic book. Other offerings include a retrospective from Bioware called "Mass Effect: Past, Present, and Future," and a panel on the challenges of making the upcoming Tomb Raider reboot.

Sunday features a panel starring the voice actors from Bioware's Star Wars: The Old Republic MMO and a panel about Disney Epic Mickey 2: The Power of Two, which will feature developer Warren Spector.

Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo will each have a presence in and around Comic-Con.

The PlayStation booth will feature games like PlayStation All-Stars: Battle Royale, LittleBigPlanet Karting, and the Vita's LittleBigPlanet and highlight cross-play features in Battle Royale and Street Fighter X Tekken. Sony will also be sponsoring developer panels with Quantic Dream's David Cage discussing Beyond: Two Souls, Naughty Dog discussing The Last of Us and developers from Giant Sparrow discussing The Unfinished Swan.

In addition to a public hands-on with Halo 4, Microsoft will sponsor panels called "The Fiction of Halo 4," "Halo 4: A New Campaign and Halo Infinity Multiplayer," and "Gears of War: Past Present & Future."

Nintendo's booth will focus mainly on their handheld offerings, promoting the 3DS and the recently-announced 3DS XL alongside playable titles like New Super Mario Bros. 2 and Luigi's Mansion: Dark Moon. The Wii U, however, will not be attending Comic-Con.

Other major publishers will be taking up booth space alongside the Big 3. Ubisoft is showing Assassin's Creed 3, The Expendables 2, Marvel Avengers: Battle for Earth and Just Dance 4. Capcom has DmC, Lost Planet 3, Okami HD, Resident Evil 6 and Street Fighter X Tekken Vita. Blizzard won't have any games, but is showcasing a line of soon-to-be-announced statues modeled after Diablo 3.

Gamers can also scratch their competitive itch with Pokemon league play and tournaments as well as Tekken tag tournaments. You can view a schedule of all events related to gaming at the official website.

We've already begun to wear through our programs in anticipation of Polygon's presence at Comic-Con, where we'll be on hand later this week to cover all of the gaming news.