Draven

PAX East is coming up March 26th-28th in Boston. 3-day passes sold out a few days ago, but I bought individual ones for all three days. Should have pulled the trigger sooner. Booked my hotel and flight this morning.

I've never been to PAX before because it always fell in the summer during a tough time for me to get away from work. I'm leaving the wife and kids at home and going by myself, but really looking forward to nerding out, seeing some cool games, panels and events.

Anyone else making the trip this year?

lordwow

I just saw this, I'll be there.

I live like a 10 minute walk from the Convention Center anyway, so not much of a trip for me.

Shagrath

I'm flying up from Orlando. This will be my first PAX, and should be pretty fun. Harmonix will probably have a big presence there, since it's on their home turf.

xmiyux

I wish.

I had to decide between this and Origins. I went with Origins because it is a good deal closer/cheaper.

Draven

Well, I'm getting on the plane tonight...got a tentative plan figured out on what panels I want to attend (there are SO many) and I'm hoping to see some cool stuff.

I'll post pictures here as well.

pinata242

So jealous.

Kedrix

Join the club, so very jealous. It's funny, when the website I write for was under a different webmaster, he would send me little notes every year around these xpos (mostly the E3 stuff) that he had passes to some of the exclusive things that went on there. But then I was always, "well where I am going to get plane money+hotel+time off of work". I also had an ex-wife at the time who thought if I went off to such things, I was just going to sleep with hookers and leave her. She's gone now, I have a gaming wife and we both like hookers, I mean ummm....we like engaging in conversations with attractive people that have pricetags. Anyway now I don't get those little notices anymore. *sigh*

Raul3

I hope I can go to the one in the West this Fall.

Draven

Well, day one of PAX East is done. I'm exhausted, because I killed the entire morning walking around Boston but once the show got going time went pretty quickly.

Went to get in line around 12:45 with doors opening at 2:00. They had a massive line wrapping through two areas of the convention center, and once they let us in I was able to see that it went all the way out the door. No idea how far down the street but it was massive.



I attended the keynote, which was given by Wil Wheaton. It was about an hour-long speech and touched on everything from receiving his first D&D game in the early eighties to his time as an actor to the friendships he's made through gaming.



He was really funny (at one point he poured a little of his water out in the stage for the Companion Cube…you kind of had to be there) and he set the tone.



Then Gabe and Tycho came out to almost no fanfare (I thought they were Enforcers at first) and they did some Q&A with the crowd but I decided to bug out and check out the floor.



It would take too long to describe everything, but I'll mention a few of the games I played.

SplitSecond
- This game looks a lot like Burnout, but the cars aren't as "heavy". The one I chose didn't have a lot of raw power to bash into other cars. Instead, you drift to build up a meter below your car, and then flashing icons appear on the cars in front of you. You hit a button and "something" happens to the environment. It ranges from a garbage truck coming in from a side street to take out some cars to a helicopter picking up a dump truck and swinging it through the freeway overhead….depending on how full the meter is. I saw one person make the Space Needle explode and drop on the roadway to change the course during his second lap, so that was kind of cool. It was a fun game, but don't think you'll be bashing cars around.





Splinter Cell: Conviction
- I only played a co-op mission and I died pretty quickly. Can't run in guns blazing, apparently I just didn't have the patience to play it safe. But I watched a little bit of a demo and it looks pretty cool. Some cues from Batman (there's a "sonar" radar) but looked like a modern Splinter Cell to me.





Crackdown 2
- Played a round of multiplayer rocket-tag where one person grabbed an orb and had to hang on to it for 15 seconds (might have been 20) to score. It was pretty nuts…rockets were flying everywhere. And I couldn't invert the controls (I know, I know…it's my thing) so it was tough to get a good feeling but it was fun while it lasted.



Shank
- I had heard nothing about this game. I saw some people playing it and thought I'd try it for myself. It's for XBLA and PSN, and is made by klei entertainment. It plays like a Metal Slug/Alien Hominid game with some Double Dragon/Final Fight mixed in but has a pretty decent combo system between dual knives, guns, a chainsaw and a grenade. Bigger enemies can be taken out by grabbing them and stuffing a grenade down their throat, or you can jump, shoot someone, then hit them with the chainsaw on the way down. Stuff like that.. it's pretty fun. You can read more about the game at http://shankgame.com/ and I believe it's coming out this summer.



I also played some Darksiders in the Console Freeplay area which I haven't had a chance to play yet. Bought a Red vs. Blue shirt from the Red vs. Blue voice actors, and then to top it all off.. ran into Gabe himself.

At about 9:30 I walked over to a food court in the mall attached to the convention center. Went to Panda Express, was standing in line looking at the menu, then glanced over to see Mike Krahulik standing right next to me. I didn't want to nerd out too badly, so I said "I don't mean to interrupt your dinner, but I wanted to thank you for putting the show on at this time. I can never go to the summer one." He was very nice and said no problem, glad you could come…and then when we got through the line he wished me a nice weekend. I have a ton of respect for those guys and it was just a cool little moment to top off the day.

Tomorrow, I'm going to try to catch Bill Amend of FoxTrot fame's keynote, and see a few more games I didn't get a chance to try. Then I'll attempt to cap the night off at Jonathan Coulton's concert. Wish me luck!

You can see more photos over at Flickr by clicking here.

pinata242

Nice write-up, thanks! I need to keep my eye on Shank.

Good luck getting into the JoCo show. That would be awesome and I can think of no better venue than PAX.

edstein

Nice pics. Any idea who those guys were that dressed up as the Team Fortress characters? The engineer looks a little like Major Nelson.

lordwow

There were a TON of TF folks there today. One guy was almost a perfect Demoman.

My favorite game I demoed there was Breach, it's going to be easily worth the $15 XBLA price tag. I had a blast (and had a 3:1 K/D on the match I played so I enjoyed it).

Writeup on Destructoid here:
http://www.destructoid.com/pax-east-...m-169073.phtml

foxdvd

thanks for the update...and you suck

fumanstan

That's pretty cool, I have friends that work at a game studio in Boston that were really jazzed about it and went yesterday. I think i'm spoiled because of all the gaming conventions that take place on the West Coast.

Draven

Day 2 is done.

Holy crap was that a long day.

I decided to do more panels and less wandering today.

I hit the line at 8:30 this morning. After a little bit of a clusterfuck, they got everything organized. Got my wristband for confirmed entry into the evening concert (3rd round of the Omegathon, Video Game Orchestra, Paul and Storm and Jonathan Coulton), and made it into the Bill Amend panel. If you don't know, he's the artist that draws FoxTrot.







He admitted the speech was similar to the time he spoke in 2007 at PAX, but it was entertaining to see him run through his geekier comics. He touched a little bit on the process (apparently some newspaper editors have a problem with the word "sucks"…which is just hilarious to me) and his day-to-day, but I wish we had a little more of that and less of him just reading the comics to us. He was a funny guy though, and claimed that he was using Scott Kurtz's laptop (of PVP fame) and that was why it had a Snow White on it.

Played some Left for Dead 2 in the PC Freeplay area, which is where I spent almost two hours over the course of the day. I haven't had a decent PC gaming rig in about 6 years so it was interesting getting back into that. I don't think I'm ready to get back into that money sink, but I enjoyed playing a game I have avoided so far because I didn't want to just do multiplayer. This was the perfect setting. Also, this room was insane. I felt bad for the IT people that had to keep it all running. This pic doesn't even show all of it.



After that, I got in another huge line (thank god I just bought a Kindle!) for the live drawing of Monday's PA comic strip. Jerry came in with a script already figured out, so it was basically watching Mike draw while they both answered questions. Most of them were pretty funny, there were some nice moments (especially when Jerry tried to draw Tycho himself. I hope someone puts that on YouTube.) If nothing else, it was amazing to watch Mike draw that thing in an hour. I know a bit about Photoshop but that dude is a friggin' master.









Here's Monday's strip, spoilered for you:



Then I checked out the Rooster Teeth panel (the guys who make Red vs. Blue) which I realized I had watched the first season of and then hadn't checked it out since. They showed a funny live-action video they made, where they rigged a camera up on a truck and attempted to drive an obstacle course in "third person mode" la Grand Theft Auto. And then they showed 21 minutes of Season 8 of Red vs Blue, and the big announcement was that they brought on Monty Oum, who is an animator they've followed since he made a video called "Haloid" (it's on YouTube) and now they've officially announced he's on the team. I won't spoil it but in the footage they showed, it's obvious they have some new talent on board, as there is an awesome sequence that's pure animated, but still looks like machinima. Very action-packed. Also, I've enjoyed playing "Count the DS Lites" in every group setting. It's insane.





Wandered around a bit more but never made it to the exhibit hall. There are still a few games I want to check out so that'll be the mission tomorrow.

Then I topped off the evening by getting in line at 7, going into the theater at 8:30, and then watching three concerts until almost 2 AM. I opted to sit in the balcony over hanging out on the floor.

First up, third round of Omegathon. Two teams competed in Rock Band, and had to perform "The Gambler". And somehow they managed to pick two people to sing who had apparently NEVER HEARD "THE GAMBLER". The crowd was supportive, but it might have been the worst thing I've ever heard. Not even close to the melody.



Then Video Game Orchestra came out to play. Did music from Final Fantasy, Mario Bros, Chrono Cross and Chrono Trigger, and rocked the shit out of a Castlevania medley. I like these guys.



Then Paul and Storm came out, first doing a funny bit with a weird Russian song they lip-synced to, and Wil Wheaton joined them onstage. It was odd but amusing. I didn't know about these guys so it was a fun introduction. I felt bad though, because the audience wouldn't let the "in jokes" die, and interrupted them a lot. They, however, shouldn't have acknowledged it so much. But they were very funny, and I'll try to get their new CD tomorrow.



And finally Jonathan Coulton came on. He did all the hits, including a sequence with "Mr. Fancypants" that made me cry I was laughing so hard. Someone will put it on YouTube, but both the song itself and him screwing around with his synthesizer were hysterical. He brought Paul and Storm back, and added a backup band from the Metroid Metal group came up too. He claimed they hadn't rehearsed much but I thought they sounded great.





All in all it was another fun day. Looking forward to tomorrow for more!

And I've added more photos to my photostream, so check it out here.

xmiyux

That is awesome.

I'm pretty jealous of you folks who got to go to PAX.

edit: Any other XBLA games at the con? I am specifically interested in whether Dungeon Twister showed up.

lordwow

I did not see Dungeon Twister there. Puzzle Quest 2 was

pinata242

Did you play PQ2? The changes they made to the game sound great.

lordwow

I did not, it was quite popular. It definitely looked a lot better than PQ1 did, but it was tough to tell from spectating how different it was than the first.

Draven

Wrapped up the final day. I'm at the airport now (free WiFi too...nice job, Boston). It was a slower paced day. I went to the Harmonix panel in the morning, where the developers talked about their games. And they "accidentally" let slip that Rock Band 3 would have harmonies, which I watched the livebloggers furiously tweet the second it happened. They showed some funny images from testing, including a bug where the characters appeared to explode into fireballs. Someone from the audience suggested they put that back in for the drummer at the end of Spinal Tap songs. They talked a bit about Green Day, and how they really don't want to oversaturate things in the market, so they are taking care with their releases. Fun guys.

I wandered the floor for a bit, saw a few games. There is quite a bit of fun stuff coming to XBLA soon. I played Hydro Thunder (it plays...well, like Hydro Thunder). I also played "Charlie Murder" which is a nice throwback to the Final Fight/ Simpsons beat-em-up type game.

There was a game called "Limbo" which had a real "Out of this World" vibe.





Also "Hydrophobia" which looked pretty ambitious and had some neat water effects.

Checked out some REALLY nerdy furniture. You'd have to be rich or have a very understanding spouse for this stuff. It was beautifully made though.





I didn't want to wait for anything for a really long time, so I just watched a lot of different things. OpenChord.org has developed a really rudimentary Rock Band clone that uses real guitars. They literally wired a circuit board to the head of a guitar and ran wires to the tuning pegs. You play it like any rhythm game, but you can press any string to trigger the note. The pick is also wired to the assembly. I sucked ass at it (and I'm a decent Rock Band player) but some other people really got the hang of it. It was neat to try.





Watched some Monday Night Combat, which seemed like a fun game. Kind of a mix of a football game with a Crackdown feel. There was a LOT going on in that game. Robotic "linebackers", automated turrets, big explosions. I could see it being popular online.





I waited in line to do some Rock Band performing of my own where the Harmonix people set up. Probably spent an hour in that line (but tore it up with my Boston tribute number "PAX of Mine"). I did, however, get to see the Ghostbusters sing "Ghostbusters"…which capped off a surreal weekend nicely.







They were 45 minutes late letting people in to the closing ceremonies, so I even though I had waited in yet another line I decided to head for the airport to be safe. Felt bad to miss it but that was just ridiculously over.

All in all it was a great experience and I'm definitely going back next year.

xmiyux

I see those tables at Origins (a board game convention in Ohio) every year and drool over them. One of these days I will have a nice game room set up and get something like that.

edit: The guy seated at the table in the first picture looks so much like Ed Hammel it is ridiculous.

lordwow

If you want to know what Monday Night Combat is... combine Team Fortress 2 with Tron.

boredsilly

Man, I didn't think I would have any interest in this, but your write up has me jonesin to check this out next year.

DGibFen

http://www.pvponline.com/2010/03/18/...s-in-the-dark/

I hear they announced that Penny Arcade Adventures is over. That sucks.

Draven

Oh yeah, they did say that. Someone asked, they said the games are over but Jerry wants to continue the story as graphic novels (or actual novels, I can't remember which) and they'll be called Episode 3, Episode 4, etc.