PAX

This brog will mostly be able tech, music and clothes/shoes. Basically everything I "waste" my money on, but what better way to kick it off than to share my PAX experience. (ps i swear future posts will be more concise.

For those that don't know, PAX is the Penny Arcade Expo or even more simply put a gaming convention. It was my first gaming convention and to make it even better it was completely sold out, which was unprecedented.

The best aspect of PAX is that it really exists for the fans. Although i have nothing to compare it to i can say that there definitely a great sense of community. Where else can you see a large number of people on bean bags playing ds's and psp's.

The opening keynote was given by Ron Gilbert. I'll be honest I hadn't heard of him before this, although i did play his game Maniac Mansion. It was funny to learn that he worked for lucas arts but couldn't make a star wars game at the time. I think the thing that stuck most was that he said video games might be/ is the greatest art form purely because it is interactive. Plus it has almost all aspects of other art forms to make it so enjoyable. Raj and I religiously believe in this and it is nice to hear it from a distinguished figure. After the keynote, the convention began and basically we got to play a bunch of games and got a lot of free tshirts. I think I'll list our journey in picture form now.

The view of the "showroom"

Forza 2 was the first game we saw. cool screen setup BUT Raj's chassis and wheel setup is actually better so we didn't play.

First game we actually played, Dead Space Extraction.... pretty cool rail shooter. Not bad for a Wii game. I can say that the tshirt from this game was the best.

Next game we played was probably the longest wait we had the whole time, Left 4 Dead 2... in my opinion, pretty much the same thing but with a couple new enemies. I think there is a new tankish enemy and one that hops on your back. It was pretty fun being able to cut your enemy with a katana or beat them down with a guitar, i will say that.

I never got to finish GoW2 but I'm really glad i got to play God of War 3... the demo i played was basically the same and GoW2 but i know its going to be so much more epic. all i have to say is wings....

Speaking of games i never finished, I never did get a chance to play Mass Effect but I did get to play Mass Effect 2. Or should i call it Blade Runner, the cinematic of the level you get to play might be a clip of the movie.

and to finish the day off...RAWR...

The Next day we go to the Rockstar booth to see Red Dead Redemption, the game looks like it's going to be massive. Imagine GTA and Call of Juarez. I couldn't take any pictures because it was forbidden. But while we waited, we did get to see a game (i can't really call it a game actually) called Beatorator. Raj flexing his audio engineering muscle got pulled on stage and right then and there he made a song timbahland would be proud of. He even got to share some poetic words with the audience.

True Blood is probably my favorite show on TV right now, and that is saying a lot because I watch a lot of TV. Well they are releasing the plasmic drink from the show, it'll take a real fan to buy them at 4 dollars a bottle (based on the website). Does Sam Merlotte know she's here...

Just seeing the ODST live action trailer reminded me that we played the game. Your life system has changed a little, new guns and a new play mode called firefight (which is what we played). imagine horde mode from gears and you get the idea...

Always being a MGS fan I've never really liked the Splinter Cell series purely based on loyalty. But after watching them demo the game here i think I'm going to love it.

This next booth saddened me as much as it excited me but the Blizzard booth was a pretty big deal. We go to try out the Worgen in WoW and i have to admit they are pretty cool. I'm still perturbed that the horde got goblins and not something like vampires to balance but what ever I don't play anymore.

This game was the one I was waiting for and we will be waiting for a while now...so sad. We got to play the Wizard and the Monk from Diablo III. Dope is all i have to say.

There were 1v1's set up for StarCraft that we watched but we didn't play because of the lines. Can't say much more than it should be ridiculously fun when it drops.

And that was the end of the second day i think, this whole trip was kind of a blur now that I'm taking nyquil.

On the last day I didn't get to take any pictures but we visited the Mafia 2 booth which was probably the most immersive one. Ok i lied i do have a picture, but just one.

Then we start searching out some of the smaller games since we basically hit all the big ones we came to see. We got to try out Dark Void and got to fulfill my childhood fantasies of being Rocketeer. Might even be one step up because you get guns. Can't beat that.

Just wandering around we got to try a game called Bayonetta (sp). Imagine Devil May Cry but with a hot chick. It was actually quite enjoyable, and if we scored 6000 points we would get a t shirt. Welp, me and raj put together didn't get 6000 so....it was a stupid tshirt anyways.

The last game I can remember and possibly the most impressive game of the whole convention was Brink. The demo was actually a PAX exclusive so it made it that much better. I can only simply describe it as a first person shooter/ rpg and even some elements of plat-forming. You can switch roles on the fly if it isn't occupied to complete tasks needed to finish the mission. You can even switch tasks that give you different amounts of xp. The more relevant to your role the more xp you get. To top it off you can do a slide and shoot at the same time.

Sorry if this is a complete mess, I think I may have gotten swine flu there and I've been popping nyquil like candy. I'm sure im leaving out a lot but these are the things that were most vivid in my mind. I don't know if I'm going to keep this up, its a lot of work haha. I'll probably just post random music videos to appease you, hopefully.