PAX East 2011: The Rundown

Another PAX has come and gone, and just like clockwork, my body has become Disneyland for strange and exotic diseases. Despite the relentless pull of illness, I wanted to give a rundown of everything Christina and I saw at the show. There are a couple of things I’m only going to touch on briefly because I plan on writing entire articles about them later, so stay tuned for that.

Friday morning began with us attending the Xbox tweetup at Lucky’s Lounge a few blocks away from the convention center where we got to meet the crew from Major Nelson Radio, Larry “Major Nelson” Hryb, Stephen “Stepto” Toulouse, Eric “e” Neustadter and Laura “lollip0p” Massey. The place filled up FAST as free breakfast was served, but I got a chance to meet them and get an Xbox 360 faceplate signed.

 

After that we walked over to the Boston Convention & Exhibition Center and the first thing we noticed was just how HUGE it was. Last year PAX East was held at the Hynes Convention Center, which is large enough for conventions like Anime Boston with attendance around 13,000 people, but last year PAX East had attendance at 60,000 people. They needed a bigger space, and the BCEC had it.

Even though attendance this year was around 70,000 people (making it the biggest PAX ever as well as the largest gaming convention in North America), there was so much space that it never felt cramped or closed in. It was a very comfortable environment even with that many people moving around.

 

The first thing we did was get in line for the keynote speech, given by “Reality is Broken: Why Games Make Us Better and How They Change the World” author Jane McGonigal. She spoke for an hour about how scientifically, playing games helps prepare us for real-life problems and in some ways even makes us better people. One example she gave was that after spending twenty minutes playing as an attractive avatar, players maintained that level of confidence even after leaving the game, which became very evident in social interaction, especially flirting, where players would approach people that they would be afraid to under normal circumstances.

She wrapped up the speech by inviting us all to set a world record for the “world’s largest massively-multiplayer thumb wrestling match” in which people would link hands, sometimes in groups of five, and thumb wrestle for great justice. You had to use both hands, too, and literally everyone in the room was linked in a giant chain. Since I was with my wife Christina, who was an attractive woman at a game convention, everyone around us reached for her hand which made me laugh.

 

The keynote went right into the first Penny Arcade Q&A with Gabe and Tycho, which was an absolute riot. They’re so quick-witted when in front of a crowd. One person asked about Tycho calling PAX East “bitch PAX” at PAX Prime in Seattle last year and since PAX East is now in a much better convention center than Prime, if he’d say anything bad about them. Tycho replied “PAX Prime is a den of thieves.”

Other highlights include readers continually offering them gifts and Gabe saying “We accept your gifts. You may place them upon our altar,” and a Scottish attendee (who attends every PAX and asks them a question each time) asking about the rumors about a European PAX. He gave them two bottles of Scottish soft drink Irn Brü. saying “This first one is free, if you want more you have to come get it!” They took a drink and Gabe said, “It’s good! It tastes like a creamsicle!” Tycho, face contorted in disgust, replied, “No, it tastes like the fucking stick.”

 

After the Q&A let out we headed out to the expo hall, which was MASSIVE. The only way to describe it is it’s like a theme park for unreleased games. It’s huge, it’s loud, and it’s exciting. Now, first, a disclaimer: I didn’t get a chance to play any of the big games, like Portal 2, Duke Nukem Forever or Battlefield 3. Lines for those were regularly over an hour, and since I didn’t have a media pass (this time!) and couldn’t skip to the front, I just didn’t have the time to spare to wait in line. It was either see a couple of big games or see a lot of the smaller ones, so we opted for the latter.

 

The first stop we made was for Nintendo’s 3DS booth to finally get our hands on the handheld and see it for ourselves. I’ll write a more in-depth article within the next couple of days, but wow. It works. It really, really works. Neither of us experienced any eye discomfort or headaches, even after extended play. I’m nearsighted, so I need glasses to see far away, but even with them on, with the 3DS a foot in front of my face, the 3D worked wonderfully. It doesn’t pop out of the screen like I thought it would, but instead the screen has an incredible amount of depth and really draws you in. We played the AR Games, Dead or Alive Dimensions, The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time 3D, Kid Icarus: Uprising, Super Street Fighter IV 3D Edition and Resident Evil: Mercenaries 3D.

 

Cruising around a bit more we came to The Behemoth’s booth, where they had an AWESOME Castle Crashers arcade machine. They also had a new playable demo for their upcoming game Battleblock Theater, which we played last year. It’s a competitive platformer where you and a friend team up against another team of two to do things like collect objects or try to turn the entire stage your color.

 

We stopped by Nexus Games’ booth because they had a very impressive cutscene looping on their giant screen, and tried out their upcoming PC game Dragon Nest, which is my game of the show. One of my favorite games of all time is Phantasy Star Online, and Dragon Nest is very similar to that, but with improved combat mechanics and gorgeous anime-inspired graphics. I’ll write more about this one later because it impressed me so much.

 

Nintendo also had a separate booth for Pokémon. The focus there was on the collectible card game and the upcoming online variation. I spent some time playing Magic the Gathering: Duels of the Planeswalkers, and this looks to be a Pokémon-themed version of that. You can customize your avatar as well, which really drew Christina in.

 

After that we headed to one of the panels I really wanted to see focusing on Xbox Live enforcement, put on by Stephen “Stepto” Toulouse, head of Xbox Live Policy & Enforcement and his team. It was a really fascinating look into how they keep Xbox Live a safe and fun place. It was also the first time they’ve ever shown their enforcement program, Vulcan, off to the public. I know a lot of people like to make jokes about how Xbox Live has a subscription fee, but seeing how your money goes into maintaining the service really makes you feel like it was worth it.

 

The next day we got in early because we wanted to get to Capcom’s booth and get one of the limited edition Okamiden plushes they had after being turned away Friday, since they wanted to save some for Saturday. We got in and bought one within ten minutes of the expo hall being open, and when we left the booth lines were over an hour again.

 

We headed over to the Boston Indie Showcase where Christina tried out Snapshot, a really interesting platformer coming from Retro Effect. You play as a robot named Pic and need to take pictures of things like boxes and springs to store them and move them around the level in order to solve puzzles. It was an absolutely gorgeous game with a really unique gameplay hook, and Christina actually managed to solve a level in a way the level designer hadn’t even thought possible! They said it will be released on PC, most likely through Steam, and are trying for a digital release on consoles. If you liked games like Limbo and Braid, DEFINITELY keep an eye out for Snapshot.

 

There was a HUGE booth set up for Kinect game Child of Eden, which defies description. The best way I can even attempt is by calling it a cross between Rez and Panzer Dragoon, but on drugs. You use your hands to move and shoot around a psychedelic environment with every interaction made generating music. If you liked Rez (and I know there are a lot of you) this game should without a doubt be on your radar.

 

We went to a really interesting panel after that which I plan on writing a more in-depth post about this week called “Females on Female Game Characters,” which featured several female game journalists discussing how females are portrayed in videogames and a lot of the negative misconceptions that just aren’t true. Susan Arendt, senior editor of The Escapist, said it best with “I don’t hate Tomb Raider because Lara Croft is hot. I hate Tomb Raider because it sucks.”

 

Right after that we went to the live recording of Major Nelson Radio, which was a blast. Special guest Cliff Bleszinski joined them for a few minutes to discuss the upcoming beta for Gears of War 3, which should be launching in mid-April. We managed to snag a couple of extra codes for the special PAX East avatar item as well: a Gears of War 3 Cole plush for your Xbox 360 avatar! We’ll be giving those away soon, so stay tuned!

 

We had some time to kill so we stopped by the classic arcade room, which was awesome. It was almost like a museum; each game had a plaque next to it detailing the game’s history. ’80s music filled the room, which really gave it the vibe of an old school arcade. I fell in love with an old game called Mr. Do’s Wild Ride, which is super unfortunate because it never saw any kind of home re-release. It’s now my goal to own it as an arcade cabinet!

The console freeplay room was nearby, where several stations were set up with multiplayer games, encouraging people to sit down and make some friends. We watched people play Marvel vs Capcom 3 for a short while, lamenting the fact that we would never, EVER be as good as them.

 

We also walked around the tabletop area, which was massive. It was really nice to see tabletop games get so much love, because even though I’m not a tabletop gamer (I’m trying to get into it, though!), I really like games where you’re playing with another person sitting next to you rather than through the internet.

That really sums up the vibe of PAX as well. It’s an incredibly warm, friendly, accepting environment. You can strike up a conversation with anyone and have a good time, because gaming has given us all a set of shared experiences even though we are, for all intents and purposes, complete strangers. At shows like E3, which are about the companies rather than the attendees, you don’t really get that vibe. PAX is a party where we all come together to share our love for games and gaming culture.

 

We wrapped up Saturday night by attending the panel “After Hours with Kris and Scott (Scott and Kris)” put on by Scott Kurtz of PvP and Kris Straub of Starslip and Chainsawsuit. The panel opened with a musical number performed by Kris and Tycho, singing “Allidays” from Kris and Scott’s Blamimation series. It really was an after hours show, too: They were drinking, Scott told a fifteen minute story about pooping, and the Penny Arcade staff was in the front row partaking in a drinking game, shouting “Yeeeeap!” any time they mentioned Kris’ race, Scott’s weight, or they made a joke about being in love with each other.

Unfortunately, when we woke up Sunday morning, especially after the time change, we just didn’t have it in us to get back in town. We both had to work Monday and I could feel the crippling cocktail of disease beginning their assault on my immune system. All the walking, crappy food and lack of sleep had sapped us of most of our strength, so we decided to take the day to recover. We had seen a lot and already had had a much better time than last PAX East so decided to quit while we were ahead.

So yeah! I’ll have more articles over the next few days going over some of the really cool stuff more in-depth. If you’ve never attended either PAX East or PAX Prime, do yourself a favor and plan your next vacation around it. The sense of togetherness you get by being surrounded by thousands of other gamers coupled with the excitement of playing all kinds of upcoming games is something you need to experience at least once.