PAX '07

To say I had a good time at this year's event would be a bit of an understatement. Events like this always put the drive back into me, reminding me why I do what I do and what the next step to take might be.

I've been attending PAX in some forms for several years now, this one being my third. The very first time was a direct result of my involvement in the community for Vanguard: Saga of Heroes. In the long run, that effort didn't turn out perfectly, but it was my first glimpse into the behind-the-scenes aspect of game development that curried my desire to get involved. It was there that I met up with community representative Cindy Bowens, a bit of a legend when it comes to MMO-related community management. She was extremely kind and led to my first volunteer job  as a games "journalist". I use quotations since the only journalism involved was focused on a single game rather than the industry as a whole. I wrote articles, did interviews, and performed a multitude of tasks for the hopeful community of an ultimately doomed game.

The second year was a bit of a solitary task. I had attended in hopes of meeting up with people, but ultimately was shut down by the extremely limited space that the Bellevue Convention Center had to offer. It was nigh impossible to walk, let alone move, through the place. Needless to say I was discouraged and left early, hoping that in the future a larger space would be acquired.

This year's convention answered my pleas and delivered in one of the best convention spaces I've experienced yet. Amusingly enough, despite living here, I've never been to the Washington State Convention Center (where this year's PAX took place). It's really a wonderful location for an event like this, from the multitude of glass walls near registration, to the very spacious showroom floor. Appropriate signage led me to where I needed to go without much confusion, and it seemed like everyone else was having a great time too.

The day started off somewhat solitary, as I had yet to spot anyone I knew. Yet suddenly, all within the span of 30 minutes or so, I had run into close to five or six co-workers. During the majority of my afternoon, I spent the time roaming the showroom floor and gathering impressions from various games on display:

Heavenly Sword - This was one of the first games I ran into, and one I already know I'm picking up once it's released. However, it was great to go in and play for a period of time that's not extremely short (such as the PSN demo provided). While the area I played was an arena battle, I really enjoyed playing through it. I tried as many ways as possible to kill the oncoming adversaries, my favourite of which involving throwing deceased soldiers at a line of advancing ones, knocking them all to the floor. The boss that followed, an encounter versus Flying Fox (one of the main henchmen), was relatively straight-forward, but by the time he emerged I had taken so much damage that I couldn't claim victory over him. Sadness, but it was a good stopping point.

Lair - Being a game of much contention among reviewers, I'm glad I finally got to get some hands-on time with it to formulate my own opinions before it launches in September. The only unfortunate part is that I believe the demo on the floor was an old E3 build, as it clearly wasn't optimized to the point that the game needs to be for its shipping quality. As a result, things were very choppy in places, especially scaled animations of far-away dragons (previously, I had only thought MMOs did this type of scaling). However, I personally got used to the controls very swiftly compared to most others' impressions. I love the feel of motion-controlled flight, and including a camera lock-on is a massive boon that saves the game and makes it tolerable in its massive scope. I'm very much looking forward to the final game, and really hope that the graphical polish is much better than the build I played. (Explosions are just terrible and uninspiring.)

Other games at the Sony Booth that I didn't get to play were Uncharted: Drake's Fortune and Ratchet & Clank Future: Tools of Destruction, both of which looked stunning. I can't go too deep into impressions though, since it's nothing much different than watching gameplay videos.

Eye of Judgement was another game I didn't get to play hands-on, but got a good impression from seeing a setup of about 4-5 tables set up and playing it. Contrary to prior belief, the game actually comes packaged with everything for the standard $60 price point. And this is including the Playstation Eye, which wows me. The main concerns I have involve how the game will prevent severe cheating while playing online, such as drawing more cards than indicated or just browsing your entire deck unbeknownst to the opposing party. I should've asked the representatives there, but I didn't think of it at the time.

The next Midnight Club game was having a live demonstration behind a curtain at Rockstar's booth, which really impressed me as well. While I likely won't get it, as I'm not a huge racing game fan, they're doing a lot of very cool things with the franchise for current gen. And there's an in-car view too! One thing that may sell me on GT5, but that's another story altogether.

Last but not least on the list is Rock Band, a game that has "win" written all over it. The best possible promotional setup for the game was put on by EA, featuring a big stage set up with two guitars, drums and a microphone for vocalists. A huge line stretched around the booth, filled with eager gamers ready to get their rock on. And so four by four, the bands played their tunes to various degrees of success. One thing that came to mind immediately was that if you're going to have someone playing the drums, they need to be good, or else the entire song just goes to hell and sounds terrible. This happened more often than not, but sometimes an experienced player would step up and regain the rock.

After I was done wandering the showroom floor, it was just about time for the 1UP Gathering that I had been reading about. To my surprise, it would be even more fun and eventful than I had anticipated. I decided to, as P3 has taught me, burn my dread and wander over in a very self-confident manner and start getting in on conversations. Though there were several awkward moments when I found myself in a crowd of people who all obviously belonged together (due to their synchronized shirts), things were instantly lightened up when there were whispers going around about me, oddly enough. Thing is, The 1UP Show's Kathleen Sanders was there and had dyed her hair a very similar color to mine. So inquiries were going around as to whether I was some sort of long-lost brother.

After having met a number of people from 1UP and elsewhere that I have always wanted to meet, I ran into the awesome Jenn Frank who I helped find her way to a local brewery that seemed to be the popular spot to hang out outside the convention. Drink (only time for one) and good times were had, and suddenly it was time to head back to PAX for the live 1UP Yours podcast featuring the "original crew", meaning that Luke Smith was back in the 4th chair and back to his shenanigans. It was a hilarious show, and will be part of this Friday's upcoming podcast since it only lasted an hour due to convention scheduling. More good times were had, and I eventually bussed back to the ol' homestead extremely late.

In somewhat related news, I've decided to start up my own space at 1UP's blog space, and so starting next week all my posts will be located in both spots (double or mirror posting, in other words).

For now, that's all I've got. 'Till next week!