PAX ‘09 Linktastic Wrapup
PAX has come and gone again, leaving behind the bittersweet memories of the annual massive gaming “fix” that only serves to keep the appetite aroused.
Overall, it was fun. The immense size this year from taking over the entire convention center had all activities under one roof. The floor layout kept the bottlenecks to a bare minimum and the expo hall was filled with wondrous sights and sounds (for the most part).
The Good
[dufflehead:] The Omegathon final round is always good but this year it was genius: everyone needs to hear 6000 people cheer a person that sinks a skee ball in the 50 cup. Paul and Storm were hilarious and probably the best concert act I got to see. The hand-held lounge had games to check out this year for the PSP and DS and the selection was large enough to be daunting. I had a great time trying out a game I’m developing with friends; PAX being a fantastic environment for such an endeavor. Scott Kurtz is a very funny man with some great stories as is Ron Gilbert who delivered this year’s keynote which started everything off brilliantly. The PAX10 were again one of the best things in the expo hall.
[The Tim:] Despite there being a bigger crowd than last year, the show did not feel as crowded to me, probably thanks to the addition of the 6th floor. The console freeplay area was massively upgraded this year, including a custom-built system for tracking available consoles and checked-out games. I stopped up in there a few times and always saw consoles available.
Pictures
Here are the pictures of our adventure this year:
The Not Quite as Good
[dufflehead:] Something felt . . . off. The coziness of previous years seemed to be absent. Tabletop was divided into various rooms, and in general, everything was hidden making if feel like there were less people than before (even though there were actually more).
Booth space used to talk to fans and let them see art instead of a few stations for attendees to actually try the games out, more “look at our game!” instead of “play our game!”. Not to mention the booths of walls and curtains. Did they really have a game in there or just drug the attendees on entry and tell them “you saw the most amazing game and now you will tell your friends to buy it”? And what about the mechanical horse booth? It looked fun but is the game about riding a mechanical horse?
The booth with the lace curtains (The ECA): Lace? Really? With the curtains and red cushions it’s like you’re trying to seduce people into liking you . . . like vampires. The ECA is made up of vampires? Did they bite people in there?
[The Tim:] Gunnar Optiks in the Expo Hall. Who let those guys in? I mean seriously.
Also, the booth babes really take away from the PAX “vibe,” IMO. The worst was a very scantily clad lady at the Champions Online booth. Let’s leave the booth babes for E3. Fortunately there were only about a half a dozen booth babes in the whole Expo Hall by our count.
The games we’re looking forward to playing
[dufflehead]
Fairytale Fights: gruesome fun comes in a cute, pint-sized package
Death Spank: From the guy that did the keynote. Oh, and Monkey Island, whatever that is.
Lode Runner: This is an incredible looking continuation of the classic. It’s a good idea that will hopefully lead to more. (And from Sept 14 – Sept 20 it’s on the cheap for 800 MSPoints)
[The Tim]
Scribblenauts: It’s an obvious choice, but having a chance to actually play it guaranteed that this will be the first game I buy for my DS in well over a year.
Split Second: The Disney booth pulled out a sweet surprise with this awesome-looking arcade racer. Destructible environments FTW. [dufflehead: I'm dufflehead and I approve this message.]
New Super Mario Bros. Wii: It plays just as fun as the DS version (if not even better), but it’s definitely not just a rehash of the DS game, just a fresh new game in the same style.
Final Thoughts
[dufflehead:] I really should have spent more time playing games instead of trying to see everything all at once. Some games, like Arcane Legions, I was afraid to try lest it get its claws in me. Actually, I feared that most of the games in the expo hall would have done that to me if I hadn’t kept moving.
Where were the arcade machines of previous years? For next year why not a stand up arcade room? There doesn’t need to be many machines, just a few of the good ones. And, if we can continue to make suggestions, it would be nice if there was a place to relax and watch game trailers/ads on a, say, one to two hour loop.
Only 360ish more days until the next one! Unless you can make it to Boston in the spring.
[Update by The Tim]
Here are some pages of interactive notes from my LiveScribe Pulse pen that I took at the event. Best viewed in full-screen. Click around on the notes to listen to the audio from when I was writing the text you click on.