Man, PAX is a crazy experience. If
you've never been, you have no idea what you are missing. The sheer scale of
everything is almost indescribable, but I'm going to try: Imagine a giant hall,
that's four levels high, filled with tens of thousands of people. Now imagine
that every single one of those people is a huge fan of whatever you're a fan
of, be it video games, music, whatever, and they have all gathered together to
celebrate the existence of whatever that thing is, and to talk about and
prepare for its future. A giant party where every guest has something in common
with everyone else, and no matter where you are; on the bus, waiting in line,
sitting down and eating, wherever, you could turn to the person next to you, a
complete stranger, and start a conversation knowing that you both enjoy the
same, or at least similar, things. PAX has a sense of camaraderie and community
that I don't get from other conventions, but that is just one of the many, many
reasons why PAX is my favorite convention by a wide margin.
This year at PAX was better than
ever for me, in no small part because this was the first year where I had the
time and money to attend the convention all day, all three days. With that much
time I got to see everything I wanted to see and more. I saw some awesome
panels, played and saw several games that are coming out this year, and met
some great people. To be engrossed in the gaming culture so heavily is a
fantastic time. If they held PAX every weekend, I'd be there every time.
Funnily enough, several things
that I have complained about on this very blog were addressed at some of the
panels I went to. The complaints about Halo
4 that I had were addressed in the form of easier and faster title updates,
Future improvements promised for future titles, and a new, free, forge map that
will be made available next month. I can't really tell if the lack of fixes to
things like custom game options are an impossibility, or just something 343 is
holding back on in order to sell Halo 5,
but it's nice to at least hear them address it. Borderlands 2 is also getting a level cap increase, and the fourth
DLC of the season pass is being called “the biggest borderlands DLC ever".
As far a new games go, I got to
play The Wonderful 101, that crazy Pikmin/Viewtiful Joe/Bayonetta
game from Platinum Games, and it is very fun. It features a little bit of
everything; party management, hack 'n slash, unique uses of the gamepad screen,
giant robots, wacky dialogue... I could go on for ages but you get the idea.
It's super fun to play too, with lots of crazy and unique characters. Another
impressive looking game is Transistor,
from Supergiant Games, the makers of Bastion.
The wait to play it was up to three hours at times, so I never got to touch it
myself, but it certainly looks amazing, and the narrator from Bastion makes a triumphant return. The
game could be a faithful remake of ET
for the Atari 2600 and I'd still play it if he narrated the whole thing for me.
Also there to be seen Dungeon Defenders 2, which is unfortunately
being made into a MOBA-style game. Apparently it will have a
"classic" Dungeon Defenders mode, but the MOBA version will come out
first. There will be more classes and options available than in the first game,
but this is still an upsetting change. Due to the popularity of League of Legends in particular, the
MOBA game style and the "free to play, pay for premium" model have
become the new standard for online games. It's like how, a few years ago, all
the publishers saw the frankly ludicrous amount of money that WoW was making
and all decided simultaneously to make MMOs, but then the market got flooded
with crappy MMOs that were all overcosted, so no one played them and they
mostly fell apart. I would expect that to happen again with MOBAs and free-to-play
games in the next couple of years. (Spoiler alert, it's already happening.)
I cannot state enough how much I
love PAX. If you ever get the chance to go I urge you to check it out at least
once. Unless you have a massive aversion to crowds, you will have a great time.
In other news, I picked up something fun for the future of the blog. I still
don't have all the details worked out, but next week I should at least have an
announcement of some kind. Get hyped for that, because I am.
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