PAX Day Three Wrap-Up (The End)

On the last day of PAX East it felt very much like the winding down of something epic. There was a sadness in my chest that can only be explained as the end of something special. The experience was like nothing I had ever had the pleasure of attending. It is like they say, "We made the kind of convention we wanted to attend when we were growing up."

To start off the beginning of the end, my wife and I attended the XBOX LIVE Enforcement panel which even my wife said was a learning experience.  You can hear the full audio of the panel above if you missed out.

Afterward we met up with our friends again to see the last Penny Arcade Q & A. Mike and Jerry (again Gabe and Tycho respectively) are as funny as they are weird and seeing them arm wrestle was priceless and perhaps a once in a lifetime (or once a year) experience.

Then, it being the last day and all, we had to finally meet Wil Wheaton. My wife and I waited in line for an hour and a half; let me just say this, meeting him, was one of the best experiences I have ever had - ever. I will be writing more about this later so if you are interested I will have a link on my Twitter or in this post sooner rather than later.

The last things that I took away from PAX East were interview questions that I asked a couple of studios (once more, more on that later). I also had the pleasure of playing Monday Night Combat which (again) will have a hands-on write-up soon.

It was one of the greatest weekends of my life and also one of the most exhausting weekends. I would have never thought I could get my fill of video games but in three short days I managed to have more (pent up) conversation about video games than I could have ever imagined. Part of me wants PAX to continue FOREVER (like an every day sort of thing) but part of me is glad that I will have to wait for the next one.

PAX Day One Wrap-Up (The Experience)

The day past has been an interesting one. It has gone by about as quickly as I expected it to and there were both sweet and sour moments to the day.

Let us start off sour so that we may end up sweet. The first disappointment of the day leads in to the second disappointment of the day and that is that the whole event feels very much like a first go of it. It feels as though the people who organized the show were disorganized in their organization. Regardless, the place was definitely stuffed to the gils.

The first disappointment was that I missed Wil Wheaton's keynote - not only that but I did not sit in on any panels at all. A tip for the show that goes without saying is that you should get there early for what panels you want to see. Missing Wil's keynote was heartbreaking but my group and I moved on into the Expo Hall which proved to be a great time.

I have every intention of writing up the games that I saw and had a chance to get my hands on but I did want to briefly mention them in passing here.

The first booth we stopped by was the Ska Studios booth so that we could check out The Dishwasher: Vampire Smile and Charlie Murder. James Silva (Ska Studios one man army) was talking about the game as we played and my friend and I were floored by how down to earth he was. It was my first of many great experiences and a good chance to get to know an Indie developer.

We then proceeded to stop by and see The Behemoth's new game, Battleblock Theater (which I do not think is all that memorable of a game title). It looks like good fun but more on that later.

What really stole the day for my friend and I was Raskulls by Halfbrick Studios - here all of the way from Australia. It is similar Dig Dug and Mr. Driller except it is competitive in nature: campaign is vs. the computer while multiplayer is PvP. It is a very fun and addictive game that I will have more to say about later.

We also had a look at Split Second, an awesome new racing game from Disney.

More to come tomorrow like actually catching a panel and a chance to meet (not just look at) Wil Wheaton. I also plan to get more hands on time with what I did today and more, like: Splinter Cell: Conviction, a new XBLA game that I can not remember the title of, etc.

Stay tuned.