Pax East Shenanigans II: Kicking ARSE and Taking Names
All I can say is this has been probably one of the greatest experience of my life. I have found a personality trait that I never knew I had. Dealing with a room full of thousands upon thousands of people, yet being able to talk face to face with promotion peoples, and also the game designers themselves.
With going up to these booths not knowing what to expect, I have had to create the headstrong capability. Some of the groups that we got to talk to today were folks that we didn't even have original contacts with. Yet when we went up and presented ourselves as the Boston Bastard Brigade, they were blown away by the name and what we had done. I never thought that I myself could go into a setting such as this and be able to talk with these brilliant minds of the gaming industry.
How the day started: It started in a dreamscape of darkness and waking up in a room I never woke up before... Oh right the Hotel room. All joking aside now, our schedule today first dealt with going to the Machinima panel that dealt with actually talking with the main members of the popular video broadcast group from YouTube and their website. It sucked a little because they didn't have all their members, but the cool thing was that they played some of their videos for us that they had made. Had some laughs, but not only that we were able to go up and do a Q&A segment for the most part. Sadly we had to leave in the middle of it because we were on to the next part of finding more games and getting to know more people.
For the most part we had fun wandering around for a little while till we met up with Tritton Technologies. Now this was bad-ass setup. I have to say meeting up with the Fred Schweer was an awesome experience. He did a great job with the audio interview we did with him, especially dealing with the multiple people running around everywhere, loud noises from all the gaming; and he also probably did around twenty interviews beforehand. We were grateful for him to take time out of his busy schedule and talk with us. We were able to check out the demo for the the headset, along with trying out the very awesome Gunnar glasses. No product placement here, but with Gunnar glasses I hope I get some extra money from work soon because I need to buy those suckers. For a person that has astigmatism, I deal with the countless days of staring at a computer screen, TV, and basically everyday life. I find myself constantly rubbing my eyes from the over-usage of them. The main point that Fred got by to us on the conversation was that you wouldn't do the rubbing of the eyes anymore. The lenses were created to help distribute the light sensitivity instead of absorbing it right into the eye. I'm basically sold on the product, so hopefully when I get the cash I'm going to the doctors, finding out my prescription and buying those for me.
Next we talked to the very awesome Kaori Taksue, the P.R. Manager of the game Puzzle Quest II. This game was definitely not my style, but I found it very interesting to play. I know: Boo!! I can't tell a lie, but I'm not much for the Role Playing Games (RPGs). But this one did catch my interests because it was a simplified version. I usually can't stand some of the games that act like time vampires on my life. This one seemed to be one where I could download it on Xbox Live Arcade (also presented on Nintendo DS ); and when I get pissed off at one of my other games, I'll play this when I need something to make my mind go from mushy brain soup back into BRILLIANT! mode. So with that we were able to simply walk around the game in designated setups. You would move the cursor up to the certain spot and just click upon where they wanted to go, such as another part of the map, buildings, and Merchants. With Puzzle Quest II you explored here and there, then you would come upon someone to fight. But it's not just any old fighting, it's with the puzzle balls presented in the game. So the whole thing with the ball setup was to take and match them up with a three-in-a-row concept. (If you know what the first game is about, skip to the next paragraph.) So with getting through that it gives you the capabilities of attacking whoever you're fighting. Puzzle Quest II has caught my interest, and I look forward to downloading the game and playing it some more to do a complete review.
The next fun thing we got to experience was 2K Games. It was kind of frightening dealing with the whole delayed timed schedule because of booking issues, but we were totally understanding. This is a massive convention dealing with thousands of people in a small place. (May I remind you that this sold out for 60,000 passes all together!) This was mind-blowing in the sense that it gained so much popularity in such a small amount of time. Back to 2K, all I can say it was very hush hush, yet that's fine once more; we honor and respect the creator's and designers of the games. We got to sit in the room that was made to watch Civilization V (aka 5). This game looked BEAUTIFUL!!! The graphics have improved greatly, they put a lot of work into the historical settings, as well as the characters of the countries. This game I look forward to it in it's entirety, but they told us they are trying to get it out by the end of the year. (Stay tuned to that!) The second part was we actually got to play the demo for Mafia II. I was really excited to play the game finally, because I dealt with watching the trailers for the game countless times from 2008 up to now. Playing the original game was amazing back on the Ps2. I know it's been a long time, but hopefully in August we can finally see this on the shelves, and people will be playing a fun gangster game.
The other fun stuff that was around while we were running around included what I want to call the real version of Rock Band and Guitar Hero. This work of beauty is called Power GIG. They literally took and created a real-working guitar as a controller. They had a person that was presenting the guitar and playing music off the amp. They had all all set up in one of the old style-type vans from the days of rock. So now people won't be Stan Marshing (see South Park "Guitar Queero" episode) the Rock Band/Guitar Hero no more. I love the idea because if this is done right, then people will be able to finally be able to play the Goddamn guitar and not just press buttons and strum plastic pieces.
Another game that we were able to try out for a little while was Joe Danger. This is a hilarious side-scrolling Daredevil motor game. It's not for the XBOX 360, but it's going to be on PS3 and on the PC I believe. I don't think it's everyone's favorite game, yet people can have lots and lots of fun with it. To add on to that, another game we got to try out is Split Second, a game from Disney and Black Rock Studios. All I can say is SEXY!!!! Yet they weren't giving us the full graphics on it because it was worked up, so that it was just for the people to come and give it a try. But I was assured that when the full game comes out, it will be awesome because it is going to be done just like how they did the PURE game that I reviewed. It's racing cars this time, and you earn points to do special functions like blowing up sections of the course in order to change the track and knockout the competition. Yet another game that caught my eye from "UBER ENTERTAINMENT". This impressed the hell out of me, but yet I almost mistaken it as another Team Fortress 2 game because of the graphic design. Yet I assure you it's not, this game is totally different from what Valve brought out in the TF2 game. What was impressive was one of the designers. He put his actual Martial Arts style into the game. This blew my mind out of the back of my head. To see him preform the act, then watch it transformed on the futuristic type ninjas of the game, the word "speechless" comes to mind. They have guys that are normal size with light weaponry class, the ninja class, sniper class, and heavy mechanized guys. All around impressive game, and you will hopefully see this out on XBOX Live Arcade soon.
This is your boy Blueonic signing off, and we will have a ton more coming at you tomorrow from PAX East.
