After a rough day zero for me I woke up with an outstanding headache that was radiating throughout my entire body. It was most likely dehydration due to the humidity, something I’m still adjusting to. I’m writing this at the end of day 2 here and I’m still trying to catch up. It’s been rather ridiculous considering I take my hydration very seriously back home. I’m trying though. Regardless, I woke up with a nasty headache and it also could’ve been because of my severe lack of sleep over the days leading up to it. I did, however, sleep like a rock and I was so tired that I was apparently making horrific sounds. Like all my exhaustion was just being exhaled by the ton.
Despite this new issue I was having we managed to get ready and leave for the day. We stopped by the 7/11 that’s located right next to our AirBnb to grab some coffee and morning snacks. Except instead of snacks, Zac and I purchased a stuffed waffle… from a gas station. We ate it and it tasted like microwaved McDonald’s. I wasn’t a big fan, but the coffee was enough to push me forward. From there we hitched a Ride Share down to the convention center. I have to say that our driver was hands down the coolest person we’ve met on one of those journeys. He’s a professor here at the local college and gave us a history lesson on why the streets in Seattle are so bananas. It was very interesting to see how such old things were kept around for such a long time. It reminded me of the roads in Boston and how wonky those were to navigate.
Once we reached the convention center we stood in line in one of the new locations to enter the building. This year PAX increased it’s security, adding metal detectors all over the place. No doubt these measures were put into place due to the recent mass shootings that have happened over the summer. I don’t mind the added security, but I do feel there is a way they can improve the flow of it because it simply takes too long, probably about an hour just to get into the door from when the event started.
Once we were inside we decided to check everything out so we could know what we wanted to see over the course of the next few days. It didn’t go exactly as planned though which is expected when you’re surrounded by cool stuff. We passed the booth for the Final Fantasy VII remake (a game I’m actually hoping to try out this weekend) and got side tracked at a booth selling Gears of War stuff. We didn’t buy anything upon our first visit, but I want to go back and get a couple of T-shirts. One in particular that features Augustus “Cole Train” Cole. For those of you who don’t know, my son is named Cole (I got the idea from Gears of War, actually) and as he’s grown up I’ve called him Cole Train and even quote something from Gears of War 3, “The Cole Train runs on whole grain baby, whooo!” Well, just so happens this booth has a Cole Train t-shirt with that exact quote on it. Unfortunately, they don’t have a child’s size I can purchase for my son, but I’m considering grabbing it for myself because it’s so great.
Since we didn’t buy anything we decided to keep it moving. We walked past the Bandai Namco booth where they have Codevien. We passed up the Discord and Nintendo booths and on to the game of the show, Borderlands 3. Their booth is probably the biggest in the entire expo hall (Google Stadia might actually be bigger, I can’t say for sure) and right in front they have a large statue of the four playable characters that are debuting this year. I have quite a few pictures of this booth and I’ll try making an entirely different blog with nothing but those photos. Some of them are posted on Twitter, @halotitan, if you’d like to see them now!
There are a lot of booths in this expo hall and I won’t go into detail naming them all here unless we actually stopped by. After perusing a few of them we made our way across the bridge to the second Expo Hall which I believe is the largest one they have. We didn’t really get to check it out for very long though because we had a date with the Gearbox Panel being held at a theater down the road from the convention center. Prior to doing that, though, we stumbled upon a life size statue of Claptrap from the Borderlands franchise! Next to it were solidly made Bandit masks (also from Borderlands) and we got to wear them for a photo op with Claptrap.
Standing in line outside with the sun beating down on you is pretty miserable, and we did it for probably ninety minutes waiting to get inside the main theater for the Gearbox panel. Security has been beefed up everywhere so getting in took so long that the panel began twenty minutes late (and even then not everyone was inside). We made use of our time though and booked appointments for two of Sony’s featured titles this year. A theater viewing of Death Stranding and a demo of a new title called, “Predator Hunting Grounds.”
The conference itself wasn’t too bad. We got to get some first hand announcements about some of the games that they were publishing, such as Risk of Rain 2 coming to consoles. It was pretty neat because like so many of Gearbox’s panels, they gave stuff away. This year they gave everyone a code for the latest Borderlands 2 DLC which branches the stories between 2 and 3. We also received free game codes for Risk of Rain 2 on steam. We were pretty stoked about that because we had never played Risk of Rain and were very intrigued by what they showed us.
They did some chatting about Borderlands 3 and its end game, which will include ways for players to keep on playing and improving their stats via horde mode game types that give away massive loot. We headed back to the conference center after the panel concluded and got stuck for about twenty minutes in the security line. We were actually in a race to get up to the Sony booth so we wouldn’t miss our appointment with Death Stranding. Fortunately, we all made it in time and sat down behind closed doors to get a glimpse of this mysterious title.
They did some chatting about Borderlands 3 and its end game, which will include ways for players to keep on playing and improving their stats via horde mode game types that give away massive loot. We headed back to the conference center after the panel concluded and got stuck for about twenty minutes in the security line. We were actually in a race to get up to the Sony booth so we wouldn’t miss our appointment with Death Stranding. Fortunately, we all made it in time and sat down behind closed doors to get a glimpse of this mysterious title.
I seriously can’t believe the graphics in this game. They are absolutely nuts. Death Stranding is probably going to be the most realistic video game that I’ve ever seen. We got to witness a few story sections loaded with dialogue and it really got me excited for the story. I haven’t really paid much attention to this game because most of its trailers were insanely ominous. It has my full attention now. We even got see a little bit of game play. No actual fighting, but we watched Norman Reedus complete a side quest for Geoff Keighley (so awesome by the way) shortly after he awoke from a nap and took a piss. Yes, whoever was on the controller actually selected an option to make him pee. It’s not like The Sims, though, and I’m sure it was put in to be a humorous moment for those of us getting to watch the video.
Shortly after we witnessed the beautiful Death Stranding, we fulfilled our appointment with Predator Hunting Grounds. I walked into this having never even heard of this game. From what I was coming to understand, it was built as an Evolve 1vAll-type game. I don’t know what the actual genre is, but you essentially have one player controlling the predator hunting down the other four players who are working in a squad. I drew the predator card and got to run my foes into the ground before ripping their skulls from their head in pure, nostalgic predator fashion. Using his camo, climbing trees, and slicing faces with his claw were all very fun. I was even rewarded with a t-shirt for being so amazing. I won’t, however, be purchasing this game. I don’t know if it’s because I’m not into multiplayer-only games or if it’s because the game itself didn’t seem very polished, but I won’t be snagging this one anytime soon because it just didn’t click for me.
Despite our check-everything-out-and-make-a-plan plan, we attempted to get into Borderlands 3. The day was getting late at that point so we figured why not. Unfortunately, the booth was capped out for the day. So, we moved on to the Disintegration booth. This game was revealed at Gamescom just a few weeks ago and it reminded me a lot of Destiny. In fact the owner of the company, Private Division, is the co-creator of Halo. We received a 10 minute introduction to the game and then got to play a multiplayer match. It’s a first person shooter mixed with real time strategy elements. I have to say it was rather complicated to pick up, but I am interested in what this has to offer because there will be a single player component when it launches, or at least that is my understanding.
You control a character who has three minions at his command. You need to balance shooting people and commanding your troops to shoot people and complete objectives at the same time. It was a lot for me to take in at first, but I do think Disintegration could potentially be a revolutionary game.
That was the gist of our day 1. After the expo hall closed we ran across the street to have some Cheesecake Factory for dinner. I didn’t order cheesecake either because that shit is fucking gross. Once our bellies were nice and fat we came back to the AirBnb where I wrote my notes down for the day. All in all we had an amazing time. I suppose looking back on it now it was rather underwhelming in comparison to the day we had today (you’ll get to hear about that tomorrow) but we wouldn’t change a thing. See you all tomorrow for day 2 and please don’t forget to throw me a follow over on Twitch.
K bye
Zac’s Notes
~Death Stranding was just…mind blowing
~Disintegration felt very slow. There needs to be a better balance between minion control and commander power
~Dinner is the only real meal we eat all day
~Disintegration felt very slow. There needs to be a better balance between minion control and commander power
~Dinner is the only real meal we eat all day
Ericco’s Notes
~zzzzz *snores*
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