PAX East 2013 Day 1

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After thirty hours of driving and avoiding a sickness that I thought was going to ruin me, I woke up this morning feeling fan freaking tastic. I got crappy sleep the night before we left and it made the ten hours (of thirty) that I drove pretty crappy and I couldn’t even get any proper rest when I was riding passenger either. Anyhoo, we left the hotel after seven and made our way to the convention center.

Before I get into to PAX East let me just ask you if you read about my Boston journey last year? I complained about how far away we were from the convention and about how I didn’t really care for public transportation. I would like to take part of that back. I would never again like to stay in China because waiting for the bus on an Easter Sunday was an experience I never want to have again, but this year we are staying in the city and the subway is down the street. It makes for easy travel in this bitter cold weather. Driving here was a mistake though. I come from a city where the roads are normal. I don’t know what happened in Boston, but you need a fucking map to cross the street. It’s ridiculous. Okay, on to PAX stuff. Let me just welcome you to Boston, this blog is going to be wicked awesome.

We showed up right before the doors opened at 8 and got stuck in a very long line. Fortunately for us, we were located at an area in the line that was so mashed together that we were able to hop thirty minutes ahead of where we were suppose to be. Sounds messed up I know, but in my defense, everyone was doing it. Bad excuse, whatever. We got inside and immediately took a peak at the expo floor. We were extremely pleased with the goodies that laid in wait for our taking. Goodies like WatchDogs, Assassin’s Creed 4, and Elder Scrolls Online are just a few short hours away, but first, we must go stand in line at the main theater so we can watch Cliff Bleszinski’s story time panel. That’s where I’m at right now. I’ll see you afterwards.

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Cliffy B was amazing. He shared a little bit of his memoirs and they were fun to listen to. He is so passionate about his career and his love for video games that it’s really inspiring to me as a young designer/writer in training. This man even shared some very heartfelt moments in his life that I can truly appreciate. He also pointed out that we gamers have a passion that people will never understand. Those people who go to these conventions judging those who attend don’t realize what this stuff means to us. But fret not my fellow nerds; it’s something we should all be proud of. Revel in who you are, Cliffy B thinks you should and so do I.

Time to hit the expo floor before our next panel.

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            Holy cow. There’s more candy on this floor than I had previously imagined. We only had thirty minutes to peak around the floor, but I took a quick gander at everything I wanted to check out first hand this weekend. Here it is.

Assassin’s Creed: Black Flag

Splinter Cell: Blacklist

Watchdogs

Elder Scrolls Online

Halo 4: Castle Map Pack

Gears of War Judgment

Dead Island: Riptide

Diablo 3 on consoles

Saints Row 4

Remember Me

Last of Us

I had seen that some of the developers of Injustice: Gods Among us were there doing an interview for Twitch, but I couldn’t find their damn booth. Grrr.

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            Okay, so Rooster Teeth was very fun to watch, but the whole thing turned very sour when they opened the floor to questions. The whole process became a love confession.

“Oh you guys are awesome, thank you for being amazing.” Blah, blah, blah, we get it; Rooster Teeth helps get you off. One dude even went as far to tell us that he had acne and was bullied in high school after he told us how we could find him on Twitter. I know we are all equals here and I can appreciate passion just as much as the next person, but talking for ten minutes without asking a question is a tad fucking ridiculous. We left early because we got tired of everyone propositioning the panel.

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            While my buddy Patrick and I waited for Tom we decided we’d sit in on the Splinter Cell video demo. It’s been quite a few years since they’ve released a Splinter Cell and after watching this, it’ has become one of my most anticipated games of 2013. The graphics looks insanely amazing and hearty. Sam’s facial features are very defined and the atmosphere feels like home. It really does suck that a different actor now voices him because in that realm, it doesn’t feel the same as it should. We watched our demo guide take Sam through a nighttime journey where he stealthily moved through the entire map without killing anyone. It’s awesome to see that the game may have some returning roots that are still hanging around from old school splinter cell games.

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            We just got done standing in line to complete a survey. Normally you wouldn’t see this kind of behavior over a survey, but add a free T-shirt into the mix and you’ve just started a party. Giving away a free T-shirt at PAX is like giving away free hand jobs in a bar.

            After scoring our free shirt we walked over to a lineless Diablo 3 on consoles. We played a nice little fifteen-minute demo of the game. I was a tad skeptical playing a PC favorite game on an inferior console, but I have to admit, I was mildly impressed. The controls felt simple and smooth and the game actually looked very nice given its limitations. Granted I don’t think it can ever match the power of a PC, but it certainly is great enough to enjoy on a console. I do plan on getting that one in the future.

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Yay! Free shirts! We stood in line to watch the Assassin’s Creed: Black Flag video and it was a piss off. It was pretty much a documentary of developers simply telling you what was going to be in the game. Then they finished it up by showing you “gameplay” that you could easily tell wasn’t really playable yet. I like videos of actual gameplay, not this rendered horse crap. After that demo, we went out to the Ubisoft area where they were asking for you to pre-order their games from Amazon. We pre-ordered all three games (Watchdogs, Assassin’s Creed, Splinter Cell) and got free shirts for each. Shortly after that we canceled the orders haha. Forgive me; I’d rather have my stuff on the next gen consoles.

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            I was really expecting a lot of good stuff from the Halo 4 panel, but I was misled. Frank O’Connor was not there as was advertised and they didn’t talk about Halo, Past Present, and Future (also as advertised). Instead they gave us a lesson on what their multiplayer statistics were and then showed us a trailer for their new map pack that has already been on the internet for over a month. We wound up leaving this one early as well because it totally just sucked ass.

            Instead we went back to the expo where Patrick and Tom secured their Ubisoft T-Shirts. We then stood in the last line of the day to view the Watchdogs trailer. It was a re-mastered version of a previous trailer cleverly detailed through the eyes of a security team. It harnesses the view of the protagonist via the cameras around the city. The game looks absolutely amazing and I cannot wait to get my grubby hands on it. The idea of controlling the world around you via your cellphone is simply too amazing to even fathom. Graphics are fresh and the concept is new, I can’t wait to see how it plays out.

Stay tuned for day 2.