I’m not too sure how journalists
manage to bring their laptops everywhere with them so they can type up quick
fast journals as they experience whatever it is they’re doing, but man it was
tough for me. I suppose a lot of those guys get dibs on things they want to
check out while the rest of us lower class gamers have to wait in line for
decades, which gives them a better chance to sit down and write about it later.
Perhaps someday you guys will like my blog enough to make it popular and I will
get to be one of those lucky few that walk around PAX wearing the “media”
badge, but I digress. So I do apologize that this update is a couple of days
late, we had a lot going on during day 2 and 3 (not including a thirty hour
road trip) that made it so I couldn’t write much of anything other than quick
notes. Here is how Day 2 went down
0800
Our game plan for today is fool
proof, head straight to the most popular game before anyone else does. We’ve
landed ourselves a decent spot in the queue; I think there are only a few
hundred people ahead of us. I’m pretty certain we are the only ones that have
this amazing plan to go straight to Elder Scrolls Online. My money is on these
guys being total noobs looking at all the other stuff that’s on the floor while
we slip by and play Elder Scrolls before them.
1005
Yeah well,
we were wrong. After speed walking to keep up with Patrick, who is so tall that
one step for him is like fifty for me, we showed up to an already huge line.
The wait is probably going to be over an hour and we were in the front portion
of the entire crowd! Nevertheless we’ll tough it out because the unfortunate
folks just minutes behind us are being told that the wait is three hours long.
We’ll consider ourselves fortunate.
1230
After
chatting up our fellow gamers for an hour and scoring another free T-shirt, we
finally had our chance to preview a twenty-minute demo of Elder Scrolls Online.
I must say that it looks a lot like Skyrim but in a much sexier way. The graphics
for this early beta are already extremely juicy and colorful. I walked up to
one of the stone buildings in the game and the texture is vividly detailed. I
could pick out specific cracks and crevasses on the stone, and that’s on an
unfinished version people. The demo started out with a quick tutorial from one
of the games developers on how to set up our characters. We chose from one of
three factions, although we didn’t really get to choose a specific race, that
process was randomized. After that we were given six skill points to use. I
chose a mage character and spent my points on powerful spells. Abilities can be
set down in a quick launch bar were I could easily access them in the middle of
combat.
The combat system felt much like
Skyrim, which is a great thing. The movement was smooth and each confrontation
was as engaging as the last. I’m still at a shock at how great this looks and I
left the demo wondering how great this game will look and play in the final
version. Oh before I forget, let me share one last note on my Elder Scrolls
Online experience. I really loved the revive system. I died quite a few times, because
I apparently suck, but rather than being forced back to my previous checkpoint,
I simply revived right where I died. It took a few moments to come back, but
when I did I was able to wreak havoc like I had never left the battlefield.
Overall, I’m excited to see what Bethesda is planning for this game. Will it be
free to play or will they have a monthly subscription? This is one of the
biggest factors in my future decision to purchase it or not.
Due to the long wait time and the
awesome twenty-minute demo for Elder Scrolls, we unfortunately missed out on
the Bioshock Infinite panel. I was looking forward to going to that panel more
than anything else, but hey, shit happens at PAX and you have to pick up and
move on. We did just that by heading down to the Saints Row IV booth for what I
am hoping is a neat gameplay video.
1345
If you thought Saints Row The Third
was over the top and crazy, well wait until you get a load of what’s to come.
You’ll be playing as the leader of the Saints who also happens to be the
President who wields super hero capabilities and shoots dubstep guns that cause
people to jive like a bunch of seizing meth heads. Yes, you read correctly, the
dubstep gun. Awesome. The game looks over the top, hilarious, and fun and it
makes me want to finish off the second and third one as soon as I can.
After Saints Row IV made us smile,
we grazed the floor for free crap. A few lanyards and tote bag later and here
we are lined up for the Mass Effect Retrospective panel up in the main theater.
Patrick has escaped us again. He is honestly the tallest ninja I have ever met.
1530
It was fun to hear from some of the
panelists about the history of Mass Effect and what they will be missing most
about the trilogy. It was also amazing to hear that they’re going to be working
on another Mass Effect game that has nothing to do with this trilogy. I love
that different stories can exist in this universe. The lore is so huge that
there are literally thousands of stories that can be told. I cannot wait to see
what they have in store for us next.
On a quick side note, I do have to
say that Casey Hudson annoys me and so does the actor who plays the voice for
Kaiden. Casey annoys me because he pretends that they didn’t notice all of the
green shit oozing from that crappy ending until they looked at it from the
perspective of the fans. Like the hundreds of people making the game didn’t
realize what they were doing. I call horseshit on that. Instead of throwing us
your excuses, just own up to your mistake and fix it man. They eventually did
kind of fix it and I am grateful to them for that, but I just want the guy to
say, “Hey, we fucked up.” I have a lot more respect for people and their
companies if they own up to their mistakes. We are all human and I can forgive
them for that.
Now the voice actor for Kaiden is
simply just an asshat. He kept reminding the crowd that he was an actor, and
that as an actor, acting was like acting with out moving but blah blah blah. We
get it, you’re soooo super cool for playing the one character that most people
let die in the first game, congrats. On top of that, when questions were being
asked for every panelist to answer (i.e. Cure genophage or not), the dude
blatantly made it obvious that he has never played a game he acts in. Giant.
Fucking. Facepalm. He took his answers from whatever seemed to be the popular
choice. If you’re going to bring an actor to a panel, make it one who has at
least played the game. Okay, we are headed down for some overdue game time!
1545
It’s been such a long day but we
wanted to play some more games. So we went down and got into line for Gears of
War judgment. It’s kind of a crazy place to stand because it’s located in the
Xbox corner and everyone who is anyone in the industry just happens to be
chilling out over here. In order to find the line, I ran into a tall man with
an extremely perfect white beard. He pointed me in the right direction upon me
asking him where the line was, but I couldn’t stop staring at him. It wasn’t
that he was the sexiest older man I’ve ever seen, but it was because I had this
weird feeling that I’ve seen his sexy face before. Then it hit me that he was
Claude Errera, the dude who created halo.bungie.org. This guy is like Bungie
fan extreme. I remember watching the Halo 2 limited edition bonus DVD and they
showed Claude hosting a house full of gamers from across the country to an epic
Halo LAN party. He’s cool enough to get special treatment from 343 because they
let him cut in front of everyone so he could test out the new upcoming Halo 4
Castle Map Pack.
1600
Yeah, I just saw Larry Hryb, Xbox
Live’s Major Nelson. He came walking by the Gears of War Judgment line. This
dude is like king of the Xbox nerds. As he walked by I belted out a hearty,
“MAJOR!” I didn’t really pay attention to his response because I hid my face
after realizing all the attention my random shouting gathered. Patrick told me
that Major’s response was a simple raise of the hand as he kept walking on by.
No smile, or anything, which seemed to bug Patrick. I didn’t mind, the dude
probably gets that every ten seconds when he walks around Willy Wonka’s effing
game factory.
1605
This is seriously
the most fun I’ve ever had just standing in a line. We haven’t even played the
new Gears yet. We just got done watching a heavyset man and a booth babe tear
it up on the Dance Central 3 stage performing Gangnam Style. I was thinking
that he was going to look sloppy while the babe was going to kill it. I shit
you not when I say that this large dude rocked that song better than whoever
the hell actually sings it. Mad props to him because it was truly entertaining
to watch.
1630
We finally got to hop into a match
of Gears of War Judgment and to our surprise; we were playing against a
journalist from Wal-Mart who was filming the whole thing. We totally kicked his
ass, but because he was there, we got to play two games in a row. How crappy
for us, right? I’d like to get into the gameplay for Gears and tell you about
how different this and that is, but all I can really say is that it’s exactly
like Gears 3 with the addition of new weapons. Blah blah, try it out if you
want, but I wasn’t impressed.
1730
Same story with the Halo 4 booth.
They were showing off the new Castle Map DLC. I had fun playing Halo, but I
didn’t really feel like I was playing anything new. It was the same old Halo on
a different map. I had more fun with the Halo demo than the Gears demo to be
honest. It’s starting to get late and the floor closes in like thirty minutes.
We’re sitting here in line for State of Decay while this butch chick is
explaining the game’s details to us. Don’t get me wrong, there is nothing wrong
with her being butch, in fact she’s really cool. She just seems like the type
of woman that leaves the bathroom excited to tell you about how big of a shit
she just took and that could lower anyone on the attractive scale. My only
issue here is this rude guy, that Patrick later told me was one of the Senior
dudes from Kotaku, interrupted her so she would talk to him instead of us. He
was then rushing her because he had other places to be. “Yeah, can you hurry
up, I have another place to be,” exact phrase (or close enough). I hate that
developers, especially small ones like this company, have to get on all fours
for a popular journalist because their game sales could be affected by what he
has to say.
1830
State of Decay is the zombie
survival game our butchy developer described as a third person shooter/rpg/strategy/survival
horror/zombie simulator. What a mouthful. She knows that but she also told us
that their game was the first of its kind. The game takes on the setting of a
survivor community where the gamer can play as any member he or she wants
(assuming he’s befriended them). Each character has his or her own set of
skills. One person can be a doctor while another is a farmer. The game involves
melee combat, shooting, driving, scavenging, and much more. I was really
impressed to see how much content they poured into the game. I felt like it was
Grand Theft Auto meets a better version of Dead Island. All of this great stuff
and the game is an arcade title rather than a triple A title. They have some
texture issues and glitches to fix up still, but this game is very solid and I
would highly recommend testing it out when it’s officially released.
After the
awesome demo concluded, we went up stairs and grabbed a quick bite to eat. There
is no reason for the food to be this damn expensive, good Lord people. We then
met up with Tom for one of our last panels of the day, one that we are still
standing in line for. The panel is about violent video games and children.
2030
The psychologist
speaking wasn’t there to say that video games don’t cause violence, but he was
there to say that there isn’t any evidence that supports that claim nor is
there any evidence to negate it. Basically the studies that have been done
aren’t being conducted properly. It’s was pretty interesting to see that the
media likes to keep people in fear so that they’ll continue to watch. Video
game violence in relation to our children seems to be one of those hot topics
that the media runs to when tragedy strikes our nation. But gamers are the most
peaceful group of people I’ve ever been around. I’ve seen more violence at
concerts and sporting events than I have at video game conventions (where I
witnessed zero incidents). And I’ve spent more hours at conventions than the
other two.
We are now
in line to watch the history of Mojang. We got here before everyone so we are
at the head of the line. Sweet! It doesn’t start for another hour or so though,
lame.
Okay, so it was a great video. I don’t really care to talk
about it because I think it’s something every MInecraft lover should view on
his own. It’s well worth the ninety minutes. See you girls tomorrow.
