PAX East 2013 Diary - Day 3

The Preamble

Last but not least, Day 3! After two full days of PAX and late night drinking, this was by far the hardest day to wake up for. Despite arriving a little later than I had hoped, and being far more exhausted and hung over than I would have preferred, I still got to see a bunch of cool stuff on Day 3.

Day 3

Gamers With Jobs Panel

What ended up getting me out of bed Sunday was the Gamers With Jobs live podcast panel. I listen to a number of podcasts every week, but this one is by far my favorite. These are regular guys, with regular jobs, talking about games... and it’s great! They always provide an insightful look into the industry without being people that are paid to play/talk about games all day. They also manage a great, friendly community through their site that has a plethora of amiable members who are happy to accept you into their gaming groups.

The panel/podcast overall was a lot of fun. It was up to snuff with their normal weekly podcast, making for a fairly laid back, informative experience. The addition of Jeff Green and Justin McElroy to the regular GWJ crew made for a extra fun time.

Feel like listening? Check out the podcast here!

Back on the floor

Sunday was lacking in terms of panels that I was interested in, so after the GWJ panel, I headed back to the Expo hall on a mission...

Transistor

Having released their teaser trailer only a week before PAX, followed by the news that there would be a playable demo available, Supergiant Games (makers of Bastion) had me salivating for some time before my arrival. This was the one MUST SEE game that I would sacrifice time to stand in line for.

Bastion still holds up as one of the best games I’ve played. Period. So news of Transistor immediately got me excited. Granted, we won’t see the finished product until sometime next year, but the vertical slice that was shown at PAX this year has me thinking that Transistor is already a shoe-in for one of the best games of 2014.

The over an hour wait was well worth the 8-10 minute demo I got to play of Transistor. When you start the game, you can immediately see the Bastion aesthetic at work. Beautiful art, great music, and you guessed it... spectacular narration. That’s right, Logan Cunningham is back and narrates the game as the sword wielded by our female protagonist, Red. The combat is as fluid as in Bastion, in the same ARPG style, but with a twist. At any point you can stop time for a short period, plot out some Frozen Synapse style attacks on surrounding enemies, resume time, and watch your tactical attacks take place in real time. It sounds a bit strange, but it plays like a dream. Switching between these two contexts is seemless and feels great, allowing you to be far more tactical with combat than you could in Bastion.

The ten minute glimpse I got of the game was enough to convince me this will be up to par with Bastion, if not better. I wanted to keep playing, even if it there was no more, I would have played that demo for hours just to absorb the beauty. Definitely keep an eye out for this one, I know this will be a Day 1 pickup for me.

Divekick

I didn’t actually get to play Divekick, but the massive crowd surrounding the booth demanded I stick around and watch some gameplay.

Divekick is a clever and fun decomposition of the normal fighting game formula down to two buttons. Jump and kick. The idea is that you’ll focus less on the frustrating memorization of combos, and concentrate more on the mastery of space and time management. This looks like the definition of a “easy to pick up, crazy difficult to master” kind of game. Personally, I love the idea of this, as I'm not only horrible at memorizing combos but also at executing them. Only having to worry about two buttons would make me a much more formidable opponent... I think. Anyway, this look like one to definitely keep an eye on, especially if you fancy yourself a fighting game kind of person.

   
Some gameplay from one of my personal favorite commentators, TotalBiscuit.

Omegathon - The Final Round!

The way I’ve ended every PAX convention I’ve attended is by spectating the final round of the Omegathon. This is sort of the official end of the conference, as Gabe and Tycho present the last round, and give an epic thanks and mic dropping once the round is complete.

For those who aren’t familiar with the Omegathon, it’s an elimination tournament that occurs between 20 random PAX goers (the Omeganauts!) over the course of the convention. The games that are chosen for the tournament are a diverse mix of video games and board games alike, but the final round is a secret game that always comes from out of left field.

This year they picked Spaceteam. This was a fitting end to PAX for our group as we had been playing Spaceteam every night in the hotel room. Spaceteam is a multiplayer iOS game played via BlueTooth connection. It’s simple really. Each person has an interface of buttons, dials, and sliders while commands show up at the top of each person’s device, demanding attention. You have to call out what pops up on your screen and coordinate with your team to make sure everything gets done. The end result is more or less all of your team shouting at the same time, and what makes it even more amusing is that all of the actions are labeled with ridiculous, made up terms. 

This was a great idea for a final round of Omegathon! At least that’s what I thought... Turns out, Spaceteam isn’t all that stable. The game crashed... over and over and over again. After countless crashes, and at least an hour of wasted time retrying games, Tycho finally called it and gave the grand prize to both teams.

Gabe and Tycho then gave the closing words of PAX, and the convention was complete.

Conclusion

The convention was just awesome. I think I can safely declare that it was the best PAX experience I’ve had out of my three times as an attendee. I’m super excited for PAX Prime in August, and even though I had some trouble attaining my pass, some dear friends in Seattle will be helping me out with entry.

So you can rest assured, there will undoubtedly be a PAX Prime 2013 diary from The Thomp come August!

PAX East 2013 Cosplay!

I mentioned on Twitter that I'd post up all the cosplay pictures I took at PAX East 2013 this year, so here you go! 

I have to apologize for the quality of the pictures. While the camera on my phone is great, it tends to be a bit shaky sometimes, and the lighting was screwy in the convention center. At any rate, most of them came out fine, just not as good as they could have been.

The Pics

Taric and Lulu from League of Legends!

Chell from the Portal games!

You better know who these guys are...

Taric and Zyra from League of Legends. This was one of the more impressive cosplays I saw.

ZOMBIE!

Sort of tough to see, but great costumes!

Super elaborate costume of Atlas from Portal 2.
She needed help to walk around because she was on stilts.

Probably my favorite cosplay of the show: Geralt of Rivia and Iorveth from The Witcher 2. 

Nidalee and Pikachu.

Some Borderlands 2 cosplayers.

This Fiddlesticks was amazing. He had spring loaded stilts that he jumped all over the center with.
It was awesome.

Waiting in line for Transistor, The Kid from Bastion and Desmond from Assassin's Creed.

Some Machinima.com Mortal Kombat cosplayers.

Quick Review - Bastion

Game Name:    Bastion

Developer:    Supergiant Games
      Engine:              XNA

Platform:     PC (Steam), XBLA, Mac OSX, iOS, Linux, Chrome

Genre: Action RPG, Single player

Release Date: July 20, 2011

Preamble:
I was a little late to the show on this one. I had started it when it first came out, loved it, but then got pulled away from it by something else. This past week I decided to go back and play it from start to finish. Man, I am so happy I did, this game is spectacular in every respect.

Short description:  
Action RPG where you play as "The Kid" in an isometric, floating, western/fantasy setting, narrated by "Rucks", a cowboy sounding elderly fellow that helps The Kid along his journey.

The Good:

• The art style in this game is awesome. The colors are vibrant, the way the ground tiles float up to your feet as you walk in a particular direction is beautiful.
• The music is great. It's exceptionally atmospheric and fits perfectly with the setting and pace of the game. There were numerous times in the game that I just sat back and enjoyed the music.
• The voice acting is spectacular. Rucks narrates the game, describing what you, as The Kid, do, and it is incredible. Again, this is a huge factor in what makes the atmosphere of this game so awesome.
• The story is creative and interesting, and leaves you guessing to the very end.
• The gameplay is exciting and fun. There are tons of weapons and abilities to choose from, each with their own upgrade trees that provide new and interesting mechanics.
• Combat is as smooth as butter. It feels great, and there's plenty of variation in the enemies that you face.
• You’ll find Idols throughout the world which allow you to customize the level of difficulty, providing a nice amount of replay value.

The Bad:

• I cannot come up with a single gripe about this game.

All in all, should you play this?

• Easily one of the best, if not the best, independently developed video game I’ve ever played. Anyone who considers themselves even a partial gamer should play this as soon as possible. Pure gold!

Here's a little gameplay footage to whet your appetite...