PAX Dayz '09: Day Three

Games, Nerdflu, and Skeeball Finale

I know these have been trickling in a bit slow, but if you've been following my twitter feed, you'll know that I have been one of the unlucky PAX attendees to acquire the mysterious sickness that we now all believe is H1N1.  It's not that bad, like a mild case of the flu.  And since its method of transference was certainly not swine-related, we have renamed the PAX pandemic "nerdflu" or "PAXPOX" or "H1Nerd1."  Not the best swag to bring home, but that didn't make the half day of PAX on Sunday any less amazing.

 People

I hate to begin with the end, but the coolest "people" story of Sunday had to be the final round of the epic PAX gamer competition "The Omegathon."  The Omegathon is a six round, poly-platform, poly-genre, single elimination gaming competition where the losers receive the red duct-tape X of shame, and the winners progress to the next round with the hopes of wining the grand prize, a trip for two to Japan and the Tokyo Games Show.  Up to this point the "Omeganauts" (the competitors' designation) had competed in Mario Kart for Wii, Halo: ODST, giant Connect Four, and other various games that were known to the competitors prior to coming to PAX.  The last round, however, is always special as it is left secret till the last moment.  In years past it has been games like Pong for the Atari, Tetris, and the original Quake.  This year, as we all waited expectedly in the crowded main theatre, the PAX gods announced that while omeganauts in the past had battled in games from the distant past, none had ever dared venture into the birth place of gaming culture: the Arcade!  And what ancient evil would they release from this primordial ground of gaming rites?

SKEEBALL!!

The crowd went nuts.  Skeeball is probably the defining aspect of any arcade/chuck-e-cheese/county fair in the world, and now the remaining two Omeganauts would bowl their way to victory...or crushing defeat.  The crowd didn't have to be told what to do and we all acted as one, cheering and sympathizing like one giant hive-mind.  There were definitely opportunities to be insulting, to complain at how poor the competing nerds' motor skills were, but I was again pleasantly surprised by how supportive the crowd was to even the smallest of achievements.  Winner or loser, we cheered them equally and when all was said and a new champion was crowned, even the defeated loser joined in the wild cheers and applause.

Panels

As I have said before, I made it my goal to get hands-on with games on Sunday and didn't make panels my priority.  However, as I had exhausted my "games to see" list AND was turned away from Wil Wheaton's Awesome Hour due to capacity constraints, I decided I'd spend the last hour before the final round of the Omegathon attending a live taping of 1UP's Retronauts podcast, a show devoted to classic gaming.  It was an interesting, if not incredibly lively hour, but I get the feeling the Retronauts are a chill group.  I think we were all feeling the fatigue of the weekend (and the early stages of nerdflu), but that didn't keep the panel from doing an intriguing look through the history of the comic strip for which this conference is named, Penny Arcade.  From talking about the first game that ever collected information from your computer to send back as data, to the woahs of the first game developer celebrity and his epic failure Daikatana, it was a fun, nostalgic look at gaming history through the eyes of the Penny Arcade comics.  I even got to ask a question, so check out their PAX show to hear what it was. (/tease)

Games

The truth is, everyone has the same idea in their head.  "Oh Sunday will be a light day so I'll be able to play what ever I want if I wait till then."  That's never the case.  Having learned this last PAX, I decided to select a small number of games I wanted to play and target those first, only choosing to do something else if it looked open or I had the time.  With that plan I ventured forth.

Heavy Rain

This game looked incredibly exciting at E3.  From the makers of Indigo Prophecies, this game follows suit the same tradition of "interactive story telling" where the game plays much like a modern take on the old point and click adventure games.  You basically walk a character through the environment, and use context sensitive buttons/joystick actions to interact with the world.  Also, like Indigo Prophecies, the main premise is a mystery and tone is dark and serious.  Heavy Rain is no different and takes place with three different characters all investigating a serial killer named "the Origami Killer" for his/her habit of leaving origami art on the victim's body.  

The demo they let us play involved an older police detective, someone you could practically pull out of any CSI or Law and Order show, and the goal was to question a convenience store clerk whose son had been a victim of the serial killer.  The way you choose dialog is similar to Mass Effect's model of picking a "tone" or "theme" for what you want to say rather than selecting the actual dialogue.  So for instance I could choose "sympathize" and my character would remark that he had someone close to him that was taken by the killer as well.  But to add a bit to the tension, they swirl the choices around your character's head, making it a little difficult to figure out what to say, as it would be in real life.  Later on when the tension ramped up to an extreme level, the choices became hazy and moved quicker, really sealing the intensity of the moment and difficulty of saying the right thing at the right time.

After the clerk refused to help me, I led my character to the back of store to pick up some sundries.  As I did this, a thug entered the store and held the clerk at gun point demanding money.  The game then signalled me to slowly sneak up on the villain.  As I did it gave me the option to pick up a bottle of liquor with which I could assail armed robber.  As I continued forward, suddenly my foot brushed a tower of boxes and sent the top one toppling over.  I was quickly given a context sensitive button to catch the box and just barely caught it before it hit the floor.  Now my heart was beating and in my nervousness I replaced the box too hastily, alerting the robber.  I then had to raise my hands using the two analog sticks and keep them raised as I tried to talk the robber out of what he was doing, all the while slowly creeping forward.  I thought I had almost talked him down when suddenly he grew impatient and turned to fire on the clerk.  I had to quickly rush forward, grab the man's arm, use context sensitive buttons to wrestle him to the floor, and then with an actual flick of the PS3's motion controller, pistol whip the robber.  My adrenaline was flowing, my heart was pumping, it's like living your favorite cop/detective drama.  

It sucks that it's only for PS3, but what a great reason to own one.  This is going to be a day one purchase for me.

Brink

Brink is not a game I had heard anything about prior to this conference, but with a large demo theatre set up at the Bethesda booth, and rave reviews from panels I had attended, I figure I need to see this game up close.  Brink is from the makers of the incredibly successful and popular Wolfenstein: Enemy Territories game and the recent PC version of Quake Wars (I note "PC" version since the console ports really sucked).  All their games have a similar theme.  They are team based multiplayer shooters, where progressing through the game's objectives causing the environment and map to change and shift.  In Enemy Territories this could go something like: blow open a gate, build a bridge, protect a tank as it crosses the bridge, use the tank shells to blow open a bunker, capture the bunker.  Those same underlying mechanics were used in Quake Wars and appear to be the basis for this new title.

Brink takes place in a distopian future (like every other game in existence) where humanity survives in a city that spans out from a ship called "the Ark" (like every third game in existence).  And like games before it, there are objective-based missions you carry out in different locales, whether it be a city made of shipping containers or a futuristic looking airport/train-station.  So far this game sounds fairly generic, but this game really tries to set itself part in two distinct ways.

Firstly, the game looks GORGEOUS.  I don't know what engine they are using but the character's reminded the models from Crysis, so I would be surprised to see Crytek's name in there somewhere.  This game was stated to be in a "pre-Alpha" phase, and if this is what the game looks like before it's received any polish, I can't imagine how good this game will look in later iterations.

The second big "distinguishing" point for Brink is its borrowing of a Mirror's Edge style of first person free running.  Mirror's Edge, which was a phenomenal game, tripped up in trying to introduce combat to what should have been a straight-up "chase" game.  Brink looks to take the lessons from Mirror's Edge and take that awesome feel of first person free-running and marry it with fine tuned, satisfying gun play.  They've also made the free running element far easier to accomplish as all you have to do now is hold a button and look in the right direction, and your character performs the optimal action.  So if there is a gate blocking your path, you can either hold the free-run button and look up to vault it, or look down to slide under it.  It doesn't look as fully featured or fully starred as Mirror's Edge made free running, but I'm so glad a studio is acknowledging how freakin' cool the concept is. 

Brink is a long way off, but it looks to be dropping next year on PC/Xbox 360 and maybe PS3.  Definitely something to watch.

Lightning Round

I've been a bit long winded with the last two games so I'll try to lightning round everything else I saw.

Here goes:

Uncharted 2: Among Thieves

Looks even better in person.  The way Drake interacts with the vividly colorful South American environment is nothing short of stunning.  Great series for the PS3 that looks to be keeping up the level of quality.

Brutal Legend

Tim Schafer and Double Fine's follow-up to Psychonauts (aka the BEST GAME EVER MADE...minus the meat circus level) featuring the voice talent of Jack Black in a world inpsired by heavy metal album covers.  Looks to have the same variety of action and humor that Psychonauts had.  A bit worried that the albeit fantastic looking heavy metal world will get a bit monotonous after a while and fail to achieve the plethora of unique art styles and locales seen in Psychonauts.

Saboteur

Pandemic's new open world shooter in Nazi occupied France.  Interesting concept where things are black and white till you free them from Nazi control.  Like the concept of stealth play where you blow-up parts of Paris followed by epic gun battles and car chases, but the game just looks a little "meh" overall.  I think with INfamous and Red Faction: Guerilla I've had my fill of open world games for a while.  

Bioshock 2

Kinda of wish they'd done a more noticeable graphical update, as it still looks like it's been dipped in Unreal 3 bloom (which it has).  Still, I'm just excited to revisit Rapture and while this game doesn't look like it's really improved on the original, I'd be happy with just more of that story.

Borderlands

Bazillions of guns.  Literally.  This game looks like a more solid shooter version of Fallout 3, with the cell shaded art style of Crackdown.  Unfortunately there was a two hour line to play, so I didn't get to really check the game out that much.  

Halo: ODST

Even though its essentially a Halo 3 expansion pack, the game looks fresh.  The ODST visor with it's "detective mode" vision really adds to the games look and feel.  And while I know they've taken away your precious battle rifle, they brought pack the pistol.  The ACTUAL pistol.  I'm excited.

Scribblenauts

This was my favorite game of E3, and getting to see it hands on has only sealed the fact that I need to buy a DS for this game.  I watched a guy manifest a T-Rex, followed by a saddle, and then ride the T-Rex.  He then conjured up God who defeated his T-Rex, after which the player generated a black hole which destroyed them all.  This game is SO freakin' awesome.

Left 4 Dead 2

I for one have no idea why you'd release a sequel to a game that has barely been out for a year.  The game looks more like the "Left 4 Dead 1 + Melee combat + new enemies + new maps" expansion, and I don't know why they are selling this as a genuine sequel and not sticking to the DLC route.  It's kind of funny when you think about it.  Valve's episodic content has now become a full game (Half Life 2: Episode 3) and its full game has now become episodic content (Left 4 Dead 2).  Go figure.

Battlefield: Bad Company 2

Looks like a graphical and destructible terrain mod for the original.  I, for one, thought the online play for the original was the best Battlefield content I'd played on a console till 1943 was released, and Bad Company 2 looks to be an even better experience.  Hopefully with the success of 1943, more people will join the Bad Company 2 band wagon, and there will be twice the Battlefield goodness on consoles.

Summary

There's probably more I'm forgetting in my nerdflu induced haze and I'll post any updates if I remember them.  All in all, I think PAX 2009 surpassed in nearly every way possible my experience of PAX 2008, and hopefully things will only get better as the years go one.  If this conference sounds like something you'd interested in (minus the nerdflu of course), and you've been on the fence in the past, I could not recommend something with more gusto and fervor.  PAX is a place where the brotherhood and sisterhood of gamers unite in a weekend of gaming ecstasy, and if you ever hope to call yourself a member of our ever growing, all encompassing family, then I'll see you year from now at PAX 2010.