PAX Dayz '09: Day One

 

I could write previews and reviews of all the games I've seen on the first day of the Penny Arcade Expo, but one thing I've come to realize (and I'm so glad this has been a recurring theme at panels today) is that PAX isn't about the games, it's about the gamers.  That doesn't mean I might not write of some "game of show" article in the future, but for now, here's the compilation of one gamer's experiences of day one of game culture bliss.

Lines

It's sad that the first experience you have to have at PAX is a frikkin two mile long line, but you can either gripe and make references to South Park's "line the ride" or use the 30min-to-hour long time you have standing next to total strangers to actually delve into the people who come and make this conference what it is.  For more on my thoughts of the general atmosphere, I refer to my previous article (PAX People), but needless to say, chatting with total strangers, or just chiling with friends you meet is one of the coolest things about PAX, and with the kind of queueing PAX offers, you'll get plenty of chances to do this.

Panels

Last year was my first PAX and I was definitely going for more of a "breadth first' approach rather than delving deep into any particular panel or talk.  Thankfully having the "holy crap there are games to play" attitude out of my system with last year's PAX, this year I've made it a goal to get in the rooms with panelists and really glean some depth from the AMAZING conversations that take place.  Today (Friday) I made it to a talk on post-media-collapse games journalism (which I will hopefully grace with its own article, cuz it rocked), the Ron Gilbert keynote (also getting its own story), a filming of the Revision3 post-1UP-show video podcast CO-OP, and lastly a live tapping of the renowned ListenUP (formerly 1UPYours) podcast.  First of all, there is SO much good dialogue and conversation that goes on in these panels.  Imagine those good philosophical debates you have about an arena you love (be it politics, religon, etc...) only about games and gaming culture.  You could almost, dare I say, call PAX a "game culture symposium" as despite what you might think from the large number of people dressed up as Team Fortress 2 characters and Luigi, there is some thoughtful, intellectual discussion going on here that I never knew about, and am SO glad I'm getting a chance to see this time around.

Games

Fortunately I had some down time between panels and keynotes to actually play some games, and while I'll stick to my guns that this convention is really about gamers and not the games...it's still frikkin awesome to get you hands on some exciting titles.  

Mass Effect 2 

Being right at the front entrance made this game an easy pick to play.  I can't say this was exactly high on my list to check out (despite the almost certain fact that I am going to buy it when it comes out), but I'm really glad I got a chance to get hands-on with it.  While the combat that Bioware tried to integrate to the "role playing game" genre back in first game has been tremendously smoothed, I think it still feels and plays about the same, which is by no means a bad thing (I rather liked it last release...a lot).  Still, the thing that makes me SUPER pumped to play the full version of this game is the improved way they handle dialogue interaction sequences.  Last time around it was a static camera angle that switched back and forth between interlocutors which after a while got really stale.  This time around the dialog is meshed into dynamic, moving camera shots, and not just of your character, but shots of the ship your moving in, the characters walking in a corridor, essentially how you'd see film or television shoot dialogue.  It's a small change but I think it goes a BIG way from making this seem like a "video game role playing game" experience to "I'm living out an episode of Battlestar Galactica or 24."  Huge props to Bioware for getting that across in such a short demo space.

Splinter Cell Conviction

First and foremost, I luvs me some Ubisoft French/Canadian accents (see E3 and "coo-wah-booong-gah").  There, I said it.  ANYWHO, Splinter Cell Conviction is game that was high on my list of "most exciting" from E3.  I love the way they've taken a stealth game and made the character less of a tiptoeing ninja, and more of a creeping predator.  Plus, the fact that they tried to sell the main character Sam Fischer as a "panther" over, and over again during their talk tickles my funny bone quite pleasantly.  Still super psyched about this game, looks far more approachable, far more "speed-up" in terms of gameplay progression, overall a super solid package.  Still, we saw what was essentially the E3 demo, so not much new there.  We did learn that Sam's iconic three-eyed nightvision goggles are coming back, and that's a PAX exclusive!

Assassin's Creed 2 

Super props to the guy who demoed this since he basically picked up a nearly completed build and played the thing for twenty minutes straight.  There's a lot of talk amongst people that v2 of this game is "really the game Ubisoft wanted to make the first time" and the "lack of variety" in the first game is fixed this time around.  Personally, I had far less qualms about original and far more qualms about the fact that if you DO SOMETHING AWESOME over and over again, it's still awesome.  You never hear anyone make this complaint about racing games or first person shooters, why must open world games be held to a different standard?  I'd personally rather climb walls in cities and assassinate people as an ASSASSIN game than play Prince of Persia style platforming in catacombs.  But maybe that's just me.

Closing thoughts before passing out from exhaustion

Still more to come tomorrow.  More games, more panels, more people, more horrendous exhaustion induced grammatical & spelling errors.

One down.