PAX Prime 2010

[Norellicus]

I'm just OCD enough about it that I'd rather have the peace of mind heh. I planned on being at the keynote address anyway, but that was part of my concern was whether or not I'd have to make sure and show up early at the keynote to get one there, or if I'd have to go somewhere else first, etc etc.

The concerts are the #1 thing for me right now, since I don't have a feel for the rest of the PAX experience yet. I'm already trying to sort out what panels I can and can't go to though so I know what 'free' time I'll have available elsewhere.

[Correction]

I've never made the keynote, even on years when I fly in on a thursday. So hard to get up that early to get into a pretty full hall.

4 blocks to the main theater is nothing though, I regularly walk to the famed pike st. market for breakfast every morning during the con. What amuses me the 'why should gamers care about Kinect?' event held at the main theater. Why should gamers walk four blocks to learn why they should care about Kinect amirite...

[Norellicus]

Being an east coaster I'm banking on my internal clock's 4 hour shift making it decently easy to be up early enough heh.

[Warudo Ecksu]

Sleep during pax weekend is unheard of any way

[Norellicus]

Oh I don't expect to sleep once things get started :D

But I'll probably go to bed early Thursday night if possible, maybe even that whole week, to precondition it lol.

[Warudo Ecksu]

The booths usually give out large supplies of energy drinks and energy shot size thingies so don't worry too much.

[Norellicus]

Is any part of the Omegathon worth seeing? Besides the finale, since that's part of the closing ceremony and all.

[Correction]

The Omegathon is extremely skippable. The finale is fun mostly because it's the last thing that Jerry/Mike host, and they often go head to head once the Omegathon champ is crowned. Last year was a bit of a disaster though since they bought an ancient skeeball machine that kept breaking down, delaying it by an hour. I'm sure they'll get better hardware this year.

[Warudo Ecksu]

Just got checked in. Gabe was standing around the downstairs of the Sheraton when we got here lol

[Corrderio]

Might be news to some.

Surprise! Duke Nukem Forever uncanceled, playable at PAX

hough the game has been presumed dead so many times you’d need an abacus to keep track, “Duke Nukem Forever” is very much alive – and he’s coming to store shelves soon.
Duke Nuke Em Forever

Take Two Interactive Software pulled off one of the video game world’s biggest surprises Friday, announcing not only that the over-a-decade-in-development first person shooter was nearly finished, but backing that claim up by giving the 150,000 people attending the Penny Arcade Expo in Seattle the chance to play the game.

The rest of the world will get its chance in 2011 – on the PC, Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3.

First announced in 1997, “Duke Nukem Forever” became an annual presence on vaporware lists and a running joke among gamers for its molasses-like development schedule and frequent restarts. A year ago, it appeared the final nail had been hammered into the game’s coffin, when developer 3D Realms ran out of money, let go virtually all of its employees and began a legal war with its publisher, Take-Two Interactive Software.

That suit was settled earlier this year, however. And while 3D Realms is no more, Gearbox Software, the studio behind “Borderlands” and “Brothers in Arms” (and staffed with a number of former 3DR employees), has taken over development on the game.

"Gearbox has enabled die-hard key Duke Nukem franchise builders and skilled veteran game makers to stand together and deliver,” said Randy Pitchford, president of Gearbox Software. “All gamers deserve a happy ending and after all of us gamers feeling the full range of emotions about Duke Nukem Forever, I am thrilled to be in a position with the trust, power and means to make it happen.”

“Duke Nukem Forever” is, technically, a sequel to 1996’s “Duke Nukem 3D” - though normally a sequel takes no more than three years to put together, while “DNF” started in the Clinton administration.

The game missed ship-date after ship-date, and many began to assume it would never see the light of day. Many pointed to 3D Realms co-founder George Broussard as the reason for the delays – noting that his obsession with perfection for the title resulted in a never-ending cycle of changes.

The bad times are over now, though – and the game is nearing completion. And after 13 long years, some of the industry’s most core fans at PAX have finally gotten to see for themselves if the wait was worth it.

Source: http://videogames.yahoo.com/events/p...at-pax/1409763

[Cantih]

So anyone BG make it to the Square Enix panel?
Any useful new info come out?

[Qalbert]

They were handing out a bunch of passes but no one could get in.

[Warudo Ecksu]

Posting from iPhone in make a strip line. Sry for crappy grammar.

SE panel sucked pretty much. Sage Sundi came out for 5 whole seconds. They showed a trailer that hadn't been shown in the US yet, but most of us have alrdy seen screenshots. The community manager didn't say much other than, "our combat is fast. You progress fast. U get this game at the same time as japan."

Then a lady came out and did a pretty fail deus ex presentation. Overall I wasn't impressed.

I played duke nukem forever. Line was over 3 hrs, but they let us watch a trailer then play for 15 min. Then they gave us tshirts. From the little bit we saw, there's lots of boobs, sluts, old duke nukem jokes (bubblegum), and the gameplay was pretty tight. First lv started out with u pissing in a urinal then working your way out to a football field, getting a wep and shooting a big alien dude. Next part that we got to play was duke in a truck running over aliens. Pretty excited for that game.

Got to play Kirby epic yarn on player with scun which was pretty fun. Controls are pretty solid, and the style is cute and very neat. We got to play to the first boss, and 2 player is def the way to go with this game.

[Marihoki]

SE panel sucked pretty much. Sage Sundi came out for 5 whole seconds. They showed a trailer that hadn't been shown in the US yet, but most of us have alrdy seen screenshots. The community manager didn't say much other than, "our combat is fast. You progress fast. U get this game at the same time as japan."

Then a lady came out and did a pretty fail deus ex presentation. Overall I wasn't impressed.

That was pretty much my experience from the panel. Sage Sundi came out and said "Hi, thank you for coming" and left. The opening CS for the game was petty cool but I had already seen most of it already through screenshots and previous trailers. Just all the cut up trailers we have seen came together into one CS that you could actually kinda pick out what was going on (kind of...). I wish I left right after seeing the Opening CS because the rest of the presentation was pretty boring/fail.

[Norellicus]

Simply amazing. This is now a biannual pilgrimage for me for as long as I am gainfully employed/can afford it.

Best event of the show: Acquisitions Inc.

Learned (and bought!) a few new board games along the way, which I was hoping to do...but unfortunately didn't get to learn Arkham Horror which I really wanted to do They said to post something about it on the PA forums or such and they'll make sure it gets on their to-do list of demos for next time though.

I can't say there's anything I'm sorry I did or didn't see. I did the PA Q&A (since I was already at the keynote) and the make-a-strip (since I needed a wristband, the expo hall ones were handed out in about 10 minutes lol...) and mostly enjoyed the time, though I think the make-a-strip was more entertaining since Mike and Jerry both were intentionally being silly about it (dickwolf for the win!). I didn't see much of the actual expo exhibits because I'm not inclined to wait in line for a game that I'll see in a few months anyway Only thing I wish I might have done was the Portal 2 booth since they had the awesome shirts, but I bet those will be on the Valve shop soon if they aren't already; and if not, no harm done really.

Anxiously awaiting the East signup! Next time I'll try to hook up with BG maybe, I wanted to try and get a feel for how this all goes down before I spent time trying to hook up with folks. I think I'll have a pretty good handle on it for next time.

[Warudo Ecksu]

This was my third PAX, and I spent way more time this year playing games in the expo hall. Aside from duke nukem and Kirby, Mortal Kombat really stood out to me. I'm currently itching to play it some more. I fucked Scun up with Scorpion.

Epic Mickey's story is pretty well thought out, & the controls were pretty smooth. My only complaint would be the crappy wii graphics, but with their art style it seems like they're doing ok with what they have to work with.

The SE booth was disappointing. I went over to start a char in Ffxiv & talk to one of the employees only to find out he knew nothing about the game. When I called him on it, he kicked me off the computer before I was even got out of town. He claimed he needed to rotate in ppl who hadn't seen the game, & I said but I haven't seen Gridania..... Douchebag.

Portal 2 with co-op looks pretty fun, but they ran out of tshirts Sat. at noon so I didn't get one

Sonic Colors looked pretty freaking fun, but I'm really into Sonic games. Scun said it looked like sonic adventures. I liked those games, so that's one to watch for in November if you're like me.

Torchlight 2, lots of fun, having multiplayer is really nice. It looks pretty much the same as Torchlight but with some slight tweaking to menus.

NBA jam sucked balls. The Star Wars fighting game was dreadful. I wish Nintendo had brought some 3DSs but they used some excuse about security and shit for not bringing any. I would have been satisfied just staring at one in a glass case.

We bought some zombie dice at the end of the day. I'm tempted to go play some nerds in the hotel lobby.

Anyway, this was by far my favorite year at PAX. My only complaint would be that having concerts in benaroya hall was a terrible idea. This was the first year I ever had to wait in line to get in for the concerts, and I missed some bands as a result.

[Norellicus]

Get up early and get a wristband yo.

[Correction]

Get up early and get a wristband yo.

This, Benaroya Hall is a MASSIVE improvement over the concrete halls with shitty acoustics of yesteryear.

A solid as hell year from PAX, nice to see they can keep the con running smoothly with 70k+ people attending.

Gabe drawing a Dickwolf with his mom in the audience was a highlight for me. So was getting hassled by a scalper after I took his picture while he was holding a pack of Exhibitor passes. Too bad you can't trollface.jpg someone in real life.

The FFXIV booth looked like an enormous waste of time to me. Most people were still fucking around with the character creator and honestly I didn't see one person in combat outside of the tutorial. That can't be a good first impression considering the other games on the floor were instantly pick-up-and-playable, including MMOs like Lego Universe.

[Warudo Ecksu]

I was up early. They ran out of wristbands Sat. morning after 10 mins. Only solution I see to this is to give out more wristbands b/c they ran out right before they got to me and the bf. (inb4 harhar wake up earlier) Granted, the only day I wanted to go to the concerts was Sat night b/c Fri night I went to the Jinx party & got boozed up. It was pretty tight that Jonathan Coulton finally dropped some new songs on us.

FFXIV booth was definitely a waste of space imo.

[Norellicus]

They were out of bands in the queue room in 10 minutes; the ones at benaroya didn't get handed out for almost an hour after that.

I know, I was one of the people who went to benaroya on Sat just for a wristband