Alright this took a bit longer than expected but I’ve now gone through all the previous posts, separated them out and made them slightly less crappy. Ok so, technically, I did all that
sometime last week but at the time I wrote this I had just finished it all.

Penny Arcade Expo 2008

PAX 08: Day Zero
PAX 08: Day One
PAX 08: Day Two
PAX 08: Day Three
PAX 08: Left 4 Dead
PAX 08: Rock Band 2 & Guitar Hero: World Tour
PAX 08: Media Meltdown
PAX 08: The Conduit

Overall I had a blast at PAX. The biggest problem I had was there was way too much to do. Spending time in the exhibit hall meant missing the panels. Going to one panel meant you missed 2 or 3 other equally interesting panels and the exhibit hall. There were a least a dozen times when I ended up missing a panel or demo that I wanted to see because I was enjoying what I was already doing. Sometimes it worked out for the best. If I hadn’t ended up watching all of Nerdcore for Life I wouldn’t have gotten to see MC Frontalot. Other times I was too engrossed playing TF2, a game I already own, in the PC Free play room. I should have taken some time to look at the schedule ahead of time and figure out what I wanted to see and then setup some calendar appointments on my phone to remind myself.

Of course there were some issues with PAX. There were 58,000 people there over 3 days so it was pretty crowded at times. Some of the panels I would have liked to have seen filled up before I even considered getting in line for them. I didn’t have trouble getting to see any of the big events like the keynote provided I lined up early enough. It would have been nice if instead of making everyone sit in line for an hour and a half they gave out wristbands to the first 3000 people to show up and said come back in an hour. Of course then there would likely just be a line to get a wristband that would be almost as long.

Pictochat was epic. It was a great way to pass the time while waiting in line although I’ve never seen so many digital renditions of the male genitalia as I did that weekend. Occasionally the connection was spotty probably due to the sheer number of people using not only DS pictochat but wireless devices in general. I think at least 2/3 of the attendees had some sort of wireless device usually an iphone/ipod touch. Speaking of wireless the wireless connection at the expo hall didn’t work the one time I tried it my phone’s crappy WAP browser came in handy more than a few times. Mostly for Twitter which I used for keeping track of everything so I could write all this up.

One of the most annoying issues was the sounds quality. Throughout the entire Harmonix panel there was some pretty noticeable feedback whenever someone spoke. Freezepop had three or four nasty bouts of feedback while they were playing. Most notably MC Frontalot had to do a sound check after their first song because none of their monitors were setup correctly. I don’t know who was doing the sounds but it was not great. Most to all of the PAX Enforcers are volunteers but next year I’d really suggest getting some professional sounds guys in there at the very least for the concerts.

I’m definitely going to try and go back next year, hopefully with a better game plan. I’d like to get more involved with the non-PAX community activities next year as well like the Tri-Wizard Drinking Tournament or the PAX Twitter Shitters Meet up. I really wanted to get involved with that stuff this year but it didn’t work out. PAX 2010 is in Boston so that pretty much guarantees I’ll be there, I might even be able to convince a few people to go with me.

I ended up arriving late and had to wait for over an hour in the will call line to pick up my pre-ordered
badge. Which was mildly annoying since it was only a two minute wait to buy a badge. Right after I got out of the badge line I got in line for the keynote, there were a lot of lines at PAX.

Ken Levine’s keynote was entertaining. He gave a brief overview of his history as a nerd. From his early days of wanting to fuck the scarlet witch and his first awkward experiences with D&D all the way to his failed screenwriting career and his decision to go get into the game industry and join Looking Glass Studios. The theme of the whole boiled down to “We’re all geeks, love it, embrace it and go have fun together”.

I skipped the Q&A panel to hit the exhibit floor. After a quick walk around I stopped and checked out Rock Band 2 and Guitar Hero: World Tour . I discovered that Brawndo The Thirst Mutilator, did indeed have what I (and plants) crave. It’s pretty tasty but oddly not got sale. (I’ve since learned that it wasn’t for sale because the convention center doesn’t allow non-convention vendors to sell food or drink)

Nintendo was nearby so I checked out some of their stuff. WarioLand: Shake It seems like a decent platformer although depending on how much it’s used; constantly shaking the controller could get annoying. Kirby Superstar Ultra was fun but there really isn’t much new about it. After that, I had some fun creating a creature in Spore Creature Creator for the DS. I couldn’t do anything more than walk around with it once it was created which makes me what the game play would be like in that game. I finished off my day in the exhibit hall with Left 4 Dead which was amazing.

Next up I hit the concerts. It was probably the strangest concert I’ve ever been too. No one was really getting into any of the bands mostly everyone was just sort of hanging out listening. The OneUps were kind of neat but it sounded a lot like they were just jamming the whole time and not really playing songs. Freezepop isn’t really my thing but they ended up being pretty good. During their entire set, there was a guy nearby playing Final Fantasy Tactics which was odd. Freezepop’s encore ended up being a cover of The Final Countdown and it was really good.

Finally Jonathan Coulton was up. I wasn’t really looking forward to seeing him but figured it would be cool to see “Still Alive” from Portal performed live. Of course, I was completely wrong and he ended up being the best of them all, I suppose that’s why he was “headlining”. I enjoyed all his songs, my favorite was “re: Your Brains” there is nothing cooler than a room of people out of sync and groaning “All we want to do is eat your brains”. He also managed to Rick Roll the whole audience twice. The first time the video played over the projectors and most of the crowd started singing along. The second time was mixed in the middle of “Mr. Fancy Pants”. For “Still Alive” Felicia Day, who is like geek goddess, came out and sang with him. He ended the night with a sing along cover of Neil Diamond’s “Sweet Caroline” which was unexpected and really cool. Over all, Day One was amazing.

Pictures still to come.