Nothing like PAX love to make me cblog again

Wow, I haven't done a cblog since PAX East... and this one is about PAX Prime! :O

Well, I'll try to update everyone on my crazy life in another post. Right now though I want to talk about PAX!!



So yeah... PAX. Really don't know where to begin. I'm not sure what you may have heard but it was an absolutely crazy weekend, and an emotional rollercoaster from start to finish. I definitely felt some miserable lows and dizzying highs throughout just those few short days. Without getting into too much detail about that though (yeah... I'm a tease), let's just say that it ended on a very good note... I think. I've got a good feeling about it at least, and things seemed to be looking up.

But enough about things I'm not talking about, let's get on with what I will talk about!!

To start with the games, I kept my trend of avoiding anything with a massive line, which kept me away from most of the AAA releases. To be fair though, I know exactly how most of those will play. I already know exactly how Killzone 3, Gears of War 3, and Fallout: New Vegas will play. The latter I'm super excited for and plan to buy day one, but a gameplay demo at a convention won't give me anything that I don't already know. I did luck out and was able to cut in line for Duke Nukem Forever with a bunch of lovely Euro Dtoiders, although at the time I still didn't believe the game existed. I fully expected a large empty room, with a little waiter sign saying "just kidding :3". Before I could find out though, who else but Jim Sterling used his press credentials to cut in line when we were next to go. Reasonable, as that's just the way things go. So of course we jeer at him, to which he responded with a slew of double-deuces as he backed through the door.

Oh Jim, don't ever change. :P

We did make it in next though, and after a long emotional talk by Gearbox Founder (and former 3DRealms employee, actually sporting a shirt he got when Duke 3D was released!!! :O) we actually got to play it. On the surface it looked like a generic FPS, however the level of interactivity and amount of jokes is a direct throwback to the Duke we remember. For example, I spent way too much time drawing Mr. Destructoid on the whiteboard at the very beginning of the demo. :P Still not sure what to think about the game, but it'll be on my radar from now on... if it ever does come out.

Aside from DNF though, I pretty much just stuck to the download/indie games. Spent a lot of time with Retro/Grade, which I wrote about 18 months ago. Happy to see it's coming along so well and is so close to release, but of course they decided to put it on PSN... the one platform I can't get it on. D: They have plans for other platforms though, and the PS3 is the only confirmed one, so I'm holding out hope. They did have a high score competition going by the way, with the top 5 scores getting put into the game's credits, and I managed to come in fifth! ^_^


Look down at the bottom ^_^

I played Super Meat Boy, Retro City Rampage, Slam Bolt Scrappers, Bastion, various Kinect games, which I'm still on the fence about. When it works it actually works quite well, but it seemed to be way too finicky. I'll cut it some slack though, since an expo hall is hardly the best place to demo something like Kinect. I did miss Jonathan Blow's bullshit game however. I suppose he thinks he was so clever, hiding it in such plain sight. What a dick.

Oh man, speaking of assholes at PAX!!! I'm sure you heard the story of our group photo, but if not I'll sum it up for you: an enforcer stands there watching us take the time to set up for the picture, and right as the cameras were about to go off he steps in front and tells us to leave. So we all go outside and take the group picture there, being an even bigger fire hazard due to blocking the exits. Seriously, we would've been done and gone faster if he hadn't had said anything. Gotta love nerds on a power trip.


Thankfully someone managed to get a picture off though

At least he had the excuse of power corrupting him however, even if it was less than that of a rent-a-cop. The Delorian guy however, was just a massive asshole. Long story short, he had no signs or indicators telling people not to touch the car, but was a massive dick to anybody that did or dared to make a BTTF joke. I've heard from both the 2K guys and Giant Bomb that he was a douche to them. Of course being me, I wasn't going to stand for his bullshit and proceeded to tell him off, flipping him a double-deuce right in his face. He responds by threating to have me kicked out of the expo... with just 90 minutes to go on the last day. Pretty lame, but my stunt did cost the dtoiders I was with a photo opportunity with the car. Sorry about that everyone. :(

The gaming highlight though was at the Twisted Pixel booth. Looks like Comic Jumper will be living up to the usual level of quality as their past titles, but to be honest my focus at that booth was Splosion Man. They had three 360 Slims with Comic Jumper artwork they were giving away, and to win Friday's one you had to play Splosion Man. Specifically, you were competing for the best time in the new level that you unlock through Comic Jumper. Now, as some of you may know I'm somewhat of a decent Splosion Man player, and in fact consider myself tied with Dexter345 for the title of "Dtoid Splosion Man" champion. So I rose to the challenge, and wound up winning!!! Thank you so much to Twisted Pixel for the contest and prize, and to Dexter345 for being too busy with panels to know out about the competition. Although if I was going to lose to someone, I would have gladly lost to him. <3


Works like a charm... if only my tv worked ;_;

The real reason for going to PAX though, was to meet and hang out with other members of the community. I'm so happy to have met so many for the first time, and to see others once again. For better for for worse, we are family and I wouldn't trade you for anything. A special thank you to some who helped me immensely (some without even knowing it), and a massive general thank you to everybody else for making this easily the most memorable PAX, and definitely the best PAX to date for me. I hope I helped your enjoyment of the weekend at least in a small way, or at least didn't hinder it. This is definitely a weekend I will not forget for a long time. <3 <3 <3