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Gaming
Villan's Big Adventure!
So,as you all know a whole bunch of people from this very radio station went to PAX last week, so thought I'd let you know about my experiences of an awesome weekend! Click after the break to read all about it!
PAX- The AdventureSo, right now I’m 37,000 feet above the Atlantic ocean somewhere, Guns ‘n’ Roses are playing on my MP3 player, I’m drinking beer, I’m flying back towards Frankfurt, and from there I’ll be flying back home to Birmingham. So, for me right now it’s the red eye express. It looks like I’ll be pulling an all nighter, but that will just make me glad to collapse into my bed within minutes of walking through the front door.
Now, the past week I’ve spent over in the USA, in Boston. Our very own Chaotica was a wonderful host, and of course much fun and hilarity was had by myself, Chaotica, Red Jeans, Pyroclasam, Verve, the other token Brit, Doc. Not to mention a short visit from Louie Louie and meeting up with a couple of listeners from the mighty SI Radio. There was beer, there were fun, games and silliness. And of course there was PAX East, The Penny Arcade Expo which was amazing fun and showed us so many wonderful and shiny things.
For me, it all started last Wednesday, flying out to Boston, drinking beer, (it seems beer was quite the recurring theme) and discovering Tivo (we don’t have that in the UK) and the fun of customs. I ended up getting pulled for having too many electrical and having my bag ransacked, which was great fun, and if that wasn’t enough, panicky phone shenanigans trying to get hold of Doc, because I forgot to write down the address I was staying at. (Yes, facepalm) But it was all good fun, especially as my MP3 player decided to play in “appropriate music mode” throughout the journey. VNV nation’s Endless Skies was first up, and if that wasn’t enough, touching down in Germany to the tune of Aces High by Iron Maiden was a great way to start. In case you didn’t know, Aces High is a song about Spitfires kicking all manner of shit out of the Luftewaffe during World War 2. And as I was flying into Munich on a plane flew by what was once the Luftwaffe from an airport in the same city that Spitfires were built in, listening to that song was a very strong case of appropriate music is appropriate.
Anyway, PAX. That’s what you really want to hear about, and although you may have heard a few bits and pieces in that drunken radio show from Friday night there was much more to tell. Much, much more. So, here we go, it’s time to live the PAX experience in blog form.
PRE PAX
Before I do though, there was one event before the convention itself which was a meet and greet/promotional event for Rockstar’s upcoming game Red Dead Redemption. This game is the follow up to Red Dead Revolver, which some of you may remember as a western GTA. Or, as I like to call it, Grand Theft Horse. At this event there was a free bar (always good) that “oh so important” feeling I got for being on the guest list and a rolling seven minute video showing a little of what the game can do. Unfortunately there was nobody speaking about the game or handing out any real information, but it was a damn good excuse to drink someone else’s beer and look at a video of what could be a fun and interesting game. But that was the Pre PAX experience. And I ended up walking away with a squishy San Andreas drinks cooler.
PAX Day 1
PAX started on Friday, we had our very own media room to rest our weary bones in, which was nice, especially after all that wandering around. There were many wonderful sights to be seen throughout the day. Not only were there rather a lot of awesome costumes, most notably the Bayonetta walking around the convention. There were also many Mario related characters, a guy walking around with the big Lego like head from Dead Rising and many more. And of course there were the games.
Talking of gaming, we do have video footage of some of our own DJ’s getting trounced at Street Fighter IV which was highly amusing, expect that uploaded to Youtube at some point for your viewing pleasure. But, yes, the games. There was a lot to be seen, including Skate, the new contender to the extreme sports genre. The game was fun, solid looking and there was a competition to win skateboard decks, XBOX 360’s and all you had to do was virtually kill yourself in game by having an “impressive fall” from your skateboard. We do have two of these skateboard decks to give away in competitions sometime soon, they are PAX branded with some cool artwork, so you may want to tune in all the more to find out how to win. Oh, and talking of winning things, the guys at Kingston were holding all manner of raffles, in which I won myself a nice shiny solid state hard drive. I’ll look forward to putting it in my machine when I get home.
One other thing of note was a new application for Facebook. It showcased the first of apparently many games (they were tight lipped about the rest)that publisher InstantAction plan on releasing for Facebook. The game on display was The Secret of Monkey Island. It will stream on Facebook as a free to play game that you can save on their servers and continue your adventure from your Facebook account from anywhere in the world. A promising idea in itself, but when you add into the equation the fact that the game can be copied into whatever site, blog or even Myspace profile you have via HTML code, this innovation could be very exciting indeed.
Also, Friday showed PAX goers the new offerings from Take 2 Games. First was a game that can only be described as Gears of War crossed with Modern Warfare in a new game in the Special Ops series. The game is called The Line, from what the video showed us, this game could well be the next big contender to the third person shooter. It looks action packed, controversial with some very brutal imagery and also set in real places.The game for me had some pretty impressive graphics, blowing sand and gunfire from the little bits of gameplay showcased also suggest an interesting physics engine that could set the genre alight, and with the announcement of a new MoH set in modern day this one could definitely one to look out for. Alongside this was the new instalment in the Mafia franchise. The original game was a fun GTA like romp, but Mafia 2 is looking to be a solid follow up to it’s predecessor. Interestingly the game looks to be set a good few years ahead of the original’s 1930’s setting which at least suggests a Godfather (movies) influence. Might well be worth looking at when it comes out.
Friday finished with the quite possibly infamous meet and greet, which was awesome fun. It was always going to be great fun to hang out with the other DJ’s at SI, but to meet up with listeners was a blast, so special mentions go out to Uriain, Pixyl and Emperyan Goddess who all helped to make this a truly special event. Of course, it was fun to steal the stream, doing a small yet drunken PAX special on air, hopefully we didn’t frighten the listeners too much with that one. It was a late night, it was a fun night, and of course the fun didn’t end there.
DAY 2
Today was a very musical day, and as such I can’t mention today without telling you about The Gig. There wasn’t anything on show from the game itself in terms of gameplay but this game promises to be a real innovation in rythym gaming. It has it’s own instruments like Rockband and Guitar Hero, but it doesn’t just stop there. This game’s instruments are REAL instruments. Guitars with real strings, pickups and special sensors that allow you to play songs in game by hitting the correct colour coded frets if you want to play easy, or for the realist and real musician wanting to hone their skills, you can hit the real string in the real fret and actually learn the instrument for real as you play. According to the guy promoting this, these guitars can even be plugged into a real amp and played as a real guitar independently from the game too. Impressive doesn’t even cut it here and in it’s genre this game could very well have the same kind of importance that NATAL and Sony move have. This is a game that really excited me as a musician anyway, and one thing I can’t help but wonder is how certain musicians who expressed concerns about music games and their “bad influence” might feel about a game like this that really looks to be giving us the best of both worlds.
Turbine were also out to impress at PAX, they had a lot on show from Dungeons and Dragons Online including Guild Airships,a stack of points to give away for their games and more content than you could shake a stick at. Lord of The Rings also promises a lot of new stuff and is looking incredibly pretty. For me DDO had the edge out of the 2 games as it doesn’t have a mandatory subscription. Oh, and as I mentioned stuff we’ll be giving away for Skate 3, we do also have a ton of codes for Turbine products.
Now the evening event was amazing, a tour de force of fun, music and a hugely entertaining queuing system. How can a queue be entertaining I hear you ask? Well, it’s quite easy really, there was a huge screen that was typing out messages full of geeky jokes, a chose your own adventure story which was decided by text message and ended up with Aeris from Final Fantasy VII dying for possibly the 12 millionth time (funny how that never fails to amuse) And then of course they opened the doors to allow us all into the concert. This was done to the tune of Bohemian Rhapsody, and hearing what sounds like a million geeks sing along is a beautiful thing, especially when it carries on throughout corridor, lobbies, up escalators and all the way from one end of the Sheraton Hotel to the other where the concert hall was. So, this gig we were queuing up for featured first, the VGO (or selected members of) or Video Games Orchestra. I’d never seen anything like this ever, it was a perfect fusion of rock, symphonic melodies and of course downright dirty geekery. The musicianship can only be described as superb, and their new guitarist who pretty much stole the show in my opinion made Dragonforce sound like Cleveland from Family Guy in a time warp. Yes, he can play THAT fast. Unfortunately there was no Theme from Zelda, but funky as hell renditions of various Mario tunes, classics from the likes of Castlevania and Chrono Trigger were an absolute joy to hear alongside Final Fantasy music, including that battle music form FFVII and of course that spectacular rendition of Snake eater from Metal Gear Solid that sounded like it could have been a Bond Movie soundtrack due to the sheer profesionality of the performancePaul and Storm were up ext with a hilarious set and songs about pirates, ejaculation and December 23rd are always welcome for randomness alone. Their finisher was sidesplittingly funny, and I for one was sure to give out a “dejected arr” when they left the stage. Hopefully there’s some video of that one on Youtube as just making that comment doesn’t really do their set justice.
The big daddy of the concert was the amazing Jonathan Coulton. He performed his set with more than an interesting finesse. He started out acoustic, went into playing with Paul and Storm, then invited Metroid Metal to the stage before finishing as acoustic again. All the great songs were played, RE Your Brains, Creepy Doll, Still Alive and Code Monkey were all there, but he highlight of his show was when he bought out the “distractortron”, which was a bizarre drum machine/sampling instrument that looked a little like a handbag but was capable of emitting some awesome sounds. This device was used to make “live remix” of Mr. Fancy Pants, a highly amusing song in it’s own right, but when mixed with Beyonce “putting a ring on it” and general musical tomfoolery, it just had to be seen and heard to be believed. Seriously, if you ever get a chance and are even in the slightest bit geeky, you need to see Jonathan Coulton live. Entertaining isn’t a word that could even begin to describe how much fun his gig was. . On the music front listen out, for very soon a copy of the new MC Frontalot album signed by the man himself will be given away onair in the very near future. He was there live at PAX but unfortunately I missed his set which was a shame, but, I guess I cant have everything. Then, there was day 3, and what a day that was…
DAY 3
Day 3 at PAX showed us so much, it was a day of sheer delight for a couple of reasons. First up was the final confirmation that the cake is in fact NOT a lie. Yes you heard that right, the cake is in fact not a lie and is cold hard truth. Alienware were showcasing new laptops and I was fortunate enough to play multiplayer AvP on one which was more fun than I expected especially as I lasted until almost the end, getting killed mere seconds before our very own DJ Verve. All that pales in comparison though due to the fact that they proved the cake isn’t a lie. A special, yet fiendish PAX level was created for the game Portal. And once you completed it you were in fact rewarded with cake. And as we all know, cake is good.
But there were two big things on offer at PAX. First up was APB was there in all it’s glory to check out. The game seems a lot more than multiplayer GTA, it has cops versus robbers, which from what I could gather is all PvP, also you can go after criminals and have small rivalries at the server’s discression which is fun, and it all takes place in a world which seems to have taken that living and breathing feature that GTA 4 did so well and done it’s own thing with it. Expect great things from this game. It played like a dream, and Chaotica did manage to run me over which I’m pretty sure she enjoyed more than she let on. Again, there was more swag from APB, fancy a T-shirt promoting the game? Then maybe there’s another reason for you to keep that media player locked on to SI Radio.
Before I mention the real biggie, there was the chance to see a little of the new Magic Game, Duel of the Planeswalkers. The XBLA game is already out and looks friendly enough to try even if you don’t know anything about the game like me. I watched Verve play it and did find myself tginking I might even give it a whirl. Not sure if I’ll take to it or not, but if WoW is anything to go by then, yes a monster may have been created there.
The real biggie of the day though was 3D WoW, and a whole bunch of other games. WoW was the only one I got to look at via nVidia’s new technology, with funky Men in Black looking glasses that allows any graphics card (8800 or above) when coupled with a 120hz monitor display games in 3D, and it looked beautiful. 3D has come a long way recently as anyone who has seen the 3D version of Avatar might tell you. But this was stunning, everything from the loading screen and character select screen through to every element of gameplay was just stunning. Of particular note was AoE attacks, fights in general and the whirly sky effect when your character dies in game. Everything looked like you could reach out and touch it. Even running around Dalaran was amazing, the sense of perspective between everything on screen was immense and is something I can’t wait to buy, cherish and love forever. This really could be the next big thing in PC gaming and I can’t help but wonder when something like this will be available on consoles.
PAX had such a lot to offer this year in terms of things to see, and there is more swag I’ve not mentioned, so like I keep saying, tune in and you can win stuff…and stuff is good, right?
THE AFTERMATH
So, now PAX was finished and we all had one last night together that culminated in a geekfest of playing WoW, we did a couple of 5 man dungeons between myself, Chaotica, Verve, Doc and Chaotica’s flatmate. That was a lot of fun, very geeky and we did swap computers to play each other’s characters just for the hell of it. Photos were also taken which I’m sure will be all over the internet somewhere for you all to enjoy.
IN CONCLUISON
Well, what can I say, 37000 feet up in the year edging ever closer to Frankfurt, not a lot else really. It’s all been a rollercoaster week, with plenty of fun and games along the way and a wholly enjoyable experience. There has been confirmation of another one next year, so all I can say is roll on PAX East 2011!
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