Okay, so PAX. Went with Juli/Kerne/Helen/Tyra (DnD crew), and also Morgan/Raine/Robert (band). Managed to bounce between these groups fairly well.
The exhibit hall was still dark, crowded, noisy, and somewhat nonsensical (overstimulating?) but there was some good stuff there. Sam And Max? Strong Bad's Cool Game for Attractive People? YES. But mainly I'm shocked by the number of games I'm straight up not interested in. Tom Clancy's new shooter? Looks like crap.
Gears of War 2? Looks like Gears of War.
Saint's Row 2? Please. I'm ashamed of my culture and my generation. Both
Rock Band 2 and
Guitar Hero: World Tour were on display, and while I had substantial interest in them conceptually, there wasn't anything there I hadn't seen before. There were numerous arcade-like offerings that looked like fun but in a time killing sort of way, and I've got enough happenin's going on, that's the last thing I need (does this mean I'm growing up? If my mom's addiction to Popcap is any indication, no).
Time Out. Don't mean to say I didn't have a good time. I had a great time. But this is one hobby I'm starting to be a little more selective about, I guess. Why would I even give a shit about
Red Faction: Guerilla if Fallout 3's coming out? In a way I feel bad for these publishers: the tools of godhood have become widely available, yes, but still, they walk amongst giants. (Side note: maybe roleplaying games are next, but for now I'm as up for
Bunnies and Burrows as ever.)
Bioware apparently has a thing called
Dragon Age, but the booth was walled up (literally) like a fortress, and there was a long line. Probably a year or two out from release anyway, I'll check it out as it gets closer.
Brothers in Arms I didn't look too closely at, but their booth was giving people buzz cuts for free, plus you got a copy of their game if you did it, which I would have gone for if there wasn't a line. WotC was on hand for the non-digital crowd, which was a poor substitute for Gen Con, but I'll take what I can get. Lots of gaming hardware was on display, which holds little interest for me. It's like if someone ported their interest in World of Warcraft into real life, trying to get their computer's numbers as high as possible. Meh.
In any case, some major points of interest, for me:
-
Fallout 3 looks fucking amazing. It's like
Bioshock, except instead of the awesome commentary on social systems and libertarianism, it's got the awesome humor of the Fallout universe. Also more open-ended, and the moral decisions you make actually have consequences, both good and bad. This was one of the great things about the original
Fallout and
Fallout 2: you could play through the game any way you liked, from being the goody-two-shoes savior of mankind who literally wins the game
without killing anyone, to murdering every child you come across and selling your party members into slavery. The sequel ramps up the choices and the immersion. It's been a long time coming, but I don't think we'll be disappointed.
-
Far Cry 2 is not something I expected to become excited about. The original was a little too inaccessible to me and I never got into it. But after a short demo I was initially reluctant sit in on, I'm a believer. The graphical achievement is substantial: the environments are the most photo-realistic I've seen. The mechanics of their physics and fire effects are on an entirely new level from everything that's come before. Couple that with a dynamic story system (NPCs can live or die from your actions, the story changes and grows accordingly), and they've got me hooked. Obviously, multiplayer is a big concern here as well, and their map editing software blew me away. The movie they have on their website doesn't do it justice. I saw a man create, from an empty dirt lot, in under 2 minutes, an environment that looked like a completely natural part of the Serengeti when he dropped into it a moment later. The tools he used were so simple I could do the same myself. Fuck it, God didn't have a better world-building kit than this.
- Conversely, Ubisoft's other offering at that demo, the new
Prince of Persia, I found very disappointing. I was big into Sands of Time et al., but this one just looks...well, not compelling. They're trying really hard, what with the new moves with your magical girl sidekick and so forth, but the dialogue is reminiscent of Warrior Within's one-liners, the puzzles are counter-intuitive (I had a big problem with the glowing orbs that blew you across the map), and the combat...well, the combat might be the only thing they got right, with the one opponent at a time concept and focusing on the tactical ideas of attack and defense, ebb and flow, and so forth. But overall I was underwhelmed, especially graphically and sound-wise.
- I went on Saturday, so the concert I saw was Anamanaguchi, Darkest of the Hillside Thickets, MC Frontalot, and the Minibosses. Anamanaguchi was cool, in a not-quite-Minibosses sort of way. Hillside Thickets is an H.P. Lovecraft tribute band, 'nuff said. The Front was amazing as always. The Minibosses are incredible musicians, but play what is essentially background music for hours on end, so it's hard for me to actively listen to them. Who I wish I saw was Jonathon Coulton and Freezepop, who both played Friday night. Damn!
Too lazy to annotate with links, and tired of blogging. Be back with my Bumbershoot report later.
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