PAX Show Impressions, Part 1

It's probably about time that I typed up my thoughts on my trip to PAX this year. To put it succinctly, PAX 2009 was definitely the best show that I've ever been to in my life. Although I have attended and thoroughly enjoyed shows like NYCC, SDCC, GenCon, and Origins, PAX takes the cake, no questions asked. While the exhibition hall was easily among the most exciting I have ever walked around, the boardgaming area and the console gaming area were an absolute blast (I went to the show knowing about neither), totally free of charge, and a great way to meet new people at PAX. There were also outstanding panels on both specific games such as the panel on Star Wars the Old Republic, and panels on games in general, such as Losing Should Be Fun. Although I'm not sure whether I will make the trip out to Seattle again for next year's show, I've definitely penciled in PAX East into my calendar between March 26th and March 28th 2010. I've written up some comments on the exhibition floor below.

The exhibition floor itself was huge, and there were a ton of different exciting games on the show floor this year. Among the games I expected to see at the show, I went to the show eager to see StarCraft II and Diablo III, Dragon Age: Origins, MAG, Halo ODST, Mass Effect 2, and Global Agenda. All games were there in playable form, although I unfortunately decided not to wait in the horrific line for Dragon Age, as I had played that at New York Comic Con earlier this year.

StarCraft II and Diablo III look fantastic. The screenshots that Blizzard has up on their sites don't really do either game justice; both look much better in action than they do in screenshot form. The competition at the StarCraft II booth was intimidating; but I mustered up the will to wait in line and play a game, and was swiftly served a defeat by the player who was playing against me. Diablo III was equally impressive. The Barbarian class was really fun to play, and the only negative thought I had leaving the booth was that I wish Blizzard had found a way to limit the playing time that some players took with DIII.

Halo ODST was also on the floor, and teams of four were lining up to play Firefight. Firefight was also a great deal of fun to play. It plays like the Horde mode in Gears of War II, or the segments in Left for Dead where players have to hold out in a specific location for a certain amount of time. The guns in the game felt really cool to hold and fire.

Mass Effect 2 was right by the entrance to the exhibit hall, and had long lines on Friday, but by Saturday and Sunday it was only a few minute wait until one of the TVs opened up, especially later in the day. While nothing I saw was too surprising, the game's new rocket launcher was a ton of fun to play with. The game definitely uses that "dark" look that BioWare has been going for (I wish that they would actually brighten it up a bit, but that's just me). BioWare clearly has a great game on their hands here, provided that they can figure out a better way to deal with the menu system in this game than in ME1.

Global Agenda was also very impressive. I will admit, I went to the booth expecting to be underwhelmed; everything that I had seen about the game make it look like it had outstanding potential but that it could also be horrifically flawed, and I was glad to find out that the former was absolutely true, and that the flaws were nowhere to be found. I had the chance to play two different classes in the game: a heavy, burly tank with a machine gun and rocket launcher, and a quick, stealthy class with the ability to cloak and a huge sword with which to whack away at enemies from behind. I'll talk more about the game in an upcoming post, but the multiplayer experience was fast-paced and exciting, and much better than I had been expecting it to be.

MAG was probably the only game on the list that I was slightly disappointed by, although the developers are clearly onto something. While the game looks fantastic, its framerate left a little something to be desired. While I don't doubt that the game runs smoothly at 30fps, as the developers claim, I've come to expect a little bit more thanks to existing FPSs, especially Call of Duty 4 . Nevertheless, I picked up a card inviting me to the game's beta, and I am looking forward to giving the game a more thorough shakedown when the beta goes live again on September 17.

As I expected, I also found a slew of other games that I'm very excited about. Here's a brief list, with links:

• Torchlight by Runic Games
• Brink by Splash Damage
  
• Diplomacy (Sins of a Solar Empire Expansion) by Stardock
• League of Legends by Riot Games
• Split/Second by Black Rock Studio
• Borderlands by Gearbox Software

-Jon