PAX East 2010 has come and gone and all I am left with is an arcade machine, a very bad cold, and a very positive experience.  I initially wanted to write a day-by-day PAX breakdown, but that would have been impossible with the way my trip went.  Something would happen one day, then on the next day something else would counter the previous day’s events.  At one point I caught an extremely bad break that could have potentially ruined the weekend for me, but it only rebounded to have lady luck to show me some love.

My journey started Thursday at 10am.  I made my way to the FungWah bus along with Dustin and Cokedroid.  The bus ride itself reminded me of the opening from that old 90’s show“Who’s the Boss” (you know the one with Tony Danza).  We arrived around 3 p.m. in Boston and headed to the Courtyard Marriott (I would recommend this hotel only if you aren’t sharing a room with a small platoon, Chocolate Lemon style).  I went to the Hynes Center to pick up my press badge and I was impressed at the size of the center.  The PAX crew spaced things out nicely and had solid floor plans.  Having the media room on the second floor along with the expo hall made things easier for media outlets to take care of their updates.  All of the free-play and tournament areas were located on the third floor while the first floor housed relatively simple stuff like a waiting area and the Rock Band lounge.

That same day Sony did the Playstation Move event.  Cokedroid attended using my name (that bastard) and basically left me high and dry in the hotel room.  I was slightly pissed off about that but hey, it left me with more time to raise my Pokemon.

Most of the CL team arrived on Friday. Bacondog and Jess Ashcroft arrived fairly early and ready to rock, Fortewally not so much because he arrived later on in the day.  Friday was spent canvasing the expo floor to see what was worth coverage.  Some booths such as the Aksys, Splinter Cell Conviction, and Indie Showcase booths and jumped out at me.  There was a booth for Rooster Teeth and Mega64 but I haven’t really followed them (there goes my geek cred).  The panels for Friday didn’t seem too interesting for my tastes, and I decided to save my Friday night for the Protomen.  However, Fortewally would deliver the cockblock by showing up to the hotel at 8pm.  With my music plans ruined, we made the best of the situation and headed on over to the “Kotaku” after party.  When we first got there the line was extremely long.  Rather that wait in line, we headed back to the convention hall so I could show Fortewally around and he could get a feel for the con layout so that we wouldn’t waste time on Saturday morning.I had a chance to meet up with Ron from Commedic Void  I also bumped into Jill and Tara from Zaxy.They were apparently working the Playon.tv booth at PAX. (Playon.TV is a work-around that allows you to watch Hulu on your console, in case you were wondering.)  They were technically booth babes but they turned out to be really cool people.  Tara is more of a handheld and casual player while  Jill is a bit more competitive and an FPS player.  Jill challenged me to some Halo or COD and I’m ready for that challenge.  Afterwards, Fortewally and I headed back to base and we and the rest of the squad planned out the next day Saturday’s battle plan was pretty simple. Jess and Bacondog were to hit Ubisoft booth and interview some Frag Dolls. (I had spoken to Morgan on Friday to schedule the Frag Dolls interview).  Then we’d head up to the Disney booth and cover Split Second.  We also planned for the Tritton Gunnar Optiks booth.  We would then wrap around to hit the Uber Entertainment, Atomic, Turtle Beach and Aksys booths.  At the end we were going to cover Shank if there was still time leftover.

So Saturday hits and it’s showtime.  Jess and BD went to deal with the interviews, and I took the time to get my hands on Splinter Cell Conviction.  I played with a booth worker as my partner, and that didn’t go so well seeing as she died and I am as stealthy as the Juggernaut.  In the few minutes I did play, the controls took a little getting used to. There were some things I didn’t like such as using the shoulder button to toggle a crouch rather than it be the traditional  click the stick in.  Other than that the game feels a bit more loose and free than the other Splinter Cell titles.  Conviction lends itself to a more run-and-gun style of game play when needed.  I would have liked to get through the demo but I needed a partner I could trust because co-op games are a big deal for me.

After the girls interviewed Brookelyn from the Frag Dolls, I got a few minutes to talk to her on the side about her gaming experience and what life was like being a Frag Doll.  It was an interesting conversation because she told me that she didn’t initially believe that the Frag Doll thing would take off, but here she was years later.  Brookelyn isn’t actually from Brooklyn, but her real name is Brooke and her track coach used to call her Brookelyn so when she needed a gamertag, it just stuck.  She came off as a down-to-Earth and humble person and on top of that we both share a love for the FAMAS.

Tritton and Gunnar weren’t ready for their interview so we had to move on.  It was tough but it happens.  With only an hour before the doors opened to the pubic we had to move efficiently, so we ended up checking out Monday Night Combat (it should be called Monday Night Fights) at the Uber booth, and then checked out Breach.  I didn’t get too much hands-on time with MNC but I did with Breach.

Considering that it was a Pre-Beta build it didn’t look too bad.  The controls were simple, generic FPS fare.  The build did have its bugs including a Rufus-like dive kick, cover issues, and just random crashing. The destruction mechanic is the selling point. Being able to create a sniper perch or hole out of almost any environments was something that piqued my curiosity but I never really got to see in action.  I did shoot out floorboards and drop a house.  I got a chance to run some matches with the CV squad and we totally demolished the other team.

The Turtle Beach booth had Halo 3 running with their headsets.  I had never used headsets, to be honest. I never understood the need for headsets but I got a chance to try them out and talk to one of the Turtle Beach reps.  He pointed out headsets do more than just put surround sound on your head.  They allow you to mute out the game and just focus on the chatting aspect of the game or vice-versa.  Also the in-game sound is clear so you can accurately determine where people are.  I imagine that the sound data is crucial for FPS players playing on the pro-level where you need all the data you could possibly get and drown out possible outside distractions.  Headsets also they serve even more practical purposes such as using them to play if you need to keep the volume down in case you don’t want mom or girlfriend/wife-aggro.  One example popped into my head, I was playing my friend in Blazblue a while back.  It was late night and I was using Bang.  I used his super and it pretty much blew up his TV and woke up his girlfriend.  What super was it? Only the manliest one (for full effect fast forward to about the 40 second mark and turn the sound all the way up.)

Speaking of Blazblue, I was able to take a look at the newest one; Continuum Shift.  The game still looks very impressive and it touts a revamped tier list and more balanced game play.  The rep at the booth he pointed out that Rachel, Aracune, Jin and V.13 will no longer just sit on the top of the list.  Even Tao was improved and we all know I love me some Tao.  Apparently Ragna is now beefier, which is great because he’s the only one I used.

We gotta make our Eevees happy!

I also got to talk with Lemon.  He was there competing in the 512-man tournament that they were having.  (Spoiler, he won it.)  I can’t wait to see how the interview with him came out.  This was the first time that Chocolate and Lemon were together in a while.  Lemon let me know that Super Street Fighter IV was going to be at PAX, very hush-hush.  According to Lemon, SSFIV is going to be about 40 bucks or so and also feature 10 new characters, more costumes, and the return of bonus stages.  The game play did not change too much.  They tweaked some characters and added more ultras which makes some characters easier to play as. Some characters are more advanced.  For example, C.Viper has an ultra that’s easier to land now. The problem with her current one is that the height that you have to have your opponent is very strict and there’s a good chance you’ll miss it and look very, very silly. Some characters such as Hakan and Juri will be tough to play as because no one really knows what they do.  For other characters you can pick up the original versions of Street Fighter that they appear in and get a good sense of how you should be playing them.

What should you be practicing according to Lemon?  Focus on the basics such as links, blocking (it sounds silly but it works), throw breaking and some basic combos.  Thee trials/training mode have been tweaked to get you better practice to make you more competitive, if you put the work into it.

So up until this point things were going well. I ran into Star Slay3r; from The Tester. She had blue hair this time.  Her choice of main was different, she used E.Honda.  I have had traumatic experiences with Honda players and since Honda is a horrid match-up for Viper ,so there were no friendlies played.  The tourney was delayed until 1:30 so the team had downtime. I headed into the free play room and played some SF4 which had no Cammy and my Viper was way beyond rusty.  Justin beat me up pretty good.  Then Seth Killian arrived with the Super Street Fighter 4 and the new sticks which mainly feature Ryu and Ken.  Seeing Seth is always a treat because he genuinely enjoys his work and loves the community. Things were looking good during the set up, then disaster struck. I began to get the worst toothache and headache imaginable.  It was so bad that I had to rage quit the room and return to the hotel asap.  I  sent text messages the team to let them know the situation and guided them on what they needed to accomplish.  I was extremely upset because I was so  close to Hakan, so close to oiling up.  I have to wait a few more weeks I suppose.  Retuning to the hotel I quite honestly don’t remember much except pain, that disguising pre-sick feeling, and passing out with an icepack around my head like a beard.  I remember getting to my room at 3ish and waking up around 7/8.

Fortewally stopped by along with Jess and checked up on me.  Fortewally told me about the IGN and Gamers Gone Wild party happening later that night.   I decided to attend hoping to lift my mood and since I was feeling better.  The IGN party wasn’t too bad but the bar was very small and it was very crowded so there was not much room to do anything.  There was one cosplayer in the party, he was Greenman from that show “It’s always sunny in Philadelphia”.  However, the Gamers Gone Wild party would prove to be a bit more interesting.

The GGW party was crowded too but it was spread out among two floors, one for VIPS and another for regular folk.  The setup wasn’t too bad.The GGW party was crowded too but it was spread out among two floors, one for VIPS and another for regular folk.  The setup wasn’t too different from any bar gaming event I’ve attended. There were a few consoles and some music with a sweet SF2 arcade machine in the corner that was on free play.  Later on in the evening Dane from 2old2play announced that there would be a tournament on that very machine in the corner and the winner would take that thing home.  I entered it feeling like there was nothing to lose.  It was free plus I really had no plans for the night.  I tried to talk Fortewally into signing up but he declined.  As we  hung out for a bit people started to file in.  I saw Lemon again and also Jago was there.  I told them I entered and they replied you better win. Lemon also quipped that if I do win I should just buy all the tickets on the FungWah bus and ship it down that way.  We all laughed because let’s face it, I have a history of getting scrubbed out in tournaments.  This is SF2 Hyper Fighting meaning there is a whole army of glitches at your disposal and the game becomes way more hazardous.  I won my first match fairly easy and my second match was more of the same, I played extremely safe and lame.  My third match proved to be the true test.  I watched all the matches in my bracket so see who might be a real challenge and then I saw him, in the form of a Guile player named Peter C.  I knew that it would be tough.  Charge characters own me for the simple fact that I can’t tell if they are just crouching or charging and I am extremely impatient.  Plus, I know all about those dirty Guile combos.  The first match would set the tone, with one pixel of health and Guile having about one more hit of health.  I took one step toward Guile and  stopped and the strangest thing happened, he took the bait and flash kicked.  I then threw him to win the match.  After that first round, it just became a blur.  I guess I was just in the zone because I don’t remember struggling with Peter anymore.  After the match he gave me a hug and said I better take that thing home.  To be quite honest I don’t think I even gave any more match ups any thought until the finals when the last guy picked Blanka.  I don’t remember too much of the first match except that I won. The second match ended with a perfect from me and just disbelief.  I had just won my first tournament in anything ever.  Even in the basketball days, we’ve always made the playoffs and never won it all.  One time I was close to winning it and the coach did the dumbest thing and subbed everyone out.  But jeez I won it all and I won an arcade machine.

Bracketology

Empire Arcadia was on hand to sign the winner’s machine and they were happy to do so.  Jill and Tara signed it as well.  Dane gave me a V.I.P. pass for the party upstairs. Once there I got to spend some time with Mark Julio from Mad Katz, Swoozie, Star Slay3r and a few other industry celebs.  Lemon and I spent most of the time talking about random stuff like girls, Hakan, and my burning desire to oil up.  I also bumped into my rival from Raw Gameplay, Bryan. He’s not really my rival per say but I see him everywhere so we have to give him a title.  After a long party I decided to head home.  I also seemed to develop a very raw throat and some sniffles. It looked like I had acquired the PAX pox.

Sunday I slept in very late while the team geared up to head to the Hynes for the last time this weekend.  I spent most of this day hanging out with my friends from CV and we just walked the floors and played some demos.  The games that I got my hands on that day were Bioshock 2 multi-player and the Mafia II demo.  Bioshock 2 wasn’t a new release but they did have a LAN set up which I liked.  What was my plasmid of choice? Why it was fire of course.  Mafia II interested me because I asked the PR for 2k if the soundtrack was era-accurate and she informed me that it was.  To top it off it was licensed music so I  know I was getting the good stuff.  Mafia II had no cut scenes and used all in-game graphics to make their movies.  The game looks pretty good on 360 and I can imagine if it was on a high-end PC how good it would look.  The controls respond well, my only issue was with driving.  I didn’t get a chance to check out the other driving mode but I did try to spend most of my time getting cars from the 40’s and 50’s to drift around turns.

The main event I would say was the presentation of Civilization 5.  Since I am mainly a console player, I wanted to broaden my horizons a bit and check it out.  What I saw impressed me.  Let’s start with the basics, Civ as it’s called is a strategy game where you build up a civilization from the stone age until the future.  You build cities, manage diplomacy, declare war, trade, and all sorts of things that keep a country running.

The game switched from using square tiles to hex tiles.  I have not played the previous installments of Civilization so I had to check out what exactly they meant on my own time.  They were able to do more with world designs by making individual tiles hex shaped and the world map appears to be more manageable.  Another feature that was added was help guides.  This helps because anyone can pick up the game and play it. The help guides explains what is going on, functions, and in-game events.  They also give you an adviser as to let you know what you should be doing.

There are the basic elements to strategy games such as certain units are good against others and don’t leave ranged units in the open.  They took out the ’stack of doom’ and ’stack of defense’, there is no more road spam and units do not fight until they are destroyed.  Things look extremely impressive in this version of Civ.  I also saw Nobunaga Oda and some samurai!  That nearly sold me but I remembered that my PC at home is trash.  I will have to see how the min requirements are for this game.

It was a great weekend save for me having a fox die attack and I can’t wait to see what Mandible does with the footage we’ve brought back.  I also got to play Swoozie in some Street Fighter which was a good way to wind down the weekend.