I was fortunate to attend PAX this past weekend and had a great time in the short few hours I was on the floor. There is so much to write about from what I experienced, I hope I can get it all done and w/ the enthusiasm I had when I was seeing things up close!
To start off, my overall impression of PAX this year was that is felt much much bigger. The booths that were created were enormous and extremely impressive. Compared to last year it was leaps and bounds bigger and more flashy. It also felt like the more companies were represented this year as well. Last year there were some empty booth spots from companies who did not show up, there was also more space allocated to card and table game companies, whereas this year, they were pushed together tightly in a small transition space between the main exhibition hall spaces. Some people I spoke to on the floor said if PAX Prime gets any larger it may have to shift to another city like Vegas. If that is the case the expo may end up rivaling another event such as E3.
There were so many people and lines form up quickly at events like this. Knowing my patience and excitement, I needed to find a trade off. I settled for over the shoulder observations of most live demo’s. The lines were just too long for the most of the popular games I knew of. What was awesome to see though, is that my little world of games is nothing compared to the rest of the content coming out, or available now. There were so many other games w/ huge booths that I’d not ever heard of nor paid attention to, it was eye opening and exciting.
So, for time sake I will run through the impressions I had for games that have caught my eye lately.
1) Battlefield 3: I snuck in to the show early Sunday and was able to skip the line for the PS3 coop demo. Jumping into the game, it was a bit odd getting used to PS3 controls. The sensitivity was up high, and I’m not sure if that is normal, but I coped fairly well with it. I was playing with another single gentleman in line so we teamed up and tried our best. We actually failed the mission fairly quickly after the 1st stage, but the booth workers were not policing us, so we started another round. We played this one much further in, but…I’m not sure when the level ends as it seemed we cleaned up all the enemies, but the game did not progress. Next thing we know I’m loaded in a Humvee and an RPG cleans the whole thing off the map. Game over!
The game felt as you would expect from past games. One interesting thing though was that during the street fight sequences using the thermal scope I could see enemies and would line them up, fire and then not get kills. I’m not sure what the difficulty setting was, but either my bullets were not on target or the enemies were very strong. I assume the game design has the added variability in bullet direction and spray. It was not an arcade style shooter where you’re guaranteed a kill just b/c you lined up the enemy down the sites. I definitely need more time to give a good review of what I played in the coop.
I stuck around in the afternoon and waited in line to try the Team Death Match freeplay on PC later that day. It was a painfully fun experience since I’m not experience in PC gaming for FPS. I got worked every way from Tuesday and hobbled around the map as best I could. This gameplay though was extremely exciting and EVERYTHING I could have expected in a BF game. It did feel and play like TDM from COD, but totally perfected w/ DICE’s immersion features. I can’t wait to play the real thing in my own element.
2) Skyrim: I went to check out the demo play area for this game. Besides the game, Bethesda LOVES to go all out in its expo booths. I love visiting their areas. Skyrim looks amazing. I do have this game on pre-order, BUT….to be honest it looks like it plays just like Fallout games. The interactions, the animations and some other components just seem like a new skin on an old game engine. I will play this and I hope I get some good satisfaction out of it.
3) Rage: This game really surprised me. I had not paid this game any attention until I walked over to check it out, since it’s also from Bethesda. This game looks like a crossover between Fallout, Borderlands, and a couple of other post-apocalyptic game types. The gameplay was very smooth and the animations were great to watch. The graphics were far superior to Fallout games and Borderlands. I’d even go as far to say that the game looked a bit more polished overall than Skyrim
4) Blacklight Retribution: this game is a new Free 2 play coming out on PC only later this year. If you know the previous release – Blacklight TangoDown, this is just like that, but souped up w/ more action and some cool new features. The action was fast and intense, and w/ the HRV feature it is neat to see through walls temporarily to line up enemies from a distance. The inclusion of the mechgamepad users!
5) Super Monday Night Combat. This is another free 2 play game coming out on PC only this holiday season. It will come to the consoles at some stage, but for now they are releasing it to the core audience who can jump right in, PC gamers. This game will be just like its predecessor, Monday Night Combat, but will include new characters, new specialties, maps, and other game features. The original MNC is/was awesome, I really loved the tower defense mode “Blitz”
6) Batman Arkham City: I did not preview any of this game b/c I already know it will be worth buying and playing. Sorry, I didn’t want to spend time on waiting around on that one.
7) Assassin’s Creed Revelations: This is another game I will be playing at some point, but I skipped the demo.. I assume this is just built on top of Brotherhood, and that was excellent in itself. The campaigns are always fun, and from the reports of the upcoming changes to the multiplayer this should rock.
8) Mass Effect 3: This game had the biggest line of them all I think. 4 hours to get in for the demo? No thanks. I have other things to do. I’ve played the first two, there is no reason not to try this game when it comes out. I heard the action sequences are much smoother now, they play almost like Gears of War, in terms of shooting, aiming and taking cover. Bioware had some serious booth stuff going on!
9) Borderlands 2: People were blowing up over this game, but alas another closed booth that I did not want to wait in line for. Sadly, if you did wait and go through, it seems they were offering copies of the game for free at the end. You could even choose the platform you want it on. I played the first game, but I didn’t really get into it. Maybe if I jump into this one early w/ friends I will find it more fun!
10) COD: MW3: These guys didn’t show up or have any marketing content to handout. Boooooo! Activision, what’s up?
11) Firefall. This is an free to play MMO on PC, I believe. This game company may have had the biggest dedicated booth on the floor. It was enormous. The game looked great and felt like it would play well. However, b/c I’m mainly a console gamer I didn’t spend any time with it. As the Free 2 play market grows, I think I will start to learn PC controls so I can at least be a functional member
12) League of Legends: What is there to say about this game. This thing is already popular enough…and if you don’t know about it, you’re likely not in their target audience anyway. This is another Free 2 play that is extremely popular. I’ve played it…but…I played solo rather than online so I didn’t get into as much as everyone else. I should give it another shot if I had friends to play with.
13) Torchlight II: this was out for PC gaming demo. I’m not sure if a console port was in the works. The maps looked more open and fun than the original game always taking place in the dark dank dungeons. I liked Torchlight, but…it was starting to get overly repetitive so I’ve not touched it in a while. I’m hardly ½ way through it.
Sorry if that was not enough info for anyone. Hit me up directly or ask questions in the comments if you like and I will see what I can get back to you with. Honestly….if you’re a gamer how can you not have at least 1 game to look forward to this holiday season, if not 10 games. The industry is taking off…but now that there are so many options it will dilute our time among games and I wonder how, or if gamers, will react. I love summer, but all PAX did was make me want fall/winter here NOW!
No comments:
Post a Comment