Turbo’s 2013 PAX East Experiences
Thursday
On the flight from Atlanta to Boston, I saw a classmate from high school I haven’t seen in almost 5 years. Sarah Holste was going to PAX East for her first time. It was cool since we both went to high school up in Iowa, and 5 years and 800 miles later going to PAX East. For the flight to Boston about 50% of the flight was going for PAX East.
When I arrived in Boston I didn't do much Thursday night besides, check twitter to see which people arrived for PAX East.
Friday
Waited in queue line. 7:40 AM line was more packed than last year and it was much colder this year. The line had a thousand more people compared to last year. the expo hall is larger. 30% more than last year and almost double of 2011. Tabletop and PC takes up more space. The food court on floor zero is small. Also less upcoming AAA games on the show floor. Nintendo presence much smaller than last year. 2K is just basketball and streaming. Microsoft is showing already out games of Halo 4 DLC and Gears Judgment.
I talked to 2 guys that lived in the Boston area, and one of them says he always takes sick days for PAX East, and wonders why work doesn’t catch on. I said that all PAXs, do not take place during the exact same week of the month, making the sickness seem more natural. Also the enforcer that gave pipe cleaners for in exchange for making something cool to get free stuff never came. She never came back.
In queue line inside a person knocked over a line divider in which I said this is why we can’t have nice things. Which is what happened to me in the queue room last PAX East 2012
Saw ACIV. Not presented as well as AC III. ACIII showed gameplay footage of the Battle of Bunker Hill which looked very impressive. AC IV showed 15 to 20 second gameplay snippets of different mechanics. Assassins Creed is on their 5th different creative director for the 5 last games. Still looking forward to it, but not as interested as AC IV. Some cool things AC IV will do is underwater shark combat, manta rays will be present as well as school’s of fish. The idea of having a crew for your ship and losing crewmates due to recklessness of storm traversal or boarding enemy ships is neat. While I’m not as excited for ACIV as ACIII more expections are a lot more realistic.
Twitch and Smite booth were loud. The show floor not as razzle dazzly as previous 2 years. While the show floor is the largest that has even been, there was less new games that were being demo or on display. Everything on the Microsoft booth was already at retail, Gears of War Judgment, Halo 4 DLC, and Dance Central 3. There was more games you could play on the show floor that you could already play at home than ever before.
Saw Ted Rossi, tastiest jamb and his friend. Told Ted about ACIV and Watchdogs. ACIV not impressed which reaffirmed that Ted was done with the series when I talked about it. Excited about Saints Row IV then told about how old GTA IV is which lead to how long this console cycle lasted. Then on AC Patrice Dislets former THQ property being own by ubisoft again for a cheap $500,000.
Saw Dylan and Kayla after buying my Cards Against Humanity expansion pack at the Kickstarter arcade section.
There was no Portal 2 or Borderlands 2 equivalent line. Elder Scrolls had a large line, but lack of upcoming AAA games. The indie games were more exciting to view than ever since most of them were upcoming new releases. The one that caught the most attention for me was Drop that beat like an Ugly Baby. It is like Audiosurf and Beat Hazard as a music game in the realm of the music altering environments. Purpose is to dodge the color blocks and build up large combos. Fast pace songs result in faster moving blocks, while slower pace songs, result in slower moving blocks making it easier to chain combos.
Went to the nerdcore hip hop panel and got to talk and shake Random/Mega Ran hands. Said I first heard of him through Elijah Lucian’s youtube favorites of the songs Fly and Push.He was like wow that was a long time ago. It was a neat panel, and it was neat talking to other people who are a fan of nerdcore since I rarely run into those people in my day to day life.
At the Capcom booth I said hi to Brett Elston and Chris Antista.
At the Popcap booth I got to grab a zombie and happy mushroom plush toy. The magician David Hall was there again for Popcap doing magic tricks. While he did some cool tricks, there is still no magic trick for easily picking up cards on the floor.
Met Corey Atwood at Capcom line. chatted about what was going on with the LaserTime meetup, and amazed that I remembered, who he was, which he was probably Blackout drunk.
Bought CAH for my sister and bought 3 expansion decks. I got 2 second editions. I didn’t notice until I was at the First round of the Omegathon. I went back and the people at the CAH were very nice and it was easily exchanged.
Got to say hi to Alex, Matt, David, Jake, Willy and Mitch. Before they went their separate ways to appointments. They were busy since they were media covering games on the show floor.
4PM Merman Theater
Went to the Omegathon Round 1 where I got to meet Corey and other former Omeganauts. Talked and chatted about our Omeganaut experiences. I got to say hi to Darryl again and he told me nice haircut, even though he didn’t see me in 7 months. He said it was nice that I go out of my way to say hi to him at each PAX. Said hi to Karrisa Barrows which she hugged me. Tina was the last Omeganaut to show up for the event. The Bomberman event on zombie mode was very tense. I left midway to exchange my Second Expansion of CAH for a first which was a good idea since by Saturday night they were all sold out of Cards Against Humanity.
At 5PM I got to meet up with Zack, Chris, and Rock from the Known Griefers Blog. I tagged along with them to their hotel where we got food from Red Line since they delievered to the hotel. I finally got to eat lunch at 7PM and I order a Burrito and french fries. Every portion of food they had was huge. The fries took up the entire to go box, the Burrito was a foot long, and the quesadillas was like a large size pizza tortilla stuffed with tons of food. I ate so much fries, nachos, and a large burrito. Eating a meal after eating nothing substantial for 12 hours feels like being released out of prison.
In the hotel room, Rock recorded a brief podcast of what we experienced on the show floor on Friday. Afterwards we played some Mortal Kombat, Street Fighter. During playing those fighting games I quoted from that one Street Fighter commentary that played in TalkRadar 110. Also I saw Rock play El Shaddai which stylistically looks amazing, but bland gameplay. At 9PM I took a cab ride back to my apartment and got to sleep.
PAX East Saturday
I woke up at 6:51 AM due to the sunrise. The apartment I was staying at, the host Atindya was very hospitable and cooked me an excellent breakfast with toast, sausage, and eggs. Also he had grapes, which I loved the grapes the most.
When I saw the cab arrived, I sprinted to the door. During the sprint, my leg caught the laptop cord which sent the laptop and a dozen other things to the floor. He said to me don’t worry. Also he packed me a lunch of toasted cheese sandwiches, and a bag of grapes which lasted me through the day.
The cab driver asked me what convention was going on. Then later was surprised that many people were there just for games, but it is so much more than just games.
At the queue line the first thing I was going to go see was Saints Row IV. In the queue line there was about 7 or 8 beachballs. During the wait I talked to 2 guys that were into videogame music, and music in general. Wish I remembered their names. On electronic music, until last year we thought Deadmau5 was pronounced Dead mau 5 and and not Deadmouse. Anyway they encouraged me if I wanted to compose since I like playing some songs on the piano, spend $300 on recording equipment and software and play around. I told them about the Behind the music of Blockbuster videogames music panel which they were interested but were tied down with other obligations.
When the queue line opened up the 2 guys I waited in line with yesterday bumped my arm and said “Alabama!” since that is where I came from for PAX.”
The Saints Row IV gameplay footage was great footage. SRIV takes place in a virtual Steelport that looks like a larger city compared to SR3 version of Steelport. The game ups the wackyness even higher. Besides being the president of the United States and fighting an alien invasion, there is the Dubstep Gun. A gun that shoot out lasers and dubstep music which causes people to pop and lock until they die. Besides the dubstep gun there is the inflatagun which inflates people until they explode. Also for transportation there is mechs, monster cars, and superpowers. The protagonist can now run 100+mph, jump hundreds of feet high, glide, telekinesis, and has ice blast powers. Saints Row IV will have more customization than ever before and will be an excellent game to pick up August 20th 2012.
While on the show floor, I text messaged Mitch if he wanted to eat grapes in an erotic way, which he thought I was joking until I showed him the grapes. I hand fed him a grape while we walked hand in hand on the show floor. And then later we had fu.....n. Sometime this day I went outside and got free food from the truck Warface which served tiny hamburgers.
I went to the 2nd round of the Omegathon to chat with other Omeganauts. During that time I conversed through the power of Quad City DJ’s which made Sery wonder why Ross and I didn’t converse normally. Which I think my reply was “It’s the slam jam.” I left to go to the Videogame music panel, since I didn’t think I would have much luck getting Mass Effect signed from the lead Mass Effect panel from the Mass Effect Trilogy retrospective.
After talking to the Omeganauts, I went to the Behind the Music of Blockbuster videogames hosted by Emily Reese of the Top Score Podcast. Kevin Riepl, Greg Edmunson, Inon Zur, and Jack Wall were present. Jack Wall wanted the crowd to make some noise. It was neat hearing the thought process behind the scores. Also the 2 guys I talk to in the queue line on Friday were there. Greg was happy that 1,000+ people came to see them. Afterwards I got Inon, Kevin, and Greg to sign my badge. When I told Greg I loved Firefly he said “I do too.” When Jack Wall signed my copy of Mass Effect, he unknownigly signed over Sam Hulick’s signature, which I told him and Kevin said “Post that on the internet.” Jack replied with “Sam’s gonna kill me.” I brought Tomb Raider for Jason Graves to sign, but he went on a 10+ minute bathroom whatever break. His coat was on a chair so I got my copy of Tomb Raider and took a picture of my copy next to his coat.
I went to the FirAxis panel, only to see how full it was, I hanged out with the Known Griefers Blog guys and played Jungle Speed at the Tabletop area. It is a card game of pattern recognition and the first player to get rid of all their cards win. There is a plastic thing in the middle, in which when 2 shapes or colors are the same, the 2 players try to grab the plastic stand before the other person in which the slow person receives all the cards that was in play for the round. 2nd game I won, due to my fast speed of my right hand and the strength of grabbing it when it was contested. That’s when I realized I my fap hand, wrist, and arm was stronger and faster than theirs.
After playing 2 rounds of Jungle Speed I took a shuttle bus ride with Pat Ronk to a nearby hotel in which I would attend the Elder Scrolls MMO Party. While waiting for the shuttle, I recognized the lady from Iowa who worked with the shuttlebusses the previous 2 PAX Easts I attended. The Elder Scrolls Party I was the 400th of the 500th people in line. What made this party huge was it was open for all with no restrictions except building capacity. The guy behind me from DC, due to being an event coordinator was furious of how poorly the lines were handled. After a 20 minute wait outside, I was in. It was decorated as a giant banquet hall. People received coins in a pouch in which they redeem for food and different beers to drink. There was bard musicians. There were gambling dens, and a place where you can take your picture. Everyone of the hosts spoke in English accents like they lived in Tamriel. For the picture, a man dressed as a fine warrior shouted “Want to take a picture with the magic box?!” I drank water and ate food and only stayed for 20 minutes. On the shuttle back to the convention center, the Bus had 2 circle around it twice.
LaserTime meetup 8PM in the Sam Adams pub like last 2 PAX Easts. The attendance was a lot less. About 20-25 people compared to the 40 to 60 people plus from previous years. The 3 Jews, you know who you are, shouted LaserTime at a group at the food court only to realize it was just a group of people there. They looked stupid and felt shame. Chris and Brett didn’t arrive until after 8:30 PM. Chris and Brett was all that remained of whatever former used to work at Future US/GamesRadar/TalkRadar presence there was.
I said hi to Addison, Bilal, Tony Wilson, Jacob Wilson (not related), and saw Jeremy from Buffalo and some other guy I haven’t seen since the 2011 PAX East. I got to see Keegan and Paul for the first time at PAX. Then I realized who they were in relation to TalkRadar and when they got mentioned. Keegan for hanging out with Tyler Wilde Winter of 2009, and Paul about the Prince of Persia IMAX conversion process giving the spoiler of a CGI ostrich race. Saw Jason and Warner again, and this year got to talk to them more. Also got to talk to another Jeremy but he had shorter hair compared to the Jeremy of Buffalo.
Ted Rossi joked about how women suffrage ruin the traditional family and how those extra responsibilities hurt women in the long run. He might have been quoting his grandfather who said it very seriously around the house. I said women suffrage started at the very end of Woodrow Wilson’s presidency, which other people were amazed that besides TalkRadar I knew a lot about history on the spot.
Casey was ready to fight people that stared at her for more than 3 seconds at a time. Then she would respond “Do you wanna go?” Casey and Jeremy went on to talk about growing up in Buffalo, and Casey was like “You understand me.” All of the subdivisions and cities in the Buffalo area are named after where Native American tribes were massacred. They both came to the conclusion that Orchard Tree was the highest concentration of biggest stuck up cunts There was one time where Casey felt uncomfortable being wedged in between Ted Rossi and Chris Antista which Chris responded “You don’t like Rotisserie?” Chris Antista said Ted was a Grizzly Gay Bear that would sex other men, which Ted was not a fan of. Even if he was only pounding dudes, but never get pounded by them. Rossi stated he is 100% 180 degree angle straight.
Another conversation I heard was with Brett saying when he asked Seth Killian about time it went on for 45 minutes. Richard Colina, got to meet Chris and Brett for the first time which he talked a lot about the new Devil May Cry and Majora’s Mask. At the Sam Adams bar Brett Elston said he had a minor in philosophy, which I didn’t know. He said minors all bullshit and just show you took a lot more classes. He liked Thomas Hobbes and John Locke for how concise their viewpoints were and that Rene Descartes was full of shit.
Jeremy “TastiestJamb” had a story of going to a bar in Dorchester where the bartender pulled a knife on him. He asked him where he was there was Jeremy replied “To drink.” At the end of the day, the bartender said “Come back tomorrow and a round would be on us.” Jeremy probably didn’t go back. Tastiest Jamb was a fan of First Person Soda Drinker on the Indie show floor.
After the Sam Adams pub, we went to the Rock Band freeplay. Casey sang Misery Business by Paramore, with Elston on drums and Antista on guitar. I started jumping up and down. I even did rolls and breakdance arm spins which on carpet was a huge mistake. My elbows had carpet burn but nothing too excessive. I needed water and I was disoriented. People thought I was going to pass out, which I look more tired than I look.
There was a Saturday badge lying around the RocK Band free play. I said whoever’s badge this is it is no good because today is Sunday.
While waiting for the Rock Band Freeplay, I offered Chris Antista a grape which he was suspicious. He had his reasons.
At the Rock Band freeplay I saw Sery and asked what happened in Round 3 of the Omegathon. The Jenga round got tense people in the front shouted “3 2 1, JUMP!”
After the Rock Band freeplay we went to the Westin City Bar and got something to drink. Tastiest Jamb bought me a Coors light, which it was the first time I drank 75% of a beer before I couldn’t drink anymore. He was about to give one to Ryan Davis, until circumstances changed. I saw Karrisa Barrows at the city bar. Was identifiable by the Omeganaut shirt.
At the City Bar, I told Casey I was going to drink a shot of Unicorn Jizz which she said it’s is not a shot, it is a glass. Also it is really sweet. The sweetest jizz she has ever tasted.
Chris talked about what was it like to live in his apartment complex in San Francisco. Which there are a lot of bears. For some of the group he views the lifestyle as being lazy, and giving up on taking care of yourself. Chris Antista is also concerned about public appearance and doesn’t want to look like he puts on Unfuckable smell pussy repellent.
During the city bar Chris Antista got to answer some questions that were very neat to know. For example Deep Silver paid 100,000 for the 20 minute video series Chris Antista and GR crew did for the Game Dead Island. Also the ship at sea scene cost 60,000+ dollars. A huge amount of money. Also Chris went to e-smoking since it cost $1 a day compared to $20 smoking 2 packs of cigarettes. Chris saves over $130 a week e-smoking. Chris Antista went to PC gamer due to forced transfer and left as soon as he could for another job. He had lots of respect for PC gamer. Chris Antista lost some game cred when he said “Did you see the midget Kratos?” Which turned out to be the psycho midget from Borderlands and we all laughed at him.
At the City Bar, I got to meet Rob Smith current Editor and Chief of Machinima. Other people were like whatever, but I said I remember reading lots of PC Gamer when I was 13 and 14 because my school library had a subscription. It got me into PC Gaming even more, and I learned more about PC hardware. I said I enjoyed his presence on TalkRadar 29 when he talked about Rogue Leaders, and while I didn’t read the book, I repeated about most of the stuff he mentioned which he was impressed I remembered so vividly. Due to that he wanted to get in contact with me, which I wrote down my twitter handle and he’s following me.
Afterwards a group of 6 waited for a cab and I talked to Brett Elston. We talked about how Japan is different. Also about the mystery of Mike Grimm. People want the Grimm. We thought of awesome kickstarter ideas to get Mike to come to PAX. Also Brett mentioned PAX East 2012 and 2013 fell in the same fiscal year, which from a corporate standpoint, it looked wasteful. I took a cab and went to bed at 3:17 AM. I was up for 20.5 hours doing a lot of things that day.
Sunday
I woke up at 6:51 AM due to the sunrise, despite only having 3.5 hours of sleep. I couldn’t get back to sleep, but lied in bed for the next hour. No way I was going to get to the convention at 7:40 AM like the previous days.
I got to the convention center around 9AM. On the expo show floor there was 6 to 8 beachballs. 2 of them were giant. Also someone brought an inflatable dolphin that was surfed up and down the queue line. There was also an inflatable pig that was being tossed around. In line I talked to some people that later discovered I was the person PAX East 2012 Friday where “This is why we can’t have nice things!” was directed towards.
When the show floor opened up the first thing I went to see was Watch_Dogs. Watch Dogs is a very ambitious game and if it can deliver on its premise it would be in my Top 5 games of 2013. Depending on how reckless you are with a mission, there will be in game news reports telling how many people died on your pursuit of revenge.
After WatchDogs I went to sign up for the Beautiful Katamari tournament. From reading the sheet Richard Colina also signed up. I text messaged him and he was in the console freeplay. During the wait for the tournament we played Street Fighter 2 Turbo Edition and quoted TalkRadar or our experiences so far at PAX East.
The Beautiful Katamari tournament was the the first 32 entrants, single elimination. We played versus mode on the street level. When the round start, I was behind on collecting mushrooms by 40 to 50. I went up the waterfall, collected mushrooms to be on par with my opponent and in the last 20 seconds, I pulled ahead with the lead, since I manage to be in the area where mushrooms were spawning at the end. It was an impressive come from behind win.
The second round I faced even a better opponent. I got way behind, my opponent had 60 to 80 more mushrooms at the peak. He was laying waste to me. He was auto targeting and rolling me up. Luckily I manage to retreat up the waterfall again like the previous round and collect mushrooms. Luckily he was too big to chase me up the waterfall. When I came down, I was on par size wise with him. Soon it became a race for him to hold onto his lead. My tactics were the same like the last round. I rolled over the areas that had freshly spawned mushrooms and I won in the final second by collecting 1 more mushroom than him by a score of 223 to 222. I had so much adrenaline going through my system, and the 20 people that watched me play cheered and was amazed at my performance. Richard said to me “That was some real Daigo performance right there.” I got a cheap Made in China Winner medal for that performance. Unfortunately I lost in the round of 8, but I had 2 amazing comebacks.
After that Richard and I went to the tabletop freeplay where we played a game of Wiz War with Nate and Nate’s bro. It is a very technical game like most tabletop RPG games.
Richard and I still had time to kill before the RA meetup so we went to the Bioware Base. I wanted to get my copies of Mass Effect 1 and 2 signed by Raphael Svarge but I was 2 people late. Karissa Barrows was there. Later on facebook not to brag or anything, was friends with him and could have gotten to sign my games if I asked her then. Karissa Barrows was a recurring character through my PAX East 2013 journey. Anyway I sat through the Thedas Unlocked panel even though I have no experiences with the Dragon Age games. Richard had an excellent question who would voice act for Bob the lonely human sculpture in the Dragon Age games which he replied Gilbert Gottfried.
After the panel Richard and I walked to the main lobby for the RA meetup. While at the main lobby I saw the Enforcer Plaidlad, which he asked if I was going to be at PAX Prime and it was going to be 4 days. Also he was going to be on the show floor until 1AM helping to pack up stuff. The meetup took place in the hallway leading to the queue room, which I understood where that was. The only people that were present were Alex, Mitch, Matt, Willy, Jake, Richard, Sonya, and I. Alex, Mitch, and Matt signed my RA notebook. I got Alex’s RA 50 notes, and concept art of Big Bob, BBQ Hut. The meetup was about 45 minutes long.
Afterwards Richard and I took a cab to the Protomen show only to buy tickets to the wrong event and to find out the Protomen performed at 11PM and not 7PM. 7PM was just when tickets were on sale. After that kerfuffle, we went back to the apartment. Big Bang Theory was playing on the TV so like any good human being I muted it. Due to being dead tired, we went to bed at 8:40 PM.
Monday
Richard and I got in a cab and headed for the airport at 8AM. At the airport I saw Sarahagain, i n which we took the same flight to and from Boston. Where we chatted about our PAX experiences, and our flight was delayed by 5 hours.
I sat at the near the wing of the Boeing 717-200. Looking out I saw that there was a piece of treated plywood held together by 2 screws. Also the screws holding in the overhead bins were loose. When there was a slight turbulence the overhead bins shooked like they were sloshed with water. I was happy that no one died.
I had an excellent time at PAX East 2013, and I look forward to PAX East 2014.
