PAX East 2013

Last weekend, I took the bus up to Boston to join my friend John and his brother Joe for PAX East. For those of you who don't know, PAX is a video game convention that started as an annual event in Seattle in 2004. Now there's a PAX East in Boston, and a PAX Australia coming up this year, but let's be honest, PAX Prime in Seattle is where it's at. Granted, I'm just grateful that I was able to attend any of them. The reason why it's such a big deal is that it's a chance for average gamers to check out what games publishers have coming up in the next year or so, and talk to representatives from the developers or publishers. PAX is really dedicated to providing gamers with access that normally only games journalists get.

I know this blog is supposed to be about life in New York, but I'm counting a trip to Boston for PAX East as part of life in New York. It's a huge opportunity for me to attend it, either in Boston or in Seattle, and many people from New York thought the same way as me and made the trip.

My alarm was set 8:30 on Saturday, because I wanted to get out to the convention center fairly early. I convinced John and Joe to plan for an early day, and they were happy to get out to the convention center early as well. I made sure to bring a backpack, because you want a place to store a coat and all the free swag you get. Plus, I was able to leave my 3DS on sleep mode in the backpack. All three of us made sure to bring our 3DSs, because there's a very cool feature that allows you to share your Mii with other people's 3DSs that are on nearby. It does this automatically, and Streetpass (the name of the feature) proved to be a huge hit at the show for us.

The first game we went to play was Transistor, the next project that Supergiant Games is working on. Supergiant is the studio behind Bastion, one of the games of the year in 2011 and just an all-around incredible game. Transistor looks to follow in Bastion's footsteps while branching out in some new ways, including a cool combat system that is a mix between real-time and turn-based combat. The line to play it was a chance for us to use Streetpass, and get closer to our goal of getting a Mii from every state and many different countries.

A beautiful Bastion poster I purchased. Love that game.

After walking around the show floor for a while longer, we decided to go see round two of the Omegathon, a tournament held at PAX every show. The game selected for the second round was NBA Jam: On Fire, which is a favorite of mine for its crazy gameplay and entertaining multiplayer. Every time someone in the tournament played as the Celtics, they were cheered for, while teams playing as the Heat or Lakers were booed relentlessly. Unfortunately for all the Boston fans, neither team playing as the Celtics was very good, evidenced by them selecting an Allen/Pierce lineup instead of an Allen/Garnett lineup. We decided to leave after 4 games had been played

By that time, it was 2:40, and we were hungry. The convention center in Boston is near the waterfront, meaning it is relatively isolated and there is very little food besides what was available at the convention center. We decided to take the T to Downtown Crossing and go to Five Guys. On the silver line bus there, we all got a Mii from the tiny British territory of Anguilla, which is an island east of Puerto Rico. AJ from Anguilla, you're kind of a legend to us!

The Five Guys location had a Coca Cola freestyle machine, so I was able to enjoy some peach Fanta with my burger. Try it and thank me later. We headed back to the convention center and wandered the show floor for a while before going to the PC freeplay area. They had a couple hundred PCs set up with a good selection of games for people to play. Before, we had discussed making our names in-game the same as famous sports commentators and using their catchphrases in-game to troll everyone. I chose to impersonate Gus Johnson, which I did by yelling into the mic the player's name whenever someone was killed in Team Fortress 2 (what we were playing). Joe summoned up his best Dick Vitale impression, yelling "Yeah babay!!!" and "Upset city babay!!!" among other great Dickie V lines (and typing #dickievpicks in the chat). We were all laughing the whole time, and it summed up the sort of goonery (I'm making that a word) with friends that I love about PAX.

I didn't get as much sleep as I wanted that night, but thankfully there was a 5 Hour Energy booth with free samples outside the expo hall, which we had been stockpiling. After waiting in line for bag check, as I left for the bus straight from the convention center, I had gotten a lot of new Miis through Streetpass. By the end of the show, I had gotten someone from every state on the east coast!

We checked out the new Pokemon Mystery Dungeon game, which just left me wanting to play a Pokemon game from the main series, before heading to the show floor. The Nintendo booth on the main show floor was poorly organized, so we left without playing anything, though we did get lots of Streetpass Miis from the great state of Washington. Nvidia was showing off a handheld gaming platform they were working on, so we tried that, but it just didn't seem ready to compete with the 3DS. Maybe with the Vita though.

Google Maps on WiiU?

Finding a place to eat lunch was an adventure, because we saw this deli on the map, but didn't know where it was. Turns out, it was in the Boston Globe building near there, but it was closed! We ended up taking the silver line to South Station and getting Regina's Pizza there. The day ended with us spending a lot of time in the handheld lounge and laughing at the random Streetpass Miis we got. Somehow, I had someone from South Dakota before I got to PAX East. I would guess that was at PAX Prime in Seattle. We picked up Miis from Japan, the UK, and Nova Scotia. Unfortunately, most of the Canadian Miis didn't have a province specified, so we lamented them not just SAYING they are from Nunavut or the Northwest Territories. How else am I supposed to get a Mii from there? Oh well.

PAX went by way too fast and was very exhausting, but the chance to hang out with friends, laugh, and enjoy our shared passion for video games was great. I can't wait to go to PAX Prime in Seattle this August!