Shiggy

0 comments by Shiggy on Aug 31st, 2008 digg this super bookmark

     The first northwestern convention to have a hold on the gaming community since Comic-Con is here for another installment of geek gathering and internet innuendos. Penny Arcade Expo, or PAX, is an annual gaming festival that is hosted throughout the state of Washington. The most recent installment was hosted at the Washington State Convention Center which is located in downtown Seattle. PAX was created by Jerry Holkins and Mike Krahulik, the authors of the famous webcomic, Penny Arcade. Their main focus has been finding ways to contribute to the gaming community, whether it be through hosting a gaming convention, making a webcomic, or creating a charity for children (Child's Play).

     The convention began with the entry line, which squeezed tons of sweaty gamers who wreaked of bad body odor into one room, in order to keep some sort of organization before the the mad rush to the Exhibition Hall. Unfortunately, the line barely moved for an hour, and seeing the same faces over and over again was not exactly the most reasuring experience, since it gave the false illusion of progression.

To give you a sense of how big the line was, I took a picture.

We were halfway through the line as well, so you are only seeing about half of the picture. The convention finally kicked off when we got to the entrance to the Exhibition Hall.

     The wait was over... or so we thought. When we got inside, we immediately saw the Left4Dead stand, with it's giant box-shaped setup that glowed green. We decided to check it out, only to be saddened because the wait to play was over two hours. We were hopeful, though, since we also saw Fallout 3, and Little Big Planet nearby. However, their lines were no shorter, and seemed to be the main games of the show. All the games displayed at PAX appeared to have a playable demo for them, including Starcraft II, Dead Space, Spore, Guitar Hero: World Tour, and the games already listed before. For two full days, I had a hard time even seeing everything that was in the Exhibition Hall due to the overwhelming turn out from companies.

To help you get a feel for how it was inside, I'll give you a picture of people playing Left4Dead.

     There was also the not to be forgotton display of the documentary Nerdcore Rising. The movie follows MC Frontalot as he begins his first tour which in the end leads him to PAX. Frontalot is recognized as the grandfather of Nerdcore, which is a subgenre of Hip-Hop which focuses on the themes that revolve around the common life of a nerd. And, funny enough, most of the audience connected with the jokes that were mentioned throughout the video, as well as the songs performed.

     Although the convention isn't over, especially since the all too famous Omegathon is yet to be finished, the two main days have already passed by very quickly, so I feel that I got a good grasp of what was there, and what there is to come in the gaming industry.

Reid Flamm