PAX East 2011 Day 1

Well day one was quite amazing as to be expected. I did skip the keynote speech for reasons I already went over (and will prolly do a follow up to that soon anyways). Let's start with a few highlights for me.

[Quick side note, the pictures look like ass because they were taken with my phone camera. Taking a real camera today to get some MUCH better pics]

First off, I am happy to report that I am starting to think I was wrong about 38 Studios and Kingdoms of Amalur. Now full disclosure; I did get the shake Curt Schilling's hand, and as a huge RedSox fan, that is kind of awe inspiring. I didn't get any pictures though much to my chagrin. Anyways, the game looked reasonably solid, considering the gameplay demo we got was a pre-alpha build. One thing that really impressed me about Curt's attitude is that he is fully aware that KoA is not breaking any new ground as a fantasy RPG, but he wants it to be the absolute best. He is going for the Die-Hard effect (topic of a future post). The game right now looks an awful lot like Fable to me with more of a focus on fast paced, combo driven combat. To be honest the demo looked like a hell of a lot of fun, with really fast paced and visceral combat, beautiful visuals, and an interface that seemed very streamlined and functional, yet potentially as deep as many hardcore RPG nerds demand. Of course he is going to have some stiff competition in 2011.

I did spend some time in the expo hall as well checking out all the booths and what some AAA and indie developers had to offer and I am sorry to say there is really nothing new to report. Gears of War 3 looks an awful lot like GOW2, Battlefield 3 looks an awful like like BF2BC, COD, and all the rest of the military shooters to the point I couldn't discern (and I am sure it will sell accordingly), BioWare had a short playable version of TOR that looked exactly like it does in all the videos, and Bethesda had a multiplayer build of Brink for people to play that, once again, looks an awful lot like other online shooters on the market. Lots of fun to check everything out, but no new revelations.

On the floor I really enjoyed the Kingston booth, where they had EGiNcontroL playing Starcraft 2 against challengers from the crowd while being cast live by professional shoutcaster Day[9]. I have to say it is really exciting to be there, surrounded by an enthusiastic crowd, watching high(er) level live matches. There was one game when the challenger got almost all of his army blown up by blings and just hearing the crowd holler and jeer was almost reminiscent of any professional sporting event I have been to. It really makes me want to pursue my thought of getting a small, local tournament up and running (more to come on that).

Regardless there was a lot of gaming, a lot of Magic the Gathering, a lot of great booths and great sights, and I got to meet a lot of amazing people already. Day 2, here we come!!