Day one of the PAX expo is officially over and I have some pictures and information about the exhibitions to talk about. The day started harmlessly enough, we queued in the queue room to wait for the exhibition hall to open. While we waited the enforcers made sure we were not bored by entertaining us with internet memes and blow up beach balls.
The exhibition hall was absolutely packed with game companies, attendees, and people handing out free stuff. One of the first places I stopped at was the Dragon Age booth to play the game demo. I am really looking forward to this game. I was a fan before attending pax and after playing the demo my feelings have not changed for better or worse. We had to use the xbox 360 controller to play the game and while the interface was decent bordering good, Dragon Age might be a bit technical for a standard console controller. I was told that the pc version will have a much different ui centered around the keyboard and mouse which has always been my favorite controller.
Blizzard wins the award for best booth in my opinion. They did not do anything too fancy, they just setup twenty or so computers with playable demos for Starcraft 2, Diablo 3 and World of Warcraft Cataclysm. Even though Blizzard can easily afford to have three major games in development their booth was both simple and to the point. The line for each computer was at least 4 people long all throughout the day; as such I did not actually play any of the games.
Other notable booths include Wizards of the Coast and Bioshock 2. I enjoyed WoC’s booth because they had gm’s running participants through dungeons in dnd 4. They had computers setup to generate characters which you would then use to participate in a short session right there in the exhibition hall. The noise in the hall must have made it really hard to hear the gm for the most part; but I thought it was a neat idea.
Bioshock 2′s booth wins the award for most creative. They put a movie set up with old fashioned furnishings complete with radio, typewriter, etc. The room was messy, papers and books all over the place. There were clues written on papers and letters; all in all it was a very unique booth and I am afraid my picture does not quite do it justice. The actually footage of the game available at the show was no different than what is available online.
There are panels at pax, where experts talk to a crowded room about certain things; I went to a couple today but I will hold off on writing about those until later. Some of the data or ideas they present are interesting so I want to write a review and critique of all the panels I go to in one article.
