PAX Prime 2010 – Day 1: The Mis-Adventures of Boris
Day 1 is finished and wow was it packed with goodies. By the end of the day I had nabbed about 11 interviews and about 20 pieces of swag. I didn’t get a chance to really play anything today though, I just talked to people about games I thought you guys would be interested to hear. We’ll get the interviews together and do them in either podcast form, or embed them in the game specific posts. This post is going to strictly be a Day 1 overview and summary of what I saw and am excited about.
First thing I saw was the giant queue at the door. I was herded into my compartment with the rest of the gamer sheep and was presented with a giant screen, a command prompt prominently displayed telling jokes and playing random humorous videos. I especially enjoyed the video game the screen eventually displayed for the crowd to play. Now when I say the crowd played the game, I literally mean the crowd was the controller. As the crowd swayed to one side or the other, the character on the screen slid left or right. Watching the audience try to figure out collectively how to operate the game was very funny.
And finally into the convention I went. I noticed something I’d never seen before though at a convention. I don’t know if there were multiple queues of people at different entrances (I have to assume there were), but I walked into an area that had some smaller developers prominently displayed. As I walked around the hall, it felt like the large and small companies all had ample space to display their games without the Titan-ous David and Goliath feeling of a convention like E3. Obviously some booths were bigger than others, but overall the booth priority felt more equal.
I started my path rounding the merch booths on the fringe of the convention, some selling retro games, some shirts, until I settled down at the Sega Booth where I ran into Kenneth Balough who you’ll remember from my E3 interview with him on Sonic 4. He told me of the next announced Zone in the game, the Lost Labyrinth and described that there will be 2 unique levels on the consoles that won’t be present on the iPhone version and vice versa, creating an obvious distinction between the two platforms (aside from the whole portable vs console distinction). He also told me about some new Mine Cart riding gameplay which takes its cues from the snowboarding levels in part 3. The game’s still looking great and I’m excited to see it, but I knew that already.
What I didn’t know about was Sonic Colors, a game demoing nearby. This is a sonic game that looks and feels like a 2-D platformer, but has the capability of changing the perspective to have chase sequences and other 3-D gameplay elements. I really found the look of the game to be some of the best modern Sonic design I’ve seen lately. This is one I’m going to make certain I get my hands on tomorrow (which I say for now…).
I continued on to Square Enix’s booth where I met with Mary DeMarle, the Lead Writer for Deus Ex Human Revolution, the newest in the series, also a prequel to the original game. We’ll get you that interview in due time.
From there, Marvel Super Hero Squad, a cute all ages MMO with a CCG tie in game. Here I met with Keith Mutzman who talked about all the different features of the game. It seems like there are three very distinct partitions to the game. There’s the social construct where you can chat with your friends, the missions themselves which play in a type of side scrolling stage progression format, and the card game which played identical to the actual CCG of the same name. The CCG was being played on the other side of the partition, so I got a chance to play for a moment the card game on the video game, then walk around to the otherside and understand what these people were playing. It has a interesting balance of rock-paper-scissors type of strength and weakness, attack and block play with your energy represented by the number of cards in the deck. The art on the cards is fun, so anyone looking for a family friendly card game would do well to give it a look at some time.
It was at this point when I learned the impossible. Standing straight ahead of me was the holy grail of the video games world, the ultimate vapor ware, Duke Nukem Forever!! I couldn’t help but laugh out loud. Then I heard a passerby say it was playable. My immediate reaction was that this was a joke, the booth was setup and as soon as you got inside they tell you to play along. Though with the line I saw there, the joke would be far less funny. There will be a “press-only” hour tomorrow morning, so I’ll swing by at that time and let you know what I think of it.
I found an interesting booth shortly thereafter by the company Tripwire Interactive. They were giving away copies of “The Killing Floor”, a Left 4 Dead type PC game with even more gore and up to 6 player Coop instead of 4. Keep on reading the posts and listening to the podcasts and you may just find yourself winning the copy. Alan Wilson, the VP of Tripwire discussed with me the extensive research they did for their new Red Orchestra game, Heroes of Stalingrad, a WW2 FPS. It sounds like their team really put in the attention to detail that I love to see in WW2 games. You can hear the full detailed account when the interview goes up later on.
Lastly, we discussed “The Ball” a first person puzzler with some interesting Portal similarities. The player has a ball, much like the companion cube, that they use to complete physics puzzles to open the door and delve deeper into the Aztec Ruins in the Volcano. The deeper you get, the more you find what dark forces are at work. The game looks like a lot of fun. I hope we can get a review for you guys when it comes out.
Out on the sky bridge which connects the two halls I found a game which quickly became one of my personal favorites of the day, Swarm. Think of a combination of Lemmings and Pikmin and you have an idea of what Swarm is. It’s a PSN downloadable title that features a swarm of 50 cute little blue round creature, cute funny stupid blue creatures. The puzzle elements come from balancing sacrifice with strategy. Much of the humor comes from the character animations and actions. I had a chat with Executive Producer Joel DeYoung about the process of making the collective, yet individual characterization of the members of the swarm. Take this for example. If you tell the swarm to pick up bombs to throw across the room, some will understand you and pick them up. Others will think they understand you and pick up another member of the swarm, monkey see, monkey do. Now when you release the bomb you get a horribly amusing scene of bombs and swarm members being cast across the screen and blown up. It has a great deal of charm to it and I recommend everyone put this on their watch lists.
Now in the North Hall, I found myself at Disney’s booth where I saw some of Epic Mickey and Tron. Both are looking like they will be fun. It was nice being able to talk with the Environmental Artist, as well as the Character Artist about what it was like working with such a big character like Mickey. Overall it took a lot of research into the old cartoons, so anyone who likes games and has a fondness of nostalgic Mickey will get a great kick out of Epic Mickey. The showing of Tron looked far better today than it did at E3. There were more interesting fight sequences allowing the player to show off more of the exciting acrobatic moves that make me excited for a game like this. There’s some running acrobatics, ala Prince of Persia, along with the melee and disc based fighting which is so very unique to Tron. One of the most interesting points I heard on the game was the multiplayer maps are large enough to be able to jump from light cycle, to on foot and back, making on the fly melee combat easy to initiate and escape from. I wasn’t as sold on the game coming out of E3, but I have to say they have my attention now.
I bounced around for a minute, peeking in on Sony and Microsoft until I saw the Runic Games booth and Torchlight 2. I never really played any Diablo type games, nor Torchlight 1, but Rob made a special note to me to go check this one out and I have to say it’s looking worlds better than the original. I got an interview with Jason Lamb who walked me through some of the features and the game sounds like it’s going to live up and surpass its predecessor quite well. Brian and Rob will have to let you know after they play it.
Nintendo’s booth surprised me. I expected to see Donkey Kong, I expected to see Golden Eye and Kirby, but what I didn’t expect was to see this new and unusual title Fluidity. The gameplay revolves around tilting the controller to lead water through the caverns. The odd part in its presentation is that it seems to be completely contained within a book, or comic book of some kind. The fluid effects reminded me a lot of Pixel Junk’s Shooter. The level being demonstrated was pretty basic, but I see a lot of potential for some interesting puzzles in later stages. Fluidity is another I’m going to make sure I get my hands on.
I took a brief lap through Bethesda’s booth, seeing Brink, Fallout New Vegas and one that I hadn’t seen before, Hunted. It has almost a Heavenly Sword aesthetic to it, but much darker. I don’t know enough about it to discuss too much right now, but I intend to find out more tomorrow.
From there, I wandered unknowingly into what might be my favorite action game of the show, FireFall. It’s an MMO with heavy 3rd person action shooter gameplay. Here’s the scenario they demonstrated. You are on a shoreline. You open a map to see what missions are around and find one close by. You have the option now to go ahead and pursue the objective, or send out a call to arms to your friends and comrades. They may or may not arrive to the waypoint in time depending on where they are in the world, but your mission is happening regardless. It sounds like low commitment team based combat, which could actually make the world feel more real. Other people are our doing their own thing when they suddenly get a call to arms. From there they have to make that decision to help or not. It makes the world just feel that much more alive. After the mission, you go to town to modify your new armor when a giant bug like creature attacks the town, a creature of scale I’ve personally yet to see in an MMO. I don’t play any MMOs and I was stunned. I may need to get off the pot and play this one.
I poked around the independent developer area for a moment, waiting for a panel on journalism to start, when I found Twisted Pixel’s section. If anyone has heard me talk about Splosion Man, they’d know I love the humor of that game. Their newest game, Comic Jumper is no different. The game is saturated with the humor and charm that I expect from Twisted Pixel. You are a failed Comic Book character who seems to fight with his sidekick (who happens to be the logo on his chest) as often as he does the enemies. The game constantly breaks the fourth wall reminding the player that this is a comic book. After playing the level and leaving the hero to fight with his emblem, the camera zoomed out of the comic book panel and showed a child reading the very panel I was actively playing. Even after the camera angle changed so I could no longer see the page, I could still hear the sound effects of me fighting with my costume. I laughed well out loud. I will be back there tomorrow in the hopes I can win their Splosion Man speed run contest and win the Comic Jumper Slim Xbox they have on display. It’s probably unlikely, but I can hope.
For now, I’m off to bed so I can wake up fresh tomorrow and start doing all the great things I said I would in this post. First stop, Duke Nukem Forever. Man, I hope it’s real this time. More on that tomorrow night on Day 2! I hope you enjoy the coverage, ‘cause I can’t see straight at this point. I’m having a blast all the same though. The guys said in their reaction to PAX East earlier in the year that PAX is a refreshing change from the usual conference because of the fan based mentality. I finally see what they’re talking about. It feels far less like an industry event and far more like companies displaying what they like most about themselves. Wish you were here to see it.
What’s a CCG?
Collectable Card Game? Collector’s Card Game? Something something card game?
It’s a trading card game. Like Magic the Gathering. Right?
Yea, CCG = Collectible Card Game. Like Magic, or Bleach, or Pokemon.
Thank you. Great coverage!
Looks like ill have to keep an eye out for swarm.