Knifey's PAX bloggin': Friday! (Includes Luchalicking by Vinny)
by knifeyspoony
Hey hi, how you guys doin'? Hopefully well after you read this PAX blog part deuce! Nerds outdoors? The f- So Friday started off with the line up before the show started to get into the expo hall/get swag bags. They actually had everyone line up outdoors this time, which was odd, refreshing and inconvenient. I say this because of the large bottlenecks that formed as a result. It was actually ni...
Hey hi, how you guys doin'? Hopefully well after you read this PAX blog part deuce!
Nerds outdoors? The f- So Friday started off with the line up before the show started to get into the expo hall/get swag bags. They actually had everyone line up outdoors this time, which was odd, refreshing and inconvenient. I say this because of the large bottlenecks that formed as a result. It was actually nice to see another area of the convention center, as well as some nature.
We're moving! Also pikachu The show begins!/Demonstration of RAGE
After getting in we spent an hour or two in the show floor, checking the layout and making notes of what we want to come back to. We made a stop over at the LucasArts booth, where my friend wanted to play some Force Unleashed 2. They also had The Old Republic available to play, but for whatever reason we completely ignored it all 
Shakey Vader Cam weekend. Now, Force Unleashed 2, I didn't play it myself, but what I saw looked very nice. It seems a lot more polished than what I remember from the first game. All in all, after about 5-10 minutes of watching it looked like more of the same to me. You could throw them crates at people and do some neat things with lightning. New things I saw were dismemberment, which looked odd since it's from a lightsaber, so there wasn't anything more than a head/arm popping off. What I heard was that it controlled better as well. I don't remember there being much of an issue with the first game in terms of controls, but I guess whenever "better" is used that's a good thing.Moving on, we come to our first panel of the show, which was a demonstration of RAGE. I was/am still excited to see more of this game, so this panel proved to be entertaining as heck. They were showing off areas on the 360 version, confirming everything will run at 60 frames yada yada. They were also describing their "mega-textures" which they explained, gives them the ability to make every area look unique and vivid.
To be honest I couldn't tell you how exactly that works, but seeing it for myself, the environments definitely look detailed and interesting/unique.
Unfortunately we couldn't take pictures of anything so you'll have to take my word for it, it looks great. In terms of gameplay, it appears to be pretty standard, though they were talking a lot about how they wanted everything to be as fluid as possible. That is, switching between abilities/weapons and using them as seamlessly as possible. There was also a nice demonstration of the gore they have, people explode nice and the decapitations from their razor boomerang thing looked satisfying. It was about a 30 minute demo before they went to Q&A where we decided to leave. I was left wanting to see more, so kudos to ID.
Now I'm going to cut to the chase as I teased about what was to come enough, the
GiantBomb Live panel!
Yes yes! This was my most looked forward to panel of the weekend, so we got in line nice and early in the Sheraton for it. I guess now is the time I should mention that jim_dandy and I had the idea long ago to get Luchadore masks and wear them at the panel. So much of our time spent was getting the masks ready, as I wanted to get rid of the grated eyes and jim_dandy had to cut out eyes for his because the manufacturer forgot to. We had a bit of an issue even after sorting the eye sockets. The size of the masks were made for a "one size fits all" but we found it sort of didn't fit either of us. My head was too small for mine and jim_dandy's head was too big. Therefore, we made one winning combination of luchadores. Driadon was also hanging out with us, so he can comment on how ridiculous we looked. Pictures too, those help as evidence, so here you go!
B| 
Yup Now, the recording of the actual panel (both audio and video) were uploaded a while ago so I won't comment too much on it. But, it was awesome. Having Pachter on with Jeff Green and Gary Whitta was a hilarious surprise as was the Johnny V Ice-T readings. I have some pictures from the actual panel I'll have uploaded to the flickr account. After it finished jim and Driadon left to go do things of sorts but I decided to stick around to chat with some people.
I was a lone luchadore waiting with a camera, hoping to get a chance to talk with Drew and Vinny a bit. While waiting Johnny V, Adam Boyes, Gary Whitta and Jeff Green were all makin' the chats and such so I got a couple of shots of them which I thought was awesome.
Oh Jeff Green, you blocked Whitta! 
Much better! But this wasn't it! After this I chatted with Drew a bit, he continues to be a relaxed cool dude to talk to, despite talking to some idiot in a luchadore mask. I got a chance to talk with Norm Chan as well and found out he was a Berkeley student too! Nice guy, happy to talk with him for a few minutes. Then, the highlight of the night, as I got my chance to talk to Vinny and get a couple pictures. The following you are about to see was completely impromptu and not influenced by me in any way (though I might have stumbled across Vinny's turn on). These were taken by Norm by the way, so give thanks!
So that really brings my Friday at PAX to an end. Saw some stuff, did some stuff, got licked by Vinny, all in all a productive day.
Hope you've enjoyed it as well! There are still a couple of blogs to come so look forward to those within the next few days!
I know my coverage seems sparse of the expo floor, but I promise to write more about that in the next two as that's when I saw most of them.
Take care.