Knifey's Sunday bloggeromanji (Tanuki + Knifey included)
by knifeyspoony
Time for me to wrap up my PAX blogs with this Sunday edition, unless I feel like making another with some random subject that is loosely connected to the events of a week ago. Stage Demo of Star Wars The Old Republic Sunday started off with a bang with a stage demo of Bioware's new MMO that has me thinking I may, possibly, subscribe for an MMO for the first time ever, we'll see. They showed off...
Time for me to wrap up my PAX blogs with this Sunday edition, unless I feel like making another with some random subject that is loosely connected to the events of a week ago.
Stage Demo of Star Wars The Old RepublicSunday started off with a bang with a stage demo of Bioware's new MMO that has me thinking I may, possibly, subscribe for an MMO for the first time ever, we'll see. They showed off an exclusive look of the Trooper class, which actually looks pretty awesome. They used a skill that was like an area of effect that looked fun, it involved explosions. They also showed us a glimpse of the Sith Jedi and the Bounty Hunter class. The Smuggler was mentioned, but they did not show live footage running of it.
They also ran through an event that was released a week or two before of a mission involving the killing or releasing of a ship captain, and then fighting an oncoming attack from the republic. I'm not sold on the art style, in fact a lot of the models look ugly, but the combat looks fun and engaging and the lightsaber duels against other jedi look really good. Overall I am super excited to hear more about the game, what Bioware is doing with fully voiced dialogue and allowing multiple people on the mission to engage in the same conversation I find quite interesting.
Afterwards we were given our codes for a free copy of the original KOTOR for steam, which I've played a ton of since.
Random mucking about on the show floor
This afternoon was really our downtime to check out any games that we overlooked and wanted to check out. I had heard good things about Ron Gilbert's Deathspank and Shank earlier and wanted to make sure I got to know what exactly those games were.
-Deathspank
Giant bomb has a video up of this game, but if you haven't seen it or listened to this week's podcast, it's a Diablo-esque RPG with aspects from Monkey Island. My friends and I talked a bit with the main audio director about it and then watched a stage demo of it and it looked great. My interest was definitely piqued when I saw all of the gameplay aspects in an awesome pop up book style 3d environment. They said they are shooting for 2010, hopefully they make it because I am definitely looking forward to it.
-Shank
There is a ton of footage of this game around as I write this blog now, but before all of the PAX footage, I don't think anyone had a clue what it was. I actually got to play the demo of this at their booth and it felt like a really well thought out 2d side scrolling action game. The combos and just switching between moves with the three weapons (shanks, chainsaw, guns) animated very well, it looked very fluid. The reason for this good animation seemed to be in the art style they used for the game, which looks as though it is a cartoon. Funny enough, they have people working on the game who animated for cartoon network, and it definitely shows. I'm interested to see what kind of variety they add to the game to keep it from feeling repetitive.
-Brink
Man, people really want that shirt We noticed that there was a demo going on soon for Brink, sadly no footage was allowed to be taken during. With that said, the game did make a good impression on me. Lucky for me the bombcast discussed this game as well this week. This is the FPS that incorporates a parkour aspect to it. If you press a button your guy will scale obstacles in his way as best as the SMART system sees fit. During the demo they were giving, they demonstrated the usefulness of this by getting to higher ground very quickly by jumping across platforms and climbing up. The game also featured a neat way of accessing missions through a clickwheel that could be brought up at any time, these tasks dealt with various objectives that helped in the overall progression of the mission.
They also featured these access points from which you could change your class and weapon load out, which could relate to an objective picked. This will also factor into co-op as everyone will be able to tell which task you are trying to achieve, at least this is what I am piecing together, I am not positive on the exact details. The game had a fairly in depth character customization to it as well, which started with picking a faction (yes, there are two factions) which I guess means there will be two different campaigns for the single player/co-op. I'm tentatively interested to see what they do with this game as they have some interesting ideas that make this game look fresh in my eyes.
-MAG
I got to play a couple of minutes of this while our group hung out at the Sony booth and all I can say is it was hectic. They have an indicator to point out when shots are being fired around you, and in what direction, this was constantly on while I was running around. Also, there was no sound, or rather a low volume set, so I could not tell what a lot of the stuff was that was happening. I got a battlefield 2 vibe from it, only with less running around alone. You are constantly in the thick of the action, at least from what I played.
Here, have some random images I snapped around the show floor, another barrage of images (excuse the expletives in the captions):
Yeah man, check that guy out, DAMN. 
CRAPSAUCE, IT'S MOTHA F'N SCRIBBLENAUTS! 
Ratchet is running pretty fast huh? No, I just didn't have a very fast shutter speed 
Nathan Drake, lookin' good, and I mean goooooooooooooooood 
So jealous of this Forza 3 setup 
HEAVY RAIN?! HOT FUCK! 
TWO PICS!? HOLY SHIT KNIFEY YOU CAMERA MASTERMIND, beard approves I didn't play any of the games pictured, but if anyone has questions about them I can try to answer them as I watched them a fair amount, minus scribblenauts.
Oh no, it's starting to wrap up :(
After a long time hanging out in the exhibit floor, accompanied with the lack of sleep from the past three nights, we were exhausted and decided to hang out with Tanuki a last time before we left for good. We met up near this amazing piece of pastel work of Bioshock that was being completed throughout the weekend.
Dang... 
From the floor above, image flipped While we chatted and relaxed, I made sure that my friend got a couple shots of Tanuki and I to remember, a nice gesture yeah? Too bad I can't be normal, as you'll see.
Hey that one isn't so bad minus the fact I was in the middle of giving a smile 
D'aww...Knifey needs to shave 
Tuna couldn't contain the tiger within Final Thoughts To start off, PAX is an amazing event. I've said this to a few already, but it is something I feel anyone with a passion for games and being a nerd needs to experience at some point, hopefully that means soon for those who are maybes for next year. This year topped last year, which was my first PAX, in pretty much every way. It is liberating to be among so many of your own kind, and the shock of it makes it feel like you are not in reality, but rather in some weird nerdy dreamworld fantasy*.
Thanks for reading/viewing, apologies for the flood of images, but I felt it's nicer just to have them all at a viewable size already. Hope to see more of you next year, unless my acts in Tanuki's video have scared you away forever.
*Here is pictorial evidence of what I mean
HOLY SHITS, WTF, LOLOLOL YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH