PAX 2008
CONCEPT
The 2008 Penny Arcade Expo (PAX) took place at the Washington State Convention & Trade Center in Seattle, Washington on August 29-31.

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Overview

PAX 08 was the first year to expand outside of the Washington State Convention & Trade Center across the street into the Pike Street Annex, which housed the entirety of the show's tabletop gaming as well as the Serpent Theatre.  The show officially began at 2:00 PM on Friday, August 29th, and was kicked off by an inspiring keynote speech from Ken Levine (Person).

Level 2 of the venue was home to two separate handheld gaming lounges with Sumo chairs, the console freeplay rooms, a Rock Band (Game) freeplay stage, and the Raven Theatre.  Along with the console freeplay rooms was a checkout area that worked much like a public library of gaming where attendees could check out systems, games, and/r accessories to be used in the nearby rooms.

Level 3 of the convention center was where attendees could find the Wolfman Theatre as well as a classic console gaming freeplay room, the console tournament area, and another handheld gaming lounge where dozens of people collapsed in beanbag chairs to take a break from the expo hall or just to hang out and collect pins in The World Ends With You.

Level 4, the largest level of the WSCTC, is where the heart of PAX lived.  The Main Theatre was the place for, among other events, the keynote speech, the Penny Arcade (Franchise) Q&A's and Create a Strip, and the Friday/Saturday night concerts including The One Ups, Freezepop, Jonathan Coulton (Person), Anamanaguchi, and MC Frontalot.  Right next to the Main Theatre was the Line Up Room, equally as large as the theatre, yet devoted solely to lining up thousands of attendees for the next big event.  Just outside of the Line Up Room was the registration desk.  Just around the corner was the PC Area, which consisted of ongoing tournaments as well as an area for those who brought their own computers.  Walrus Theatre was crammed into a corner near the escalators, and Band Land was spread across the skybridge leading to the enormous Exhibit Hall.

The Exhibit Hall was home to dozens of developers and publishers showing off all kinds of games.  Notable games of PAX 2008 including Ubisoft's Prince of Persia and Far Cry 2 (Game); Valve's Left 4 Dead (Game); BioWare (Company)'s Dragon Age: Origins (Game); Bethesda Softworks (Company)' Fallout 3 (Game); Harmonix's Rock Band 2 (Game); Activision (Company)'s Guitar Hero World Tour (Game); Microsoft's Fable II (Game) and Gears of War 2 (Game); Sony's LittleBigPlanet (Game), Resistance 2 (Game), and MotorStorm: Pacific Rift; Midway's Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe (Game); Blizzard's StarCraft II and World of Warcraft: Wrath of the LichKing; THQ (Company)'s Red Faction Guerilla and Warhammer Dawn of War II; and EA's Mirror's Edge and Spore (Game).

PAX 08 ended with the Omegathon Finals, which featured a head-to-head battle on the Japan-only release of Vs. Excitebike (Game).  The final count for PAX 08 attendance was 58,500.     

Giant Bomb @ PAX 08

  • Giant Bomb Reunion Tour 2008
Part 1 - Intro to the Other Thing, Too Human (Game) Hip Hop Video, What is Giant Bomb?
Part 2 - Catching Up with Alex Navarro (Person), Matt Rorie, and Rich Gallup (Person);  How Giant Bomb Works
Part 3 - Alex Has a Cat, Giant Bomb's Obscure Gems, Internet Game Coverage, Game Reviews
Part 4 - LL Cool Brad, Career Advice, Q&A
Part 5 - More Q&A
* Giant Bomb @ PAX 2008
Ryan & Vinny do Bon Jovi 

Jeff talks to Matt Rorie about NWN2: Storm of Zehir 

Jeff talks to Alex Navarro (Person) about Rock Band 2 (Game)
 

 

Omegathon

The Omegathon is an annual tournament held at PAX that pits 20 randomly selected attendees in a three day marathon of games that span the spectrum of the gaming universe.  After each round, some participants are eliminated.  Each year, the final game is held secret until moments before the final two Omeganauts enter battle.    At this years event, Jerry "Tycho" Holkins and Mike "Gabe" Krahulik decided to put the final two Omeganauts into battle within a classic game, but a version that likely neither had ever played.  That game was Vs. Excitebike, which is a splitscreen version of Excitebike (Game) released only in Japan (Location) for the NES.  The final Omeganauts played a best of seven series, which was won by Joey Geko in a sweep, 4-0.    Round 1 

Peggle (Game)    
Round 2 
Boom Blox (Game) 
Round 3 
Pictionary (Game) 
Round 4 
Rock Band 2 (Game) 
Round 5 
Jenga 
Round 6 
Vs. Excitebike 
 

 

The PAX 10

Dozens of indie games were submitted for review by a panel of industry professionals (and Gabe and Tycho).  The cream of the crop were selected to be showcased on the show floor as part of the first annual PAX 10.     

The Amazing Brain Train 
Developer: Grubby Games  
Genre: Puzzle/Strategy  

AudioSurf 

Developer: Dylan Fitterer (Person), Elizabeth Fitterer, Paladin 3D, Pedro Camacho, Albert Park, Flynn Joffray
Genre: Rhythm/Racer 
 

Chronotron 

Developer: Scarybug Games  Genre: Puzzle/Platformer 
 

Impulse 

Developer: Team Xplosion from the Rochester Institute of Technology  Genre: Puzzle 
 

The Maw (Game) 

Developer: Twisted Pixel Games (Company)  Genre: Action/Adventure 
 

Polarity 

Developer: Graduate Students from Carnegie Mellon University  Genre: Platform/Puzzle  
  Project Aftermath (Game) 
Developer: Games Faction 
Genre: Tactical/Action 
 

''''Schizoid 

Developer: Torpex Games  Genre: Action/Strategy 
 

Strange Attractors 2 

Developer: Ominous Development, LLC  Genre: Puzzle/Strategy 
 

Sushi Bar Samurai 

Developer: Molly Rocket  Genre: Exploratory Puzzle 
  

 

SWAG

    

  

Exhibitors

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PAX 2008
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PAX 08,Penny Arcade Expo 2008
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