PAX Coverage: SpyParty and Monaco

By Mumbles Posted Monday Sep 13, 2010

Filed under: Nerd Culture 29 comments

spypartyPAX.jpg

If there were two booths that I lurked around the most at PAX, it had to have been Monaco and SpyParty. With other game booths, especially the big ones, people seemed to be very determined and slightly annoyed while standing in line and playing the games. In fact, the people playing Fallout: New Vegas didn’t appear to be that different from someone who was wine tasting. They understood that they’d only be given a hint of a particularly expensive game and needed to gather as much information as they could with such a small sample. Instead of trying to guess if there was an oak or nutty flavor, players were silently asking questions. What was the gameplay like? How much of the story can I get a peek at? Is this game going to be worth my money and time?

Meanwhile, the Monaco and SpyParty booths reminded me more of a late-night college common room. People were laughing, joking with each other, shouting and even holding meaningful conversations off to the side. Both of these indie games knew they were going into the convention as underdogs, so they had to prove how fun their game was going to be or people would walk right on past. Along with an upbeat energy, both games exhibited extremely unique multiplayer features that caught the attention of gamers and turned their little section of the con into something of an arcade.

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WARMACHINE

By Shamus Posted Saturday Sep 11, 2010

Filed under: Movies 23 comments

This video show Jerry Holkins – Tycho of Penny Arcade fame – performing a song in Rock Band for the crowd at PAX. He wrote the lyrics. Harmonix put it in the game. He sang the song. Soon you can get it on Xbox LIVE. (All proceeds benefit Child’s Play.)


Link (YouTube)

Continue reading ⟩⟩ “WARMACHINE”

 


 

Experienced Points #83 and Stolen Pixels #225

By Shamus Posted Friday Sep 10, 2010

Filed under: Column 31 comments

We’ve hardly had time for my comics this week, what with all the crazy PAX stuff and such. But the Old Traditions must be upheld, so here are the links to my stuff at the Escapist.

Stolen Pixels #225: Public Service Announcement – Breen has An Important Message for gamers everywhere. He might make some off-color remarks, but he means well.

Experienced Points: What’s Wrong with Xbox LIVE? – Nothing really earth shattering. Just outlining that the disadvantages of Microsoft’s hermetically sealed experience are not the price, but the omission of freedoms which can be taken for granted elsewhere.

Shamus Plays Champions Online, Part 8 – I’m still re-running this series over there, in case you’re in the mood to read it again.

 


 

PAX Coverage: The Old Republic

By Josh Posted Friday Sep 10, 2010

Filed under: Nerd Culture 156 comments

If you follow the MMORPG market closely, as I do, you may have noticed one very specific thread in regards to Star Wars: The Old Republic: It will be awesome. More than that, it will be the single greatest video game of all time, and will soundly crush the competition into a finely-ground powder that will then be baked into the bread of sandwiches for the EA execs.

Or, at least, that’s what all the pre-release press would like you to believe. Now, to be fair, almost everything written prior to the release of a game is probably a good deal more generous than it right well should be, but honestly, the hype machine for this game is enormous. I don’t think I’ve seen a single critical preview of the game, and the community is passionately supportive of it. Looking at the hype, it almost seems as if it would be impossible for the game to fail. As if The Old Republic were â€" dare I say â€" unsinkable.

There has never been a recorded case in history where this sort of attitude has caused any problems whatsoever.
There has never been a recorded case in history where this sort of attitude has caused any problems whatsoever.

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Twenty Sided @ Pax, Part 2 – TRANSCRIPT

By Shamus Posted Friday Sep 10, 2010

Filed under: Video Games 14 comments

Here is part 2 of my interview with Josh and Mumbles about their last day at PAX. Once again, huge thanks goes to reader Gale for putting this together. Transcribing nearly 55 minutes of conversation is a lot of work.

Continue reading ⟩⟩ “Twenty Sided @ Pax, Part 2 – TRANSCRIPT”

 


 

PAX Coverage: Tera

By Mumbles Posted Thursday Sep 9, 2010

Filed under: Nerd Culture 56 comments

TeraPAX.jpg

When Josh and I started to divvy up the games at PAX that we were going to cover, the line between our interests and experience became very clear. I’ve always been on the action side of the spectrum, while Josh knows a lot more about strategy games and MMOs. For that reason, it might come to a surprise that Tera was my favorite game that I played at PAX. This Korean made MMO was passed into the hands of American developers for Western distribution and has the potential to be a serious contender with Guild Wars 2 and Old Republic. It’s beautiful to look at and the combat is full of action and fun. In fact, I’m certain Tera will pull in gamers like me who aren’t attracted to the typical MMO targeting combat system. And, no one is more surprised about that than me.

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Twenty Sided @ PAX Part 2

By Shamus Posted Thursday Sep 9, 2010

Filed under: Video Games 41 comments

Here is the second half of our conversation about what Josh & Mumbles saw at PAX.

Hello, person from the future. This space used to have an embed from the video hosting site Viddler. The video is gone now. If you want to find out why and laugh at Viddler in the process, you can read the entire silly story for yourself.

At any rate, the video is gone. Sorry. On the upside, we're gradually re-posting these old videos to YouTube. Check the Spoiler Warning page to see the full index.

I managed to forget to turn off my push-to-talk sound, which means there are faint beeps in the background. And the segment ran way long. And I sidetracked us in a few spots. Which, as the host, is the opposite of my job. Ah well. If we did these more often, I’d get good at them.

Spoiler Warning should return next week.