PAX was awesome!

I finally have access to a computer after the last week at my friends house near Seattle. As you probably gleaned from the title, I was there checking out PAX for the weekend and am now a couple hours north of Seattle at Squash's house for the rest of the week. His internet connection totally blows, but it should suffice for blogging. I think a 56K would probably suffice for blogging....

So PAX was pretty kickass. I'd have to say it was better than TGS '08 in just about every possible way. There were way more games to play, the lines were far shorter, there were tons of talks, live podcasts and best of all, it was all in english! Over the course of the weekend I was able to demo around twenty games myself and watch others demo another twenty. If I was patient enough I could have played all forty, but after watching others play for five or ten minutes I often didn't see the point in playing the demo myself.

The best part of PAX however had to be the atmosphere. Everyone was very nice and incredibly knowledgeable about all things video games. Several of my favorite journalist and podcasters were there and equally friendly. Waiting in lines was hardly a bother because the guys behind or in front of me were always willing to chat about anything and everything they had seen.

If you have the means I highly recommend going. Garnett Lee mentioned during his live recording of 1upYours (which isn't up yet) that PAX is what all conventions should strive to be. After checking out TGS last year, I'd have to say I wholeheartedly agree. By only allowing the press to these events they are excluding the very people they are actually having the convention for.

Anyway, that's probably enough gushing about PAX for now. If I have some time in the next few days I'll try to write up some impressions on some of the more memorable games. Slevin was there with me so maybe I'll get him to write something up, don't hold your breath though.