Yes, it was close to a month ago and I’m only now getting around to mentioning anything about my time at PAX ’08, but that’s only because I just got the pictures I took while I was there and really wanted to include some. Sadly, that looked really messy so I’ll just add them to my profile (the good ones anyway). Anyway, here is a chronological re-telling of all I saw and did at the show.

Okay, the first day officially started at 2PM but I headed down to the convention center around 11AM just to see if anything was already going on. When I arrived there were already several thousand people waiting, so I got my pass and bag of pamphlets and got in line. I actually spent a great deal of time in lines during my time at the show but this was far from a bad thing, largely due to the positive vibe that permeated the entire place. Every single person in that building was a gaming fanatic just like me so it was really easy to just start up conversations with complete strangers due to that frame of reference.

The only other experience I’ve had that approximated being with such a like-minded group was waiting in line for the Wii outside Wal-Mart two years ago, but this was so much bigger and better than that. It seemed like one of out every three people there was carrying a DS or PSP with them, so there were multiplayer matches happening all over the place on all kinds of different games. I regrettably did not bring either of my portable consoles to the show on days one and three due to an irrational fear of theft. Reflecting back on it, I don’t think that was a legitimate concern as there were “enforcers” everywhere and a real feeling of camaraderie with everyone there. Definitely bringing them next year.

Anyway, eventually everyone in line flooded onto the show-floor and I proceeded to check out some games. I’ll just throw up a list of games I played and my impressions of them in a later post, just to avoid dry descriptions of mediocre games.

Alright, so I was on the show-floor for about an hour and a half when I started feeling pretty hungry. I exited the show-floor only to walk past all the Giant Bomb guys, who must have just arrived at the show. I just glanced, did a double take and then kind of scurried away. I don’t know, I just couldn’t handle seeing all those dudes from my favourite website and podcast live and in person like that. I later saw them all walking around the show-floor with Rich Gallup and once again didn’t say anything. I actually feel pretty stupid about it now but whatever.

After all that nonsense, I waited in line for nearly an hour to play some Left 4 Dead. It was worth the wait though, as the game really is a lot of fun, even though I didn’t know any of the other guys in my squad. Definitely looking forward to this one.

Then I made the mistake of stopping by the “Dead Space” booth without actually playing the game. There were maybe three people ahead of me but I really wanted to check out the Telltale games panel about “Strong Bad’s Cool Game for Attractive People” so I didn’t stick around. As a result, I never got to play the game at the show as there was a really long line at all times from that point on. Still, from what I saw peering over people’s shoulders as they played, it’s coming along pretty well and should be a good survival horror game.

The Strong Bad panel was pretty enjoyable, though some of the questions asked during the “Q and A” portion were pretty stupid, but I guess that’s to be expected. After hearing the guys from Telltale talk I decided I really ought to play the Sam and Max games so I ended up buying seasons 1 and 2 at their booth later on.

Around 9PM the concerts began and this turned out to be one of my highlights of the show. First came “The Oneups”, a band I’d never heard of but they sounded pretty good, playing an assortment music from a bunch of classic games including “Castlevania II”, “Chrono Trigger” and “Duck Tales”.

The next act was the main reason I attended the concert portion, “Freezepop”. They actually sound really good live. At one point they asked everyone in the crowd to hold up their PSPs, DS’, iPods etc. and the result was a pretty awe-inspiring site that my fuzzy pictures hardly convey. It was one of those awesome things that could only happen with a room full of unashamed nerds and I was really happy to be there for it. The encore they played was also completely awesome, starting with “Less Talk More Rokk” and closing with Europe’s “The Final Countdown”.

After that was Jonathan Coulton, who I’d never heard of prior to the show but I can now say I’m a fan. My favourite of his was probably “Creepy Doll” or perhaps “Mr. Fancy Pants” largely due to the goofiness of it. Actually, my favourite part of his performance was Mr. Coulton himself, as he would talk to the crowd a lot, even addressing individual things people shouted out at him. It was pretty neat, he really is quite funny.