PAX 2010: Day 1
By Hailinel 12 Comments
So PAX is going on, and once again, I have a three-day pass. And like last year, the first day was a grand experience. Here are some basic highlights of things I saw and did:
- As soon as I walked from the queue room to the exhibition hall, my eyes spotted something impossible. A booth dedicated to Duke Nukem Forever. What madness is this? What year is this? I was lucky to be towards the front of the queue, so when I entered, the DNF line wasn't terribly long, and I was among the crowd in the second or third group to see the game after the show floor opened. I must give credit to Gearbox; resurrecting this game is a daunting task, but after watching the trailer, they might actually be on to something, even if that something is mostly polishing the unfinished work that 3D Realms left behind. Also, there's a giant three-breasted alien boss monster, and the game demo begins with Duke taking a leak.
- By the way, yes, there is totally a playable demo of the game! And while it doesn't show too much, it's actually playable. And it looks fairly good. I'm baffled and amazed. (Then I remembered that I'm not exactly an FPS fan, so the demo may be the only DNF I ever play even if it does see release.)
- Some of the games I tried out on day one, other than DNF: Yakuza 4 (fun, and the hostess bars are being left in this time!), Mortal Kombat (Far better than I expected it to be.), Front Mission Evolved multiplayer (There is no facepalm image macro powerful enough to illustrate my disgust.), Shibuya (One of the PAX 10 and an interesting puzzle game on the iPhone and iPad), NBA Jam (That game is NBA Jam to the core).
- I had a brief chat with one of the Nintendo reps at the show and gave my compliments on Metroid: Other M, because that game is awesome and compliments are worth giving. Also, this may only disappoint me seeing as I may be one of five people on the entirety of the internets that liked Samus's voice, but according to the rep I spoke to, her voice actress had apparently been asked to come to PAX; she wanted to come, but couldn't make it.
- I played some 1080 Snowboarding in the Console Freeplay area. It took me a while to remember how to play it, but my skills started to resurface a little in the time I played. Also, wow, the game's graphics have not aged well.
- The live Giant Bombcast was hilarious, and I dare not spoil it for the rest of you. Though, I now have a clear picture of what Ryan and Vinny do when they let Jeff and Brad usurp large chunks of time to talk about Mortal Kombat.
There's still plenty to see and do over the next two days. But I don't know if anything is going to top the utter shock at seeing the monolithic monument to Duke's manliness that is the Duke Nukem Forever booth for the first time.
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