That's right! If you weren't aware, then I'll let you know now: I went to PAX East this year. And, since I enjoy writing so much, I decided to write something up about my experience there. I wasn't there for the full three days, as my friends (who I've known for a very long time, and are both Giant Bomb fans) and I weren't fast enough to get three day passes, and decided upon getting Saturday and Sunday passes. Which was based on us thinking the Giant Bomb panel would be on Saturday, which it wasn't.

Overall, I had an absolute blast at PAX. It wasn't perfect, and I suppose I might as well get the few bad things out of the way first. Because we waited so long before booking a hotel, we ended up getting one a bit too far away from the convention center. It was certainly nice, and fancier than I expected, but that distance came to bite us in the ass when we missed the bus on Saturday morning. And on Saturday night when we went back there thinking we'd go back later to see a panel. Instead we ended up being too tired to walk much further than a restaurant near the hotel for dinner. If I go again next year (and I hope I do!), it'd be nice to get a room a bit closer.

But PAX itself? Super great! More than anything else going into PAX, I wanted to meet and talk with people that I otherwise probably wouldn't ever get the chance to. People like Samantha Kalman and Dave Lang. And I did! I was really happy that I not only got to meet these people, but that they were exactly as you expect them to be based on what you see online. Kalman was just as sweet and nice as you think, and Lang reacted exactly as I thought he would when I started smack talking him about how DiveKick wasn't cross buy on PS4 (even though I bought it a second time anyway). I didn't get in depth interviews with them, or anything even remotely like that, but it was still a blast.

Also, Swery signed my copy of Deadly Premonition. I had actually bought some permanent markers specifically for him to sign it, but he pulled out his own before I could. He even knew to take the cover thingy out from under the clear covering and sign that, so it won't be as affected by the elements in the long run. And then there was another person right after me that wanted Swery to sign his copy too, which was funny. And not to brag, but Swery could actually tell from the coloring on the games that might copy was older, which made me feel good about having bought my copy right around the release of the game. Okay, yes, I was bragging, because I got to meet Swery. And I'm sure this surprises no one, but he's a really awesome person too.

And I got to talk with a bunch of other developers and people I had never heard of, but were really nice. Some of their games look like they could be pretty good, too. Which, I suppose I should mention now, I didn't actually end up playing many games on the show floor. Which is to say, the only game I actually played on the show floor was Sentris. Yes, I know a game I could technically play now if I didn't think my computer was too crappy to run it. But I'll do right by Samantha Kalman and buy it once the PS4 version comes out, because she was super nice to me the (two) times I went to her booth (the second being to congratulate her on her PAXAMANIA victory (more on that later)), and because the game actually seems pretty interesting.

But don't get me wrong, I definitely WATCHED a lot of other games being played. I watched someone play Black Ice for a while, and that game looks cool. I watched someone play Axiom Verge for a while, and that game looks cool. Titan Souls, Necropolis, Tumblestone, Twelve Minutes, Ninja Pizza Girl, and a bunch of others (I'm blanking on the names of because I waited too long to write this) are all games I watched other people play, and look cool. The problem I kept running into was that I would watch someone play for five or sometimes ten minutes, think it looked cool, but then realize I didn't want to wait for that person to finish, then potentially someone else (and maybe more) to finish before I could try it.

In retrospect, I do wish I had shown a little more patience. Necropolis in particular looked like a cool game, and it had a small enough amount of people around it that I probably wouldn't have had to wait too long to play it. But, hindsight is 20-20, as they say. Then again, if I was presented with an opportunity to do it over, but I had to sacrifice meeting as many people as I did in order to play the games? No way. Not worth it at all.

OH, and speaking of games, here's a funny little story. It was nearing the end of Saturday when the show floor was still open, and I was descending the escalator with my two friends I was sharing the hotel room with, and my friends I met online @smashecontrollers and @daveyo520. We were talking about how the real draw of PAX was all the indie games, and that we thought the people doing things like waiting in lines for hours to play games like Overwatch were crazy.

Then we walked by a big screen with footage of a live demo of The Witcher III being shown, and were just completely transfixed by it. Jay and Davey ended up leaving, but my other friends and I just stood there and watched the whole thing. Because man, The Witcher III looks rad! Actually, you could say (as my cousin put it after I told him about this), that demo was bewitchering.

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I also got to meet some of the Giant Bomb crew, and went to a couple of fun panels. The first being the one about video stuff with Vinny, Drew, Jason, and Merry Kish and Rob Handlery (I apologize if I got his name wrong) from GameSpot. It was a fun, educational panel, and afterward I got to meet and take some pictures with some of them. Jamie and Adam's Tested.com's Will Smith was there too, and for whatever reason, he actually he had met me before (not the case), so that was amusing.

But the real highlight was when I got to hug Vinny not once, but TWICE. The story behind that was that a friend of mine was unable to make it to PAX, and she asked me to see if I could hug Vinny for her, and tell him it was from her. So I told Vinny about his request, and he happily obliged. Then after asking who I was, and my username, he said, "And here's another hug for you." Man, big surprise, but Vinny is a great guy.

Which reminds me of when I spoke with him the next day, after PAXAMANIA, and he jokingly, but also kinda seriously, told me to relax. I'm sure you already can imagine in your head how he would say that. And, you know, he was right. I was totally fanboying out over meeting these people in a way that, I kinda wish I hadn't. But I also kinda don't, because it was my first time at an event like this, and my first time meeting so many wonderful people that I look up to (literally in the case of Dave Lang) and respect. I think it's fair for me to get overexcited this one time. But, if I go again next year, or to a similar event, I do have to try to reign that in a little. Just a little.

But, really, given how incredible PAXAMANIA was, and the fact that I somehow managed to get a seat in the second row with a great view of the action, I think I can be excused for getting pumped up. As fun and ridiculous as the previous PAX based fake wrestling events were, this one blew them away. Granted, a lot of that was because I was there in the audience. It was because I was immersed in the madness, able to partake in the chants, and I think even start a chant or two (I'm pretty sure I was the first one chanting for Swery when he came out).

I don't often go to live events, and even when I have in my life, it's usually been to things I didn't care about. Like all the times my dad dragged me to local sports things because some relative of ours was on the team (mostly my cousin with his high school sports back when he and I were in high school). But this was the first time I had been to something like this that I actually cared about, and it was in a crowd that was loving every last second of it, which just amplified the hype to levels I didn't know existed!

Yes, I know, it's still fake wrestling. There's still a certain level of "scripted-ness" to it, but that didn't make it any less hilarious when Samantha Kalman defeated Dr. Tracksuit through the power of love (<3) and hugs. That didn't make Run GFB's betrayal of Dirty Dan Ryckert any less crazy. That didn't make Dan being "smashed" into a table any less crazy (or stop me from quickly taking a selfie with the "unconscious" Dan before being shooed out by a PAX enforcer). I do wish that I had a chance to speak to Dan after that, if only just to see if he was aware that I (and others) were doing that, or if he actually had his eyes closed and was just waiting for everyone to clear out.

Plus I got some sick cards. Speaking of, since I've talked about everything I feel like I have to say, I guess I might as well just post a bunch more pictures I took at PAX. Or in a few cases, asked a friend to take for me because I was in them. I didn't take a ton, but I took a few.

Actually, before I just post the pictures and end the blog, I should say that as much fun as I had, and while I met some great, wonderful people, I still didn't meet as many as I hoped I would. Didn't get a chance to talk to Jeff, Brad, Alex, or Dan. Or Jason, actually, despite being near him during the PAXAMANIA (he, Vinny, and Drew were right across the aisle from me). And there's a fair number of people I've met through GB that I either didn't get to see at all, or I only got to see for a few minutes, and I wish I had seen more of them. But hey, there's always next year, right?

Also, sorry that the next part is a bit of a mess. I've never uploaded that many images at once to a blog here, and some are vertical, some horizontal, etc. I also had to upload some from Twitter because my dumb phone saved them sideways, anyway.

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