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PAX 2009 Wrap-up

By raddevon September 8, 2009 10 Comments

PAX was one of the best things I have ever experienced. This is not hyperbole. If you're reading, start saving your money now for Boston or next years west coast show in Seattle. The most amazing part of the show for me was getting to meet the game journalists I respect and admire. Unfortunately, I was unable to talk to the Giant Bomb crew although I thoroughly enjoyed their panel. I hope to chat with those guys at my next PAX.

Queue for the exhibition hall, day 1

I could talk about the wonderful panels or any of a number of activities that were available to me at a whim, but instead this post will focus on the show floor and the games that made an impression in spite of the hundreds of others vying for attention.

Games of the Show (in reverse order)

Star Wars: The Old Republic

The prospect of an MMO with emphasis on story is at once exciting and troubling. On one hand, motivation to push forward that goes beyond WoW's text boxes explaining why I should collect 10 boar tusks is a welcome innovation to the genre. On the other, MMOs are perpetual experiences. Since BioWare obviously cannot create a perpetual story (without repeating), what will content be like after I have experienced the crafted stories of each of the classes? We were told that the story of each class would exceed 100 hours which is fantastic, but what happens next? Does The Old Republic then revert to the repeatable instances that characterize the genre?

Trooper

I attended both the panel and the Q&A session later at the cantina. Information on this game is tightly guarded, and much of the Q&A consisted of evasion crafted by the game's undoubtedly skilled and extensive marketing machine. We were shown the trooper class which was described as a tank with some long-range capabilities. Other classes present were the Sith warrior and the bounty hunter. BioWare also plugged a multiplayer conversation system which, although details of the system were not given, appeared to consist of dialog choices rotating through party members rather than being the sole responsibility of the party lead. Companion characters were also alluded to.

Jedi using the force to move with great speed

The most intriguing feature on display was what they are calling "flashpoints." These are essentially decisions at which the story branches--common in single player games but new to MMOs. A ship captain was tasked with taking on a battleship and chose to ignore orders. The player must then decide to kill or spare the captain. The choice was passed on to the crowd who chose to kill him. A new captain was appointed and told her only chance for survival was to follow the orders. She initiated attack on the battleship at which point her ship was boarded. The player is then tasked with eliminating the boarding forces. We were never explicitly told what the other outcome would have been, but we were told that our decision completely altered the progression of the storyline. At the Q&A session, I asked if story decisions would ever affect players outside the player's own party. They could not answer my question, but they did say there will be class-specific story arcs that are unalterable by any other player. Other story arcs may be influenced, at the very least, by members of the player's party.

This game was not playable at the show so I have no idea how it will turn out. The action appears very WoW-like with abilities displayed on a hotbar at the bottom of the screen. I'm incredibly excited by the potential of this game, but there are still many unknowns. It looks as though Lucasarts and BioWare intend to keep it that way.

Red Dead Redemption

Here is another game that was not present in playable form but shows incredible promise. We were shown a brief mission in which a captured woman had to be rescued by the protagonist. The game includes a technique seen before in which time slows and the player may mark spots on enemies which are then shot. Once the mission was complete, we were treated to a showing of the open-world aspects of the game. It looks incredible. The area is huge. Rockstar emphasized the previously revealed random events that may take place in the game's vast expanses. They even killed a couple of animals in the wild, and, at risk of sounding morbid, the deaths were the most realistic I have seen. Wild horses may be wrangled and broken for your own personal use (Grand Theft Horse). Horses are not the only modes of transport in the game as stagecoaches and trains provide the means for a fast-travel system. The game includes a karma system which affects the reputation of the player and will influence his interaction with others.

It very much looks like Grand Theft Auto in the old west which is most definitely not a negative. If I understood correctly, every building in the game will have an interior. While this is certainly much easier to do in the sparsely populated old west than it would be in a modern urban center, it is still a welcome addition to the open-world action genre. Players have lamented for years that so many of GTA's buildings are no more than facades. Another (for me) welcome addition is fairly trivial in the scheme of things: the horse will continue to guide itself along the current path giving the player freedom to aim and shoot while riding! Here is another innovation that makes sense in context. Of course a horse would be able to continue along a road of its own volition where a car must be guided by the driver. In fact, I wish this feature were in a context that made much less sense so that developers would feel free to incorporate it into their games for non-sentient means of conveyance as well.

Heavy Rain

This game completely floored me. I already anticipated the game, but I was not at all prepared for the experience it delivered. I played a quick five-minute demo, and came out with more empathy for and attachment to the characters than most games can muster in 30-40 hours. This is the game this generation that will provide a substantial innovation to carry the medium forward. Sure, we have seen new gameplay elements introduced recently such as the time manipulation avalanche started by Braid, but those are largely superficial and add to the depth rather than the breadth of gaming experiences. Heavy Rain pushes games toward the experience of a movie but not in the forced way of previous games that have claimed to do so. I have not yet seen this game compared to a movie experience or to interactive fiction and this fact somehow makes its tendencies in these directions more authentic and credible. Gamers will clearly recognize it as a game. I would, in fact, describe it as interactive fiction, but the interaction is very well done. It doesn't really feel like a string of QTEs that the player must walk between but it is essentially that. Leaving a description at that, however, is akin to describing great literature as an ordered series of letters printed in black on a white page: far too reductive to be useful.

The demo went split-screen to show the player the security cam feeds.

In the demo, you play a private investigator trying to learn the identity of the Origami Killer. Following a lead, you enter a convenience store to talk to the owner who himself has lost a child to the killer. He is still a bit raw over the whole situation and doesn't want to discuss it with your character. You decide to pick up some things while you are in the store to avoid wasting the trip. In the meanwhile, a robber enters the store and a standoff begins. For my playthrough, I tried sneaking up the back aisle to approach the assailant from behind. The game prompted me to slowly move up on the right analog stick as I proceeded down the aisle to quietly pick up a bottle from the nearby shelf. As I continued, my character knocked a box from one of the shelves. My reflexes failed to be sharp enough to prevent it from crashing to the ground, and my sneak attack was thwarted. This lead to a struggle that played out first in dialog and then physically. The player before me had mitigated the scenario through dialog options alone to cause the robber to leave. It was a great experience. The "steering" of the character was a bit cumbersome. In fact, I couldn't really tell how the left stick was mapping my inputs to the character at all. I was told the controls are among the biggest elements that are still being significantly tweaked.

I asked the operator of the demo about branching. Specifically, I wanted to know how many branching points there are in the game. Are there a few key points where the stories branch off? His reply was the it branches "everywhere." This could just be marketing, and there will be no way of knowing until the game is actually released. The answer was at least encouraging. In a game that's power comes from the gravity of player choice and its affect on the game world, the number of points at which player choice is significant will either greatly improve or diminish the value of the experience.

Games I wanted to play but didn't

Scribblenauts

The biggest unknown for me with Scribblenauts is its staying power. It does something games have not done before. How long will I want to do that thing once I have a firm grasp of the game's limits? There are two reasons I didn't play the game: First, no amount of playing I could have done at PAX would have answered this question. Second, the line was incredibly long. I have never seen this level of buzz for a DS game.

Diablo III

I've been hearing this is more of the same. That is no problem for me. I would gladly play prettier Diablo II with minor improvements. That said, there is no decision for me to be made about this game. I'm buying it. Also, the lines were long.

Borderlands

I have a preorder in for this game already. It is my first preorder since last generation. They would have to show some horrible shit at PAX to temper my excitement. Oh yeah. The lines were long here too. Do you notice a theme?

Games that were slightly disappointing

Dust: An Elysian Tail

This game is beautiful, but, in my limited play-session, it doesn't have the muscle to unseat the dominance of Castle Crashers in the space of side-scrolling beat 'em ups with RPG elements. The combat seemed fairly repetitive. Unlike Castle Crashers, the game moves strictly on a 2D plane meaning your character may only move left or right. I found myself being cornered by enemies with no apparent way to evade their barrage of attacks. I was told that this game is "probably" migrating from the indie channel to XBLA. If they can keep it under the $10 mark, I will give it another look. Hell, I will at least play the demo even if they price it at $15.

Fairytale Fights

Once again, here is a beat 'em up with repetitive combat. In addition to that, I'm not terribly fond of the right analog stick for attacking. I didn't really see what benefit the analog-ness offered, and, given that, I prefer the precision of the buttons for attacking. Perhaps there are elements here I missed. I will withhold judgment for now.

Split/Second

I have heard lots of hype for this game, and hype from the TRS cast urged me to try it out. I don't really understand the unfettered love the game is receiving. For a game centered around crashing people and creating havoc, the crashes are not very believable at all. They don't have near the impact of those in the Burnout games. (I will avoid use of the word "visceral," but you should know I was tempted.) The racing is standard arcade racing. The triggered events were impressive but didn't seem to have the profound impact I would have liked on the outcome of the race aside from the deformation of the track itself.

Until next year...

That just about covers it. Feel free to post questions about anything at PAX in the comments. I will do whatever I can to answer them. I had a fantastic time and look forward to going to more. If you are reading this, and you have never been to PAX, check out the next PAX on your respective coast and begin planning now to go if you can at all. Get your passes early!

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