Today Gabe and Tycho announced the dates for the fifth annual Penny Arcade Expo (PAX): August 29-31.
Now the largest game festival in North America, PAX 2007 featured an enormous selection of panels, tournaments, concerts and other activities centered around game culture. This year’s PAX was the first held at the Washington State Convention and Trade Center, a move prompted by the dramatic increase in attendance. Thus far, the festival’s attendance has doubled each year: There were 4,500 attendees in 2004, 9,500 in 2005, 19,300 in 2006, and 37,000 for 2007. Attendance for the 2008 event is expected to reach forty-seven million bajillion people.
Granted, nobody genuinely believed that E for All would be able to fill the shoes of the event it was designed to replace, the late lamented Electronic Entertainment Expo.
But surely IDG World Expo, the organizers of E for All, could have done better than this. E3 filled both main halls of the Los Angeles Convention Center plus Kentia Hall downstairs. E for All fills two-thirds of one hall. E3 had hundreds of booths, from every major publisher and console manufacturer, all the big chip makers, and from gaming companies around the world. E for All has dozens of booths from mostly domestic companies. EA, Intel and Nintendo are here, but there’s not much else.
Furthermore, E for All is expensive for the average gamer. Sure, I’m a member of the press, so I get in for free and receive a complimentary lunch of egg salad on a croissant. Joe Gamer has to cough up $50 for a Thur/Fri ticket, $75 for a Sat/Sun ticket, or $90 for a four-day (Jesus, what would you do here for four days?). Compare this with the comparably-sized (but better attended) DigitalLife: $12 to get in (free if you’re Jessica Alba). Continued…
This past weekend’s Penny Arcade Expo was filled to the brim with not only the upper crust of nerdom, but as you can probably expect some cosplayers as well. Check out our little collection of some of the notable characters that wandered about on the show floor.
The long-awaited Metroid Prime 3: Corruption hits store shelves this week for the Nintendo Wii. The game has been hailed as an “epic, breathtaking experience,” but critics, like our own Robert Summa, charge that it’s a generic game.
IGN went as far as to say “It is clear from the moment you pick up the controller that Prime 3 was developed exclusively for Wii. Not only do the new controls respond quicker and with more precision than any dual-analog-helmed FPS ever created, but the gesture system works brilliantly, too,” an assessment that directly contradicts GGL Wire’s hands-on preview.
Haven’t had a chance to form your own opinion? If you were one of the lucky few to find a Wii since its launch, maybe you should give it a rental and tell us what you think.
On Saturday, I attended one of the many different panel discussions at this year’s Penny Arcade Expo. While I skipped a number of them because I felt they just didn’t hold the type of people I’d want to hear opinions from – a lot of the more marquee industry notables were probably in Germany for the Games Convention – this one perked my interest because it involved the guys behind the upcoming Penny Arcade long-winded title Penny Arcade Adventures: On the Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness: Episode One. A game I admit I had never cared about personally, but did hold a genuine curiosity toward.
Knock Sony and the PlayStation 3 all you want, but you have to give it to the company for taking chances on ideas and titles that it seems others might not have the foresight to capitalize on – games like Little Big Planet, Flow, and the upcoming MC Escher-inspired title Echochrome are just a few prime examples. The next “why didn’t anyone think of this before” title to appear on the forward-thinking PS3 is the card game Eye of Judgment.
The PAX Omegathon is a multi-gaming tournament that pits competitors against one another to find out who is the best overall gamer. While pro gaming purists may laugh at the idea, it’s sort of like an extended version of the Quake Quad Damage tournament at QuakeCon 2007.
It’s also a good way to get footage of Halo 3. Here’s footage from a Halo 3 stage match at PAX.
One of a few surprise standouts on display at PAX this weekend was the upcoming revamped take on the Turok series, simply called Turok. In development by new studio house Propaganda Games, this improved first-person shooter is actually nothing to laugh at or cast aside. Using Unreal Engine 3, it looks just as beautifully as it plays.
To go along with versions for PC, Mac and Linux, Hothead has just announced here at PAX that the Penny Arcade game On the Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness will be available via Xbox Live Arcade. Additionally, all coming episodes will be available as well. Other new news includes the announcement that MC Frontalot will contribute an original track for the game. Continued…
Let’s face it, first-party titles are pretty much the only thing the Wii actually has going for it. While third-party developers pump out crap title after crap title, Nintendo remains as still one of the best first-party publishers in the industry — both in sales and fun factor. So, it’s no surprise that one of the most anticipated titles for the new platform is the next step in the Metroid franchise: Metroid Prime 3: Corruption. I had a chance to play the final, retail copy today, so take a look at what this game really has to offer … careful, you’re entering a no-hype zone.
After taking a few years off, Rockstar will make a Midnight Club return on next-gen consoles in 2008 — a PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 version is expected to hit sometime early next year. After a last-gen overabundance of street racers, it’s refreshing to see next-gen racers improve upon the formula. Midnight Club: Los Angeles looks to be righting a lot of wrongs committed by over-eager publishers.
In the Wii’s short life so far, it’s pretty clear what games are working and what are not. For the most part, first-person shooters don’t work. Arguably, the most popular and most-played game is still Wii Sports. So, besides a flood of mini-game titles, the other logical type of successful Wii game would be something tennis related — seeing as how most people will just play Wii Tennis. I had a chance here at PAX to grab a virtual paddle and take Rockstar’s Table Tennis for the Wii for a spin, so make sure to see what a “Wii doubter” thinks of this one.
The long-awaited Metroid Prime 3: Corruption hits store shelves this week for the Nintendo Wii. The game has been hailed as an “
In the Wii’s short life so far, it’s pretty clear what games are working and what are not. For the most part, first-person shooters don’t work. Arguably, the most popular and most-played game is still Wii Sports. So, besides a flood of mini-game titles, the other logical type of successful Wii game would be something tennis related — seeing as how most people will just play Wii Tennis. I had a chance here at PAX to grab a virtual paddle and take Rockstar’s Table Tennis for the Wii for a spin, so make sure to see what a “Wii doubter” thinks of this one.
