This is sweet.

PAX Prime 2011 powered up this morning, as anyone who’s navigated the mobs of joyous gamer nerds downtown could tell you. We haven’t seen the final numbers yet, but last year saw 67,000 attendees (neck and neck with the population of Auburn), and it feels just as dense this time around. The Exhibition Halls are suitably alarming and hypnotic and the Free Play rooms are packed with blissfully focused players, but the negative space on the map is where the freaks flow freely, like a conveniently located, climate-controlled Burning Man. We saw the happiest dude in the world prancing around in a handmade Pikachu costume (pics if we see him again and our cameras are working). He looked so happy and at home in his Pika-skin that we feel bad that one day he has to go back to live in the world of people who wear clothes. The halls of PAX are filled with his (i.e., our) people. Here’s what we learned:

  • Twisted Pixel showed off its upcoming Kinect game The Gunstringer, which makes interesting use of the controller: Players control their cartoony cowboys using virtual marionette strings. It sounds ridiculous, but it works better than many other Kinect games, plus: PUPPETS! They also showcased the nutty-looking Ms. Splosion Man, a sequel to the silly/awesome platformer Splosion Man. It looks 10x prettier than its damn pretty predecessor, but we couldn’t see enough to figure out its gender politics, or if it has any. (It has a “Two Girls, One Controller” mode, so there’s that.)
  • Uber Entertainment had a booth babe. This made us sad.
  • Good Old Games featured booth grandmas passing out cookies. This made us happy! They were promoting classic PC games available for free or cheap, and they were delightful.
    This is sweet.

    • This is sweet.

  • The super-awesome local game developers at The Behemoth put on a good show, as usual. The geniuses behind Castle Crashers have been working on Battleblock Theater for a long time (they teased it at last year’s PAX), and it’s available to play in their lovely arcade-style machines here, if not yet on the Xbox Live Arcade. It should be out soon, letting us frolic in a world of comic misery, but not soon enough. They also have awesome merch for people who like things that are cute.
  • World of Tanks lived up to its name.
  • Borderlands 2 looks a hell of a lot like Borderlands 1—but hey, that’s not all bad. Also, the devs have apparently done a good bit of work under the hood (“we didn’t want to throw some levels on then slap a ‘2’ on the box”), especially with the enemy AIs and making combat more tactical. We saw wounded enemies retreat and return to “run plays” with healthier enemies, and damaged bots would call in repair-bots for healing—so you have to make more choices beyond “kill dude closest to me.”
  • In breaking Mass Effect news: Jennifer Hale, the Meryl Streep of video-game voice actors, is here, woot! Also, we got to play some ME3, which feels way more Gears-y now, with a rolling, leaping, cover-hugging Shepard—but who punches holes in people with an “omni-blade” (for a Soldier) in place of a chainsaw bayonet. The time-honored branching morality system is still around, but ME3 will offer many more game-affecting choices (and game endings), as you decide who you will help and who you will fuck over in the face of the impending Reaper holocaust that ended ME2 (who = entire planets and races, so you know we’ve got your back, Salarians).
  • Use the bathrooms at the Hyatt. This is how you will pee in heaven.
  • 3D Shadow of the Colossus (out on the PS3 in a “collection” with ICO on Sept. 27) looks lovely. We’re sad we only had time to kill one colossus. Lowly (but fun!) Colossus II, fwiw.
  • Turn off 3G on your phone.
  • Facebook game design is still a nascent science (at least in terms of creating Facebook games that satisfy actual gamers), but indies like Dungeon Overlord are definitely a step in the right direction. This “hardcore Facebook game” doesn’t require you to spam your friends, doesn’t have “friend walls” (points where you can’t progress without inviting more friends), and generally makes smart (i.e., not selfish) use of Facebook dynamics to create a cool, browser-based PVP experience.

    The Stranger Testing Department is Rob Lightner and Paul Hughes.

The Stranger Testing Department is Rob Lightner, Paul Hughes, and Mary P. Traverse.

20 replies on “PAX 2011, Day One: Booth Babe Time Machine”

  3. I think I’d rather hang out with women paid to give me cookies instead of women paid to be sexy in my vicinity. There’s more cookies and less skeeviness involved.

  5. @tomma The Gears-iness is that leaping over cover and hopping from cover to cover is built into the controls. Was that in ME2? It is possible we were high. And on easy.

    @TheMisanthrope Yes, and yes! Done.

  9. A friend of mine tells me that traditional booth babes are not allowed at PAX unless they have been trained/educated about the game they are promoting, and even then skimpy costumes are only allowed if they’re cosplaying as someone who is actually in said game. He saw a batch of scantily clad women promoting an energy drink get tossed out.

    … now he had better bring me some damn good swag or we’re re-evaluating the “friend” bit.

  11. @8 If you don’t turn off 3G on your phone, chances are your phone will be dead in a handful of minutes (exaggeration, but I went from full battery to 1/4 without using the phone by 6pm.

    @10 The booth babes were from Nos. I frequented the booth because of the free samples of the drink (I think Nos is the only non-lo-carb/non-diet energy drink that has a decent flavor). Everybody else had booth babes, but they generally seemed pretty well on point on their scripts, and none of them wore traditional booth babe spandex and short short gear. I kind of appreciated the ones that dressed up like Joker (love that Joker). While sitting outside of Omegathon Round 2 (which was less exciting than the Double Dash Round 1), an Enforcer informed us of their expulsion, and said the booth might actually be gone today, but did not go into details. Being somebody who was more into the enforcer than the booth babes, I admitted that all I wanted was the energy drink.

  12. You guys are so cute (and I mean that sincerely).

    Meanwhile, I went to the Christian gamer afterparty at Sole Repair last night with Cienna and Paul, got in an argument with a God-squader about gay rights, and am still very, very angry AND have a hangover. I did, however, dance with the guy dressed as a (really very hot) Jesus, and it turned out he was a nonbeliever, so that was satisfying.

    Cienna will have a full report and photos, which I can’t wait to see.

    HI!

  13. Was Round 2 the bananagrams rounds? I thought it was pretty exciting, but then I like word games.

    (Related, I also like the Word Fighter game in the Pax 10. I say check it out.)

  15. Plus, Borders had iOS, Objective C and iPhone books at 50 pct off, so my plans for World Cthulhu Domination on the iPhone and iPad with Kthulhu Kitchen ™ standalone apps continue apace.

    Booth Babes with Cthulhu Fuzzy Dice ftw!

  17. Stranger staffers don’t seem to have a problem with strip clubs or sexworkers in general, but you have a problem with booth babes? Maybe I’m overgeneralizing here, but it seems kinda hypocritical.

  18. @18 Booth Babes take the work of hot geek girls. Get the geek girls out, and they’re so much hotter than the booth babes. Of course, I have whiplash from the multitude of hot nerds.

    Also, what booth has Shadow of the Colossus? I couldn’t find it today, mainly due to the time suck of the FFXIII-2 line.

    @14 Yes, Round 2 was Bananagrams. I have nothing against the game, but hearing the audience go wild over the suck of the blue turtle and the impatience of a driver not using star power…it was electric. The block game was also genius.

  20. @11 Agreed. Plus, he suggested we could “bob for cookies.” Alert the Savage Euphemization Squad!

    @14 Word Fighter did look awesome, but we didn’t have time to test it.

    @19 Sorry, the Shadows, etc. event was a press-only thing that (in our opinion) should not have been press-only.

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