Alright this took a bit longer than expected but I’ve now gone through all the previous posts, separated them out and made them slightly less crappy. Ok so, technically, I did all that
sometime last week but at the time I wrote this I had just finished it all.

Penny Arcade Expo 2008

PAX 08: Day Zero
PAX 08: Day One
PAX 08: Day Two
PAX 08: Day Three
PAX 08: Left 4 Dead
PAX 08: Rock Band 2 & Guitar Hero: World Tour
PAX 08: Media Meltdown
PAX 08: The Conduit

Overall I had a blast at PAX. The biggest problem I had was there was way too much to do. Spending time in the exhibit hall meant missing the panels. Going to one panel meant you missed 2 or 3 other equally interesting panels and the exhibit hall. There were a least a dozen times when I ended up missing a panel or demo that I wanted to see because I was enjoying what I was already doing. Sometimes it worked out for the best. If I hadn’t ended up watching all of Nerdcore for Life I wouldn’t have gotten to see MC Frontalot. Other times I was too engrossed playing TF2, a game I already own, in the PC Free play room. I should have taken some time to look at the schedule ahead of time and figure out what I wanted to see and then setup some calendar appointments on my phone to remind myself.

Of course there were some issues with PAX. There were 58,000 people there over 3 days so it was pretty crowded at times. Some of the panels I would have liked to have seen filled up before I even considered getting in line for them. I didn’t have trouble getting to see any of the big events like the keynote provided I lined up early enough. It would have been nice if instead of making everyone sit in line for an hour and a half they gave out wristbands to the first 3000 people to show up and said come back in an hour. Of course then there would likely just be a line to get a wristband that would be almost as long.

Pictochat was epic. It was a great way to pass the time while waiting in line although I’ve never seen so many digital renditions of the male genitalia as I did that weekend. Occasionally the connection was spotty probably due to the sheer number of people using not only DS pictochat but wireless devices in general. I think at least 2/3 of the attendees had some sort of wireless device usually an iphone/ipod touch. Speaking of wireless the wireless connection at the expo hall didn’t work the one time I tried it my phone’s crappy WAP browser came in handy more than a few times. Mostly for Twitter which I used for keeping track of everything so I could write all this up.

One of the most annoying issues was the sounds quality. Throughout the entire Harmonix panel there was some pretty noticeable feedback whenever someone spoke. Freezepop had three or four nasty bouts of feedback while they were playing. Most notably MC Frontalot had to do a sound check after their first song because none of their monitors were setup correctly. I don’t know who was doing the sounds but it was not great. Most to all of the PAX Enforcers are volunteers but next year I’d really suggest getting some professional sounds guys in there at the very least for the concerts.

I’m definitely going to try and go back next year, hopefully with a better game plan. I’d like to get more involved with the non-PAX community activities next year as well like the Tri-Wizard Drinking Tournament or the PAX Twitter Shitters Meet up. I really wanted to get involved with that stuff this year but it didn’t work out. PAX 2010 is in Boston so that pretty much guarantees I’ll be there, I might even be able to convince a few people to go with me.

Somewhat recently my current favorite online multiplayer game, Team Fortress 2, received a large update. There were two major things added in this update the first is a new gameplay type called Payload and it’s associated map Gold Rush. Payload is an escort mission similar to the hunted in TFC. The difference is instead of escorting a player you escort a giant bomb that moves along a track. There are always a ridiculous amount of deaths once you get close to the target which is frustrating but it’s a fun map and payload has some definite potential.

The second major part of this update is the more interesting one. The Medic class recieved 36 new achievements and for every 12 achievements you unlock you get a new weapon that can replace one of your current weapons. The Blutsauger replaces the Syringe gun and sucks health from enemies but doesn’t get critical hits. The Kritzkrieg replaces the medigun and rather than making your opponent indestructible it causes all their attacks to be critical hits. Finally the Ubersaw replaced the normal saw and adds to your ubercharge each time you hit an enemy. Sounds pretty cool right?

There’s two problems here, first, a lot of people are playing medics now, it’s not so bad after about two weeks but when the update first dropped every server I joined was at least 80% medics. I’d like to see multiple new character updated drop at once just so people might mix it up a bit while trying to unlock the new stuff.

Second and most importantly, I haven’t managed to unlock any of them until tonight. I only managed to get that one after spending an hour farming the achievements on a map designed solely for that purpose. I just don’t have the time to play enough TF2 to unlock some of the achievements. Finally managing to unlock at least one of the weapons was nice but I really  wasn’t having much fun doing it. At this point I’ve pretty much given up any hope that I might get the Ubersaw.

2007 was a big year. I graduated college, got a crappy job, got an awesome job and had a few ups and downs. It was also the year I returned to gaming. In 2006, aside from the occasional round of CS:Source, or Mario 3 Battlemode, I didn’t do hardly any gaming. I’m not even sure if I bought any games that year. This year; however, I got 3 video game systems (Wii, DS and 360) and more games than the past five years combined (30+). All that and there’s still a rather beefy list of games I didn’t get around to checking out. Here’s my top 5 games played in 2007:

1. The Orange Box (PC)
   Portal and Team Fortress 2. Enough Said. I’ve already talked about TF2 and gave a brief mention to Portal. Combined together in one box this package is almost unbeatable. Portal was short but the most inventive game I’ve played in a long time. TF2 has already replaced CS: Source as my go to game on the PC. A great value and a great time!
2. Super Mario Galaxy (Wii)
   This is easily the best game released for the Wii to date. The controls are great and use just the right amount of motion without feeling tacked on. The gameplay is fun and I constantly find myself saying “just one more star”. There’s also tons of variety in levels, I haven’t found a level yet where I thought the game was overly difficult or broken. Although Two player co-op is somewhat disappointing.
3. Rock Band (360)
   Despite only owning the game for six days last year it’s easily one of the best. Guitar/Bass is a bit easier that GH3. The drums are wicked fun to play (despite my lack of coordination). Singing is fun when you have someone who can sing. The track list is better than GH3 despite having less songs. There’s just something undeniably awesome about getting a bunch of people together and rocking. The downside, It is a huge pain in the ass to carry around all that crap; My original guitar was defective and I’m waiting on a replacement; and I can’t use the same characters for different instruments.
4. Guitar Hero 3 (Wii)
   Before Rock Band there was Guitar Hero 3. I bought this game twice, just to get a second guitar for multiplayer. Even after Rock Band it’s still a blast. (It’s also much more portable) Despite the Wii version getting screwed over with mono sound, no DLC (until later this year), and crappy online multiplayer, I’m still happy I got the Wii version. It’s waay more portable and GH3 (and Rock Band) are meant to be played with people in the same room.
5. Paper Mario (Wii- VC)
   Initially I was going to put Super Paper Mario here. The dialogue was great, I had fun playing it and have no regrets buying it but realistically it’s not top five material. It was waaay to easy. Less like a game and more like a story with a lot of walking and jumping. It did get me interested in it’s great granddaddy, Paper Mario. So Paper Mario came out six years ago, I never bought an n64 so it’s new to me. Anyway back to the game, It was a lot of fun but I’m still disappointed I got a fish instead of getting to ride Yoshi around.

Close but not quite:

• Metroid Prime 3 (Wii)
  I like the game so far especially the controls but haven’t had a chance to play much of it yet.
• Halo 3 (360)
  It’s pretty looking and I hear the multiplayer is good but this is another game I haven’t had much time to play with. I plan on using this game to learn how to play console FPSs.
• Bioshock (360)
  Supposedly one of the best games this year, I want it and I want it bad but I don’t have to time for another game right now.

The Team Fortress Classic was my first love affair with online gaming. I remember meeting up with friends in the Half-Life Spanish Chat room on WON. Coordinating our efforts to find a server we could all play in while hoping noone in my family would try to make a phone call and disconnect me. My first clan (*HWF*) played TFC and we talked about how we’d all switch over to TF2 once it came out. It was a long wait. TF2 was originally announced in 1998 as a realistic, team-based, war game and shown off at E3 in 1999, then delayed in 2000 so it could be ported to the Source engine and eventually just not talked about. In 2004 Valve stated that TF2 was still in development and in 2006 it was mentioned again. Last month roughly 8 years after being announced it was finally released as part of the Orange Box.

…and boy is it fun. It is well balanced, runs pretty darn good on my not so top of the line system. The game looks like a cartoon with a decent amount of blood and gore thrown in. Each of the classes has their own style, voice, and personality. The games oozes style and that style works really well. it actually reminds me a bit of No One Lives for Ever, minus the 60’s. Much of the game has been simplified from TFC. Grenades are gone, as are many guns, the flashlight, ammo backpacks, armor, etc. It actually took me sometime to notice that a lot of that stuff was missing. One of my favorite additions to the games is the stats and achievements. I love being able to keep track of my stats for each class and overall.

As for the classes it’d take me all day to cover them all. My favorite class so far is the scout, who isn’t too different from TFC. He gained a double jump which replaces the concussion jump in TFC. He lost the nail gun which I really miss when trying to take out a sentry gun but his scattergun is more powerful (at short ranges) so he take out other players easier. Medic’s healing gun is awesome but his syringe launcher is lacking. It’s pretty good close range but for long range you’d have a better chance of hitting someone with your bone saw. I do miss is the ability to to infect people. When a medic teams up with a heavy and gets an uber charge that combination can cause some serious havoc. Engineers are still awesome. Supposedly spies are good but for some reason I haven’t had much luck with them. Snipers, Soldiers, Heavy Weapons Guys, Pyros, and Demomen aren’t terribly different from TFC but I haven’t played them much.

Like CS: Source when it came out TF2 has a noticeable lack of maps. Right now there are only 6 maps: ctf_2fort, cp_well, cp_dustbowl, cp_gravelpit, cp_granary and tc_hydro. I am hoping for a few more (Avanti, casbah, crossover, cz2, epicenter, rock2 and my all time favorites maps the hunted). Presumably some of them will be added eventually but I fear I may never get to experience the hunted in TF2. The majority of the maps are control point now as opposed to capture the flag I knew and loved in TFC. Even Well has been converted to the control points which is somewhat disapointing because I think it was a much better CTF map. Maps like dustbowl and hydro aee broken up into sections where you fight for control between two points rather than multiple. This adds some variation to the game by making one map feel like several.

I graduated both high school AND college while waiting for TF2. If anyone from *HWF* happens to read this I’m still around and I have a feeling I’ll be playing TF2 for quite awhile. In fact I’ve delayed posting this about 3 weeks because I was too busy playing to bother with writing about it. Since noone bothers to read any of this, I think it worked out ok.

As for the rest of the Orange Box. I couldn’t beat Half-Life 2 because it made me feel sick so I didn’t bother with Episode One and won’t bother with Episode Two until I get around to buying some dramamine and beat HL2 and Ep1. Portal is quite simply the most fun I’ve had playing single player FPS in a long time and is a complete triumph. It is bit short but full of humor and just plain inventiveness that it’s a huge success. I can only hope there’s a sequel on its way.