PAX Prime and the adventures of Neks and Styles

Styles

Shared on Sun, 09/18/2011 - 18:26

PAX Prime and the adventures of Neks and Styles. What a week it was. First let start with apologizing for being so late with this content. After returning home from Seattle I could not find my camera that I took with me to PAX. I was giving myself some time to try and find it but it is gone, so bummed…..lame. So with my PAX info I have some pics I took with my phone and also some from Neks’s phone as well.

As the title goes this was a week of action. Neks flew out to my place in south east WA on Monday ahead of the PAX weekend. During the week we of course got some games on in my gaming room.

A friend of a friend that is a beginning photographer wanted to shoot some cars for his portfolio so he hit me up and we went out for a shoot.

Local there are a couple nice country roads to hit up and one is a bit of a canyon run with some nice elevation changes and some twisties. Neks shot some iPhone video, I’ll post it up another time.

On to PAX…. I wanted to cover some shooters, a little Forza, maybe some hardware and mix in a few parties Hang with Killthrash and Emminentt. Just for the record this is my personal opinion on the games I checked out and I try to be as open minded as possible, so deal. Here is what I came out with.

FPS: No MW3 to be seen at all! Because of the (at the time) upcoming Call of Duty XP event in CA and the fact that I think Activision had shown all they wanted to for the year, they did not have anything to see at PAX Prime.

Battlefield 3 had a very closed off booth and forced everyone, including media, to wait in their 4-8 hour line to try out the upcoming title. Sorry but I had other things to check out and navigating the nerd sea was epic in that place.

Gears of War 3 really didn’t have anything new to drop on us at the last minute as it is about to launch 09/20. At their booth they did have all stations set up to play the new Horde 2.0 mode as seen on the interwebs vids. I was a fan for a while of the first Horde mode on GoW2, but for me it does get a little boring after about level 50. With 2.0 it might get more play from me than the first. Setting up weapons and defense to the waves was pretty cool. Having to buy your way back in adds to the challenge as well. Can’t wait till the 20th!

Counter Strike: Global Offensive had a pretty good booth with plenty of game play to be seen from the outside. We hit the media line, not really a line as you get right in, and we played some. I have never really played CS on the PC but I wanted to check this out as it was their early build for the Xbox. We played through a couple rounds and it was very smooth and had that classic CS look to it as I have seen on the PC game play. They told us that there would be a lot more than what we saw there at launch which is next year. I think for big CS fans they will be all over this, I will probably pick it up for something new to play.

Halo Fest!!! The set up that 343 put together for Halo Fest was pretty sick with plenty of Halo history to be seen. The gaming set ups they had for everyone to play on were pretty good, maybe “too” good on the FFA as you sat 2’ away from a 50”! Too big. On day 1 we were about 2 minutes too late to register for the 4v4 tournament, bummed out for sure. So we jumped into the FFA line. The only Halo they had for us to play was the new Halo CE Anniversary edition. This meant a look at the new maps, NO bloom DMR and TSK pistol (three shot kill with the pistol)! Now when I had heard about no bloom DMR my honest first thought was “great, just another way to make the game easier for the whiners”. I believe in the skill it takes to aim and pace the DMR. First round of the FFA we sat in on was a no bloom game. I found myself pacing the DMR out of pure muscle memory. Then when I realized I had no bloom I just let it rip, son! Now one good thing to note is that people that think they’re going to get a leg up with some kind of modded or turbo controller will not. The mechanics of the gun only shoot so fast which is a good thing. I do not know this for sure but it did feel like the auto aim feature was a little less in the no bloom games which in turn would make you work on your aim skill a little harder, but like I said no one told me that. I think no bloom games will be fun when the game comes out but for me I think it will be a passing phase kinda like the classic play list was for me. Fun for a few rounds or every once in a while but that’s about it.

Killthrash - FFA

Styles- card board beast mode!

FFA set up

Killthrash and date, Noble 6

Neks and I found ourselves in the open 4v4 station whenever the line was light as they would let us sit in for as many rounds as we wanted till there was a line again. While this was no replacement for the tournament we missed out on we did get to flex some skills against a few teams of 4 that thought pretty highly of themselves. To add to that I think every time we jumped in the FFA, Neks took 1st every time.

On day 2 we sat in at the Halo Fest panel area for Bungie’s last panel for Halo. Nothing mind blowing but it was fun to hear about antics that go on behind the scenes in that studio. If any of you are or are considering the video game industry I would put that studio at the top of your list to work for.

343 had a pretty sick store set up as well and I was able to make my 4 year olds day when I got back with all the goods I picked up for him including this very limited Grunt plushy!

For the Forza fans out there, I’m one of them as well, I hit up the Turn 10 guys. Now some of this might not be news for the hard core guys but for the casual peeps I learned some new stuff. Head tracking with the Kinect has been talked about quite a bit and I think it will be interesting for sure. I don’t think that feature will make Forza stand out as a game changer in the racing market of games. That in combination of the new Speed wheel will get new people playing the game at parties or get togethers. For me I gotta have a mounted wheel with pedals though. The shared garage idea is pretty cool. I will be able to share my built cars with my friends and they can go ret to beat my best times in my cars and vice versa. Very cool I think because you can do it on your own time and it’s like racing you friends when they are off line.

Microsoft - Speed Wheel

I hit up the Gunnar booth, as I’m a fan, to see what they had coming out. Neks and I had a nice talk with their Marketing manager with one of the main topics being able to get your Gunnar’s with your prescription. Also the MW3 magnesium alloy frame pair set to come out when MW3 (Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3) launches this winter. Look for a full review and in depth details soon.

With trade shows come industry and private parties. My back ground coming from the aftermarket automotive industry I have been to some pretty crazy parties at the SEMA show in Vegas. I wasn’t sure what to expect out of a gaming industry scene in this aspect. Honestly it was pretty weak, nothing really to write home about. But as usual on this weekend the freaks were out.

In closing I want to shout out Neks for making the cross country trip out and Doodi for hooking us up! If you get the chance to hit up PAX, Prime or East, do it.

Here are some other random pics.....

Voice of the Chief - Steve Downes