On the third and final day of PAX, we’ll look at a few more games, hop on the Tekken bus, and check out some funny game-related costumes. Thanks for reading all three of my PAX 2012 articles, I really appreciate it!

Sony and Microsoft’s booths were right next to each other, and they both had tons of cool games that I didn’t get much time to check out because they were always crowded! Sony had games like PlayStation All-Stars Battle Royale, the new Sly Cooper game, LittleBigPlanet Karting, and much more. It was easy to tell what was shown at Sony’s booth because they had big wall signs over everything. But it was a little harder to tell what was going on at Microsoft’s Xbox 360 booth. They only had tiny marquees above each TV monitor, so it was a little hard to find where I should go for my next meeting to try a new Xbox LIVE game called Happy Wars.

Happy Wars

This game will be the first free to play online Xbox LIVE game. But like all free to play games, you still have to spend MS Points (money) in the game to buy Happy Tickets, which is what you use to buy armor and other items. The game is a silly, 3-D hack and slash multiplayer challenge where you play as a cartoony little warrior and try to storm the opposing team’s castle. I think those who enjoyed games like Fat Princess will like this one, too. You can choose different classes, like Warrior, Mage, or Cleric to help out your team. Dress up your character with all sorts of silly weapons and armor, too. I saw a meat sword, pizza box shield, milk carton helmet, and chef hat! There’s also a single player mode so you don’t have to play online all the time. There is no expected release date for Happy Wars yet, but I hope it’s soon because this game looks right up my alley!

Klei

This developer was one of my last meetings at PAX. I tried a trio of games from them that will be coming out later. First was Eets Munchies on iPad. This was a puzzle game where you have to guide a little critter who walks on his own to a piece of cake for him to munch on to finish the level. You have to place objects for him to interact with to help him bypass obstacles and get to that cake! The game comes with a level editor, and it’s the same program that the developers used to make the main levels! So you can design your own puzzles and share them with others, too. Other games Klei showed were Don’t Starve, a new type of survival game. And Mark of the Ninja, a 2-D action stealth ninja game that’s coming to Xbox LIVE soon. Hopefully I’ll get to review it then.

The Wheels on the Tekken Bus Go Round and Round

One of my off-site meetings at PAX was with Namco Bandai to check out Tekken Tag Tournament 2 on the Tekken Bus! I saw the bus at E3, but never went inside it, so I thought it might be fun to see what the Tekken Bus was like here at PAX!

On the way there, I passed by one of the gazillion Starbucks in Seattle and saw this neat sign with Mario and Luigi on it.

That Pumpkin Spice Frappuccino that Luigi was holding looked tempting, but the line was too long and Starbucks is usually too fancy for me anyway.

So after a short walk I arrived at the Tekken bus parked at a quiet bus station.

Inside, the nice folks showed a group of us the new Tekken game. It’s definitely geared toward the hardcore Tekken fan. You can pick from pretty much any character in the Tekken series and compete in tag team matches. View your replays with details that show how much damage each move and combo took. You can then bring your records online on the Tekken World Federation website and post your records on both the 360 and PS3 versions! It gives every detail of each match you’ve ever played. Only bad thing about that is if you really suck at Tekken like I do, then the whole world will know it, too! At any rate, Tekken Tag Tournament 2 will be out in about a week.

So do you want to see what the inside of the Tekken Bus looked like? Well here you go! Looks a lot different on the inside than the outside, doesn’t it?

Inside one of the halls at PAX was another Tekken sight. Ladies dressed as female fighter characters from the Tekken series. I swear they were the same models from Namco Bandai’s booth at E3, but this time they were at Mad Catz PAX booth, showing off the Tekken arcade stick, I reckon. The young woman on the right dressed as Asuka kept throwing Mad Catz lanyards at my head as I passed by. Silly lady!

Oh yeah, and parked right next to the Tekken Bus was another themed bus for FireFall. I didn’t go inside it because there was a line to get in, but it looked pretty neat on the outside anyway. How would you like to have that thing pass you by on the road? With the way that bus looked, I wouldn’t be surprised if it blasted off into space!

Costumes!

And speaking of FireFall and silly costumes, we’ll conclude this PAX tour of some of the costumes at the show, both from the companies and gamers themselves. First are some futuristic warriors at the FireFall booth.

They were standing in front of the FireFall statue that was at PAX last year. The statue was inside the booth this time, but I still think it’s a cool display so I took another picture of it anyway.

Here’s a funny green fella who greeted us at the entrance to PAX one day.

And here’s Sonic being escorted out of PAX. Probably because he was running too fast down the halls. Ha!

A couple of guys dressed as characters from Futurama, too. Although for the life of me, I can’t remember their names! And I call myself a Futurama fan! I’m so ashamed!

And speaking of out of this world space costumes, here’s Ulala from Space Channel 5! I love the characters in that game, even though I’m not very good at it.

Probably one of the best outfits at PAX was this Batman costume! You’d think he was working at WB Games’ booth or something. I hate it that this picture turned out kind of blurry because this was a really detailed costume. It was so authentic looking that it explains why there weren’t very many criminals at PAX! They were afraid Batman would get them!

And those are all the costumes I took pictures of. There were plenty more, but I didn’t have time to stop and take my camera out to snap pics of all of them!

And that’s all for my PAX articles. I sure had fun playing and learning about the games and talking with all the developers and PR professionals. And getting lots of 3DS StreetPass tags, too! Best of all was enjoying the show together with my brother Jeff. Thanks for reading all three days, and if you have any questions, please let me know in the comments section. Later! –Cary

Tags: Misc