The Penny Arcade Expo, or PAX for short, is one of the largest public video game conventions in the US.  They have one in Boston, a newly announced PAX South in San Antonio in January (which I will be going to as well), but the big main one was just in Seattle over this past Labor Day weekend.  I just got back from that one, so for the rest of this week, we’ll take a look at what I did and games I played at this year’s PAX Prime!  Let’s get started!

Nom Nom Galaxy

I flew on Friday morning, so I only had three meetings with game companies in the afternoon.  The first game I met with folks to play was one I actually played last year.  Back then it was called PixelJunk Inc., but now they’ve changed the name to Nom Nom Galaxy.  It’s a 2-D action game that takes elements from Minecraft, Terraria, and even Cooking Mama!  You and another player explore planets to find ingredients to take back to your base to make different kinds of soups to send out so you can earn money!  In the new build, they showed off new boss battles where you must fire soup cans at rival aliens!  Nom Nom Galaxy will be available for Steam on PC and later for PS4 and Vita.

Adventures of Pip

In this 2-D platformer, citizens of a pixelated game world are having their pixels stolen away by an evil queen.  So now the heroic Pip must save the day!  While you do start out as just a single red square pixel who can’t do much, when you defeat certain enemies you can evolve into an 8-bit sprite with more mobility.  Later on you can even turn into a 16-bit sprite for even more attacks!  You’ll be constantly changing between each form to solve puzzles and bypass obstacles.  Enemies, bosses, and even backgrounds will also change forms as well.  The game controls great and has lots of fun retro platforming puzzles.  It’ll be available for PC as well as platforms like Wii U.  It’s being made by ex-WayForward employees.  I met one of them who did the art for A Boy and His Blob on Wii.  And the music is being done by the same guy who did the songs for Shovel Knight.  Right now, Adventures of Pip in a Kickstarter phase, so if you are interested, look them up and help them out.  With the success of retro styled games like Shovel Knight, I think Pip has a good chance of coming out sometime.

Geometry Wars 3: Dimensions

My last meeting of the day was to play the next Geometry Wars game!  This series plays a lot like the classic arcade title Robotron, and it is very popular.  Activision is bringing back the classic brand Sierra to publish this new entry, and their name is always associated with adventure games like King’s Quest, Space Quest, etc.  So when I asked them why they chose to have Sierra publish the next Geometry Wars game, their answer just went over my head.  They could’ve said, “Just because,” and I’d be happy with that.  Anyway, in the new game, you glide over 3-D shapes like cubes, spheres, and even a peanut shape!  You can choose drones to follow you around that give you special abilities, and you can earn currency to buy more later.  The game now has a map with levels to conquer, and will have improved online co-op and competitive gameplay.  But the core game is still classic Geometry Wars that fans will love.  It’ll be available for nearly all systems later this year.  At PAX, they had a competition and whoever got the highest score each day would win a Geometry Wars related figurine.  My friend Leroy, who sometimes helps me write game reviews, is really good at Geometry Wars games and I think he even bought his 360 just to play Geometry Wars.  I bet he could have probably won one of those figures.  See the picture below to see what it looked like.

Square-Enix

Even though I didn’t get to meet with ALL the companies at PAX, I did get to play some games in press rooms and whatnot.  Square-Enix had a lot of games on the show floor, but not the ones I was interested in playing.  The ones I wanted to play were in a press room in another hotel!  But I did get a chance to check them out, like the new Theatrhythm Final Fantasy Curtain Call music game for 3DS.  I loved the first game, and even made it my Game of the Year for 2012.  This new one is more of the same, but sometimes that’s OK.  I played two songs: Edgar and Sabin’s theme from FF6, and my favorite Airship theme, the one from FF9.  They also had the Kingdom Hearts 2.5 HD Remix on display as well as some Dragon Quest ports for iOS devices.  I wish I could’ve taken pictures in that room because it was decorated better than their booth on the show floor.  It had a paper stage for Curtain Call and a Keyblade replica for Kingdom Hearts!

Capcom

Their booth was mostly just the Capcom store where you can buy toys and things based on Capcom’s franchises (like a cool Cammy statue I saw).  A lot of companies do that at PAX, though.  But behind their booth they did let you play some games, but most were already released, like Dead Rising 3 and Ultra Street Fighter IV.  But they did have a display with the Phoenix Wright Trilogy coming out on the 3DS eShop.

Namco Bandai Games

I was surprised to see them at PAX because usually they don’t come to this show.  They only had two games on display here though.  One was a new Naruto game, but the other one was a upcoming Digimon title!  It doesn’t have a release date yet, but it’s coming for PS3.  I thought that was kind of interesting.  I used to review a lot of Digimon games back in the day.

Misc. Stuff

I didn’t get to play anything at Sony’s booth, but they did have Little Big Planet 3 on display, which my brother Jeff loves.  Same with Microsoft, they were so crowded I didn’t even go into their booth, but they had a big bright Sunset Overdrive sign.  Ubisoft mostly just had a big Assassin’s Creed display, so I didn’t mess with them at the show.  Borderlands must be very popular because I saw two different booths at the show featuring that game.  2K Games had Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel and TellTale had Tales from the Borderlands.  And finally, I wanted to play LEGO Batman 3 at WB Games’ booth, but they didn’t have it there.  Supposedly they have a new Gauntlet game, but I couldn’t find where to play it at the show.

SEGA

In November, Sonic and friends are starring in a new computer animated TV series on Cartoon Network called Sonic Boom, and SEGA had a big, bright booth to show off the games based on the TV show that are coming out as well.  I played them both.  The Wii U game is a colorful 3-D platformer.  It has speed stages like the other 3-D Sonic games, but it also has some 3-D exploration and obstacle stages as well.  Kind of like Ratchet and Clank without the shooting.  The 3DS game is more of a 2-D platformer, but it also has new elements like a map and the ability to switch characters at any time.  Both games have a new gameplay mechanic, too.  Characters can shoot out an electric rope that can be used to swing from objects, pull things, and throw enemies.  I imagine die-hard Sonic fans may not like the changes, but for people like me who didn’t like the fast gameplay anyway, this may be a welcome difference.  At PAX it was great to see all the boys and girls playing the Sonic Boom games.  Kids love Sonic!

Here is a picture of statues of characters from Sonic Boom, including my favorite: Tails.

And here’s the other two.  I don’t know who that is on the right, but that’s Knuckles on the left.  Looks like he’s been eating his spinach or something!  Look at him, he looks ridiculous!

Another game Sega had on display was a sequel to their Project Diva F: Hatsune Miku music game.  Here is a young lady dressed as the main character from the franchise.

Nintendo

Nintendo was set up a little differently this year because they were in three different places on the show floor.  Their main booth, where they usually show all their big games, was dedicated this year for just one title: Super Smash Bros. for Wii U and 3DS!  The line was too long for me to play them, of course.  They would have people compete and whoever won would get a Smash Bros. towel.  I like Smash Bros., but I’m not very good at it so I knew I wouldn’t win anyway.  I only got close enough to take a picture of the sign overhanging the booth, and it has two of my boys on it: Pac-Man and Mega Man!

They also showed what the Amiibo figures would look like for it.  I’m totally going to get the Kirby one.  Oh, who am I kidding, I’m going to try and get them all!

At another area on the show floor, Nintendo had a sliver of a section dedicated to all things Pokemon.  Such as the new Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire remakes.  Also they had Pokemon Art Academy, which teaches you how to draw Pokemon on the 3DS like the other games in the Art Academy series do with other paintings.  And finally, they had a version of the Pokemon Trading Card Game you can play on tablets!  Here is the giant inflatable Pikachu that was hovering over the booth.

The other games Nintendo showed were next to the escalators like they always do.  I made it a point to play Captain Toad: Treasure Trackers and that’s it.  The line to play Hyrule Warriors was way too long.  Speaking of which, the second night at PAX I did go to a special off-site Hyrule Warriors event, but it was WAY too crowded.  I was lucky enough to get a T-shirt and scarf.  The T-shirt has Link from the game on it and says, “Team Link.” Too bad they didn’t have “Team Zelda,” or “Team Fi,” or “Team Impa,” or “Team Agitha” shirts.  Or better yet, “Team Tingle!”  The scarf is based on the one Link wears in the game, and is probably one of the nicest freebies I got at the show.  But it was too crowded for me to play the game or eat any food or drinks, so after we got our stuff, we went back to the hotel!

Stay “Tooned” for More!

And that’s all for today!  “Toon” in tomorrow for more PAX fun!  –Cary

Tags: Misc