PAX East: Preview

For those of you who are not familiar with the Penny Arcade Expo (PAX), all you need to know is that in the words of it’s co-founder, Jerry Holkins, “It is the convention that should have existed, but didn’t.” Spanning three days, with over  60,000 tickets sold, PAX East is the inaugural east-coast version of the annual west-coast PAX, an event that has grown year after year since 2004 to make it the largest gaming convention in the country.

Founded by the creators of the Penny Arcade web comic, PAX differs from most gaming events because of its strong sense of community.  The Penny Arcade guys may be in charge, but PAX is a convention for the fans, by the fans.

Myself (Matt), Jon, Mike, and Chris from The Modern Day Pirates will be piling into a car on Thursday night and heading to Boston for the weekend.  Hopefully, we will  remember to eat and sleep.  That being said, if you’re wondering what there actually is to do at PAX, check out our top 10 things we are looking forward to.  Trust me, this is just the tip of the iceberg.

Our Top Ten:

• The Omegathon
  • Think “March Madness”, but with video games.  The Omegathon is a giant tournament bracket where convention-goers are chosen at random to be contestants, and each round involves a single-elimination match-up on a predetermined game.  This year, contestants will be placed in teams, and all games will be 2 vs 2.  The first round will be a game of Mario Kart: Double Dash on Friday evening, followed by Geometry Wars 2 the next morning, and an unnamed rhythm game on Saturday night.  The final round is a complete mystery, where the final two teams will be facing off for the grand prize of a fully paid trip to Cologne, Germany to attend the Gamescom convention in August, as well as $2,500 in cash.

• Wil Wheaton Keynote
  • If anyone where to qualify for “Legendary Geek” status, Wil Wheaton would fit that bill.  Wil achieved geek stardom in the role of young Ensign Wesley Crusher on the television series Star Trek: The Next Generation.  He has gone on, though, to run a very successful blog, and has a role in the hit web series “The Guild.” Wil just seems to pop up everywhere, and is therefore a fixture in the geek community.

• Concerts
  • Anamanaguchi, Jonathan Coulton, MC Frontalot, Metroid Metal, Paul and Storm, Protomen, The Video Game Orchestra.  Wow, this is a serious lineup, spanning two nights of concerts.  If you don’t know any of the above artists, you owe it to yourself to check them out.

• American Classic Arcade Museum
  • You may recognize Funspot, the home of the American Classic Arcade Museum and the largest arcade in the world, from the movie “The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters”.  Well, they’ll be bringing a large portion of their collection to display at PAX East, including both full-size arcade cabinets and pinball machines.  Walking into Funspot is the video game geek’s equivalent of stepping into Willy Wonka’s factory, and the ACAM is coming to PAX East to give everyone a taste.

• Tabletop Gaming Library
  • PAX is more than just video games, and tabletop gaming is present at PAX in full force.  If tournaments of Munchkin, Settlers of Catan, Robo Rally, Dominion, and Puerto Rico aren’t enough to look forward to, the PAX tabletop headquarters has a library of well over 100 different games that anyone may borrow and play.

• Freeplay Areas/Hand Held Gaming
  • Aside from the more formal tournaments, there are large freeplay areas where many systems are set up for anyone to play.  There are even a wide variety of classic consoles, with more casual tournaments including  Perfect Dark for N64, Street Fighter II for SNES, and a single elimination Atari 2600 tournament bracket where every round is played on a new Atari game chosen at random.  There is lots of hand held gaming gong on at PAX with a decent portion of the day spent in lines moving from one panel to the next.  Every one of us will have a DS in hand, because when else do you get the chance to play full-up games of Mario Kart over local wi-fi?

• Penny Arcade Q&A
  • One hour, two microphones, and the creators of  Penny Arcade standing atop the stage ready to answer any questions the audience might have.  Taking place twice during the weekend, these no-holds-barred Q&A sessions are a treat for true fans of the Penny Arcade series.

• Indie Gaming Showcase
  • Just because a game has a small budget does not mean it can’t be fun!  Some of the best gaming experiences I’ve had have been from indie developers, and the PAX crew has selected what they feel are the best of local Boston developers; offerings for this year’s indie gaming showcase, including:
    • Slam Bolt Scrappers – Fire Hose Games
    • AaaaaAAaaaAAAaaAAAAaAAAAA!!! – Dejobaan Games
    • Dearth – MIT Gambit Game Lab
    • Waker – MIT Gambit Game Lab
    • Turba – Keith Morgado
    • Miegakure – Marc ten Bosch

• Exhibitor Hall
  • Swag is king in the exhibitor hall!  Every gaming related company worth their salt has a booth in this huge hall, where you can preview the latest builds of tomorrow’s most hotly anticipated games, talk to developers, and of course, collect your fair share of free stuff!  Last year, PAX attendees were treated to No More Heroes branded toilet paper, so I can only imagine what we will walk away with this time!

• Parties & Outside Events
  • PAX is big enough that it cannot even contain everything the gaming community has to offer, so plenty of outside events and parties have sprung up.  There is:
    • Concert by Freezepop across the street on Saturday
    • Kick-off parties on Thursday night held by Rockstar Games, with a preview of Red Dead Redemption, and another held by Sony, featuring PlayStation Move
    • Twitter meet-up with Xbox Live’s Major Nelson in Cambridge
    • “Gamers Gone Wild” party sponsored by 2old2play and SFX360 on Saturday night
    • Free breakfast w/ live podcast recording sponsored by the guys at Joystiq
    • Several afterparties sponsored by Kotaku, IGN, Alienware, and Gamespy just to name a few.

Be sure to keep an eye on our Twitter account, @ModernDayPirate, for updates throughout the weekend.  We will do our best to recap each day on the main site, but if you want the firehose, complete with pictures, hit up the Twitter feed!