pax-2008 posts

This the full PAX 2008 video of the ArenaNet panel discussing Guild Wars and the three years its been online. One of the biggest hightlights is the beginning montage, which features the orchestral music and graphics from all four games. Be aware that the video is very long (approx 51 minutes), so a streaming version could not be made available.

Download HD Three Years of Guild Wars Video (1.77 GB)

Tossing its hat into the stealth-action genre later this year is the GameCock published title, Velvet Assassin. Available only in eyes-on form at PAX 2008, Velvet Assassin is a story set in World War II and inspired in part by real life French secret agent Violette Szabo. Our short demo took us through a mission midway through the game where the lead character, Violette Summer, was tasked with destroying a gas line. Jump in for our impressions of Velvet Assassin.

There were many PC titles this last weekend at PAX08, but out of everything that I got my grubby hands on, Demigod was easily the biggest surprise. The fine folks from Gas Powered Games and Stardock were there in full force and as much as I love Sins of a Solar Empire, it seems like Demigod is my new favorite real-time strategy underdog.

Just as Sins is a strange blend of RTS and Civ-style games, Demigod is a blend of RTS and various PC RPGs. Given my penchant for games that blend RPGs into a genre I already enjoy, I'd always been interested in what Demigod had to offer. After playing it at PAX08, I'm ready to lay down my pre-order directly to Stardock's Impulse service. Follow the image above for plenty of discussion on GPS's newest creation, Demigod.

Keep the women and children safe; Big Download has landed in Seattle and will be attending the fifth annual Penny Arcade Expo this weekend. This event looks to be the biggest yet; in an article over at Wired's game site, organizers are already saying they have had 42,000 people pre-register for PAX 2008; that's several thousand more than their entire attendance for PAX 2007. The event will have double the exhibit hall space and 40 percent more space overall to handle the larger crowd.

Big Download team members will be covering the event, taking photos, and checking out all of the PC game related exhibits. It promises to be the best PAX yet and that's saying something.

It looks like Penny Arcade Expo is starting to get its own special products made just for the show, much like the San Diego Comic-Con offers exclusive merchandise. The latest such announcement comes from Hothead Games, the developers of the episodic adventure-RPG Penny Arcade Adventures. The developer will sell a special edition of the first episode of the game for the PC at the show.

While the regular edition of the game is only available via download, this special edition will be sold at the Hothead booth during PAX for $40. This limited edition will feature a collectible package that contains the game on disk, a game manual, a key chain, a t-shirt and a 20 sided die. PAX attendees will be able to play demos of the second Penny Arcade Adventures episode at the Hothead booth and there will even be info on Hothead's next major game Deathspank.

The full schedule for the annual PAX (Penny Arcade eXpo) has been released, revealing lots of tantalizing developer panels, concert events, and overall fun. PAX 2008 begins on Friday, August 29 and lasts through Sunday, August 31.

Lines for admittance into the expo hall begin at 8:00 a.m. on the 29th, with the doors officially opening at 2:00 p.m. As previously announced, BioShock designer Ken Levine will kickoff the expo with a keynote address from 4:30 until 5:30, the line for which begins at 3:00 that same afternoon. Attendees are encouraged to attend the keynote, as the man who created BioShock will certainly have main interesting stories to share.

Running through the entire weekend are several panels, some educational, some purely for entertainment, but all of enough interest for attendees to painstakingly deliberate over which to attend when schedule conflicts arise. Among the more noteworthy are The Growing Role of Women in the Industry, which begins at 4:30 and presents a conflict with Levine's keynote; Make a Scene, The Strong Bad Edition!, which begins at 7:30 that evening; and Video Games and Piracy, also beginning at 7:30.

And that's just some of what's offered for Friday, one out of PAX's three packed days!

The full schedule can be found on the official PAX website, as can more general information about the show.

The Penny Arcade Expo had a massive expansion in 2007 as the consumer game show moved from Kirkland, Washington to the big convention center in nearby Seattle. Attendance swelled from 18,000 to over 37,000 and pretty much humbled the heavily hyped and more commercial E For All Expo which launched in 2007 in LA with a disappointing 18,000 attendees.

Now Gamespot is reporting that several weeks before the 2008 PAX begins on August 29, pre-registration for the show has already exceeded the total amount of attendees for PAX 2007. PAX organizers have already predicted that 45,000 people will show up for the latest installment and that number may turn out to be conservative. And as we reported last week, PAX will launch an east coast version of the show sometime in 2010 (most likely in the spring)

With E3 now an invite online event, the largest video/PC game oriented event in the US is the Penny Arcade Expo. The organizers of PAX 2008 have sent out a note reminding people that Thursday, July 31 is the last day people can pre-register for the event to be held in Seattle on August 29-31.

Last year, event organizers expected 30,000 people; in the end over 37,000 attendees were recorded. This year, PAX 2008 is expecting 45,000 attendees to show up at the Washington State Trade and Convention Center. Because of this increase, organizers are expecting space to be tight this year even with the addition of 120,000 square feet of overall space. With gaming tournament, exhibits from 70 companies, music concerts, panels and lots more, PAX 2008 may be more important to the average gamer than E3.

One of the new events in the 2008 edition of the Penny Arcade Expo is the search for new independently developed game titles. The consumer gaming event announced earlier this year a calll developers to send them their titles that would be judged by a group of developers for inclusion in the "PAX 10". Now those 10 games have been selected from over 80 games submitted.

Those games will be on display at the 2008 PAX event to be held from August 29-31 in Seattle. The attendees will not only get to play the games but will also vote for their favorite with the winner getting the Audience Choice Award that will be announced after PAX 2008 is completed.

• The Amazing Brain Train by Grubby Games (puzzle/strategy)
• Audio Surf by Dylan Fitterer (rhythm/action)
• Chronotron by Scarybug Games (puzzle/platformer)
• Impulse by a team of Rochester Institute of Technology students (puzzle)
• The Maw by Twisted Pixel Games (action/adventure)
• Polarity by a team of Carnegie Mellon University students (platformer/puzzle)
• Project Aftermath by Games Faction (tactical/action)
• Schizoid by Torpex Games (action/strategy)
• Strange Attractors 2 by Ominous Development (puzzle/strategy)
• Sushi Bar Samurai by Molly Rocket (exploratory puzzle)