One of the interesting new things I checked out at PAX was the Wii U. I watched someone play a game where they explored/sniped with the new Wii U tablet controller. I took a quick picture of him giving it a go:

http://i.imgur.com/uj1d0.jpg

I was interested in talking to someone from Nintendo about the Wii U to ask a few questions. A Nintendo rep asked if I wanted to play a game and I said I wanted to take a picture of the "normal" controller without a screen on it. He said that I couldn't but he could "clarify things" for me. I said ok and asked him...

"So you obviously have two controllers here, the tablet one with a screen and then the other that has no screen. Will they both ship with the new Wii U?"

The Nintendo rep said that information hasn't been shared with anyone yet and that I should check the website for more information. I kind of wanted to get some "clarity" on the non tablet controller and asked another.

"So the controller without the tablet screen, that's kind of interesting, Nintendo had one they released on the Wii for the classic Nintendo and Super Nintendo games, is this for that or is this kind of a new direction for Nintendo away from the Wii-mote?"

The Nintendo rep said that the controller existed and it had a use for the games they were demoing but didn't say more than that. Felt bad for the guy at this point, he couldn't really say much about anything. I thanked him and went to another station and took some quick pictures of the Wii U and other stuff.

A few observations about the Wii U...

• The size is physically smaller than my first run PS3. The Wii U is rumored to be about as powerful as the current gen PS3 or XBOX 360.


• It has the red sync button available on the front in plain view. The Wii has this hidden behind a flip panel.


• Bigger air vents on the side. The Wii had them, but the Wii looks smaller than the Wii U.

I really wish I could have flipped the top down to see what it sported underneath. I wonder if there are SD or USB ports up front?

http://i.imgur.com/C9gVz.jpg [a picture of the new nintendo controller with no tablet screen. someone else took this, sorry]
http://i.imgur.com/1Symo.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/gPtVT.jpg [sorry this is grainy I had to take it quick]

Unsure how the new Wii U will fit in with my gaming future, if at all. Still, it could be awesome, I just don't know much about it and Nintendo wasn't really sharing much to make me too excited about it.

What do you think of the new Wii U?

I have a ton of free PAX Beta keys and Free DLC to give-away to all you awesome people. Apparently some of this PAX exclusive stuff is on Ebay selling for real cash money. Like the Doom 3 BFG Edition Pink Avatar I nabbed from the iD booth is selling for $10. Since I love you all so much, they will be free to you all.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/PAX-Prime-2012-Exclusive-DOOM-3-BFG-Pinky-Xbox-Avatar-DLC-Item-/261091710181?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item3cca4754e5
http://www.ebay.com/itm/PAX-Prime-2012-Exclusive-Dishonored-Corvo-Mask-Xbox-Avatar-DLC-Item-/261091708569?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item3cca474e99

I know, I know. Mother Teresa has nothing on my generosity. Well, enough about me, you need free stuff.

I have all your email addresses, so the first people to claim something in the comments I will give it to. When its gone its gone so comment quick like if you want something. Limit yourself to a few codes if you can. If by Friday they are not all gone, feel free to come back and ill give you the remaining stuff.

I will update this post with what has been claimed as I hand out the goods.

Without further ado... Here are the goods you can claim and how many I have to give away in no particular order...

• 2 Doom 3 BFG Edition Pinky Avatars for XBox 360[ALL claimed]


• 2 Dishonorder Corvo Mask Avatar Items for XBox 360[ALL claimed]


• [CLAIMED]1 Smite Beta Key


• [CLAIMED]1 Tribes Ascend in-game item or something[hard to tell, but its something special]


• 5 FireFall Beta Keys [3 left]


• 1 Offensive Combat Closed Beta Key


• 1 Blacklight Retrobution Weapon Tag[claimed]


• [Claimed]1 D&D Neverwinter MMO Beta


• 1 Age of Empires Steam Starter Pack[claimed]


• 1 End of Nations 7 day 50% xp boost redemption codes


• 1 Need for Speed World Speedboost/special item codes


• 2 Battlefield Hero's in game item codes


• 2 Battlefield play 4 free in game item codes


• 2 Warhammer online Wrather of Heros in game item codes


• 2 Command and Conquer Tiberium Alliances in game item codes


• 2 Lord of Ultima in game item codes

PAX day 2 was pretty awesome. I realized that I had accidentally missed a TON of expo floor so Saturday I spent the day exploring the rest of the expo floor, listening to talks and watching a few League of Legends matches.

I also spent Saturday collecting a ton of Beta keys and DLC vouchers, so checkout a later post for give-aways!

http://i.imgur.com/OVIVa.jpg [crossing the street at PAX]

The first talk of the day was a panel on the future of multiplayer games. It featured Andy Williams [Nexon], Scott Hartsman [Trion Worlds], Matt Higby [Planetside 2], Max Schaefer [Runic Games], Scott Youngblood [Red 5 Studios], Craig Morrison [Age of Conan], Joel Bylos [The Secret World]. This was one of the best panels at PAX and I enjoyed how honest it was. It really opened up during the Q&A and I am glad I attended. They handed out a TON of beta keys for Planetside 2 and FireFall, check a later post if you want to snag one.

After the panel @chowda and I hit the expo floor.

http://i.imgur.com/Z8KRJ.jpg [if you figure out what I am doing in this picture that would be super. in retrospect it looks like I am pretending to put on a power glove but I am not really sure.]

I noticed much more cosplay on Saturday. Some of it was pretty impressive and funny. One guy was dressed like a Republic commando and walked around with a boom-box playing some kind of dance music. The Halo guys didn't seem to mind the cross of worlds.

http://i.imgur.com/EZgat.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/ltXWL.jpg [yes, he could walk in that]
http://i.imgur.com/3LhRg.jpg [at the d&d neverwinter area, yes this dragon apparently died this way]
http://i.imgur.com/Gsvq8.jpg [aliens colonial marines area]
http://i.imgur.com/jVbE3.jpg [d&d area. no smiles for the camera!]
http://i.imgur.com/ABNvp.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/O9zaR.jpg [ac3 area]
http://i.imgur.com/J1zdc.jpg [practicing duck and cover because I have no prior experience with yeti protection.]

Mojang had a pretty interesting area at PAX. The outside was Mojang community art and inside was a museum.

http://i.imgur.com/X5u7E.jpg [community art]
http://i.imgur.com/1y04L.jpg [guncraft had a showing]
http://i.imgur.com/E1wQP.jpg [mojang museum]
http://i.imgur.com/0Vz3T.jpg [the anatomy of a creeper]

Playstation had a pretty impressive showing this year. They were showcasing God of War Ascension, Little Big Planet Karting & Playstation Allstars Battle Royale.

http://i.imgur.com/T7Jnm.jpg [playstation area]
http://i.imgur.com/7DOXe.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/tGDyx.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/zVWAw.jpg [playstation allstars]
http://i.imgur.com/tBjvB.jpg [god of war]

Oh right and sorry many of the shots are so muddy. Next year I plan on using a much nicer camera. Apparently the iPhone 4S doesn't thrive in low light conditions. Who knew? Well maybe you did and I blame you for not telling me ahead of time!

Dear PAX,

Yep. That's me up there lounging in a Riot Games bean bag chair watching a few League of Legends tournaments. PAX, you are big. You have attracted every kind of geek imaginable. You are the first video game convention ive attended and you are intense.

We met up with a few friends of @chowda and that was fun to meet some new people. They had attended PAX a few times previously and gave us a few tips. One such tip was that you would stand in many lines. I am not sure I have had feet as sore as this and ive back-packed around Italy. I just might be getting too old or something..... :D

http://i.imgur.com/b6U7I.jpg (the morning line up)

One of the highlights of the day was a talk on the uncertain future of game story telling. It featured Notch and the designers of Baston, DayZ, X-Com and The Walking Dead. Interesting talk as they all seemed to have different takes on games and story telling. After the talk I wanted to say hi to Notch but he was mobbed by about 100 fan boys and I decided to eat lunch instead.

http://i.imgur.com/zEcdR.jpg (the uncertain future of storytelling on the PC panel)

This evening I went to the EPIC games Fortnight game reveal. In line I met a few cool people. Someone that worked for Microsofts Azure team and a woman who is a indie artist. We sat with them during the Fortnight panel. With Fortnight EPIC is building a stylized co-op game that looks like Team Fortress 2 meets Minecraft meets a Pixar movie. From what they showed, you can collect resources to build a fort and that fort is used to survive zombie attacks. You operate on teams and you can focus on building, attacking and other stuff they didn't showcase. The graphics are really pretty and for an EPIC game its not what we have come to expect. Cliff Bleszinski and the other designers talked about creating a game without a huge advertising push that they release on PC first. They want to quickly get a beta out, listen to fans and build it up for the Fortnight community. They said they had a lot of success with Gears on the XBox but that model wasn't something they were going for with Fortnight. After the reveal @chowda and I are really interested in playing Fortnight. One person got a "golden ticket" under their chair for beta access to the game. She was excited about winning.

PAX is an amazing spectacle filled with art and cos-play and I snapped a few pics of some stuff. I plan on taking many more pictures tomorrow.

http://i.imgur.com/NvieF.jpg

Tomorrow we plan on hitting up the expo hall more to try a few games out. I watched a few people play Borderlands 2 and I was really impressed. I think the new menu system seems to work better on widescreen TVs and the game seems really smooth and polished. 2K had an impressive amount of show room floor space and easily 45+ stations setup for people to play. That said the line was around 3-4 hours to get your hands on the game so I opted out of standing in the line to check it out for now.

A few more pics for good measure. I would upload more but the internet in our Hotel is slow.

http://i.imgur.com/sqvBu.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/ZAoAk.jpg

Taking a few minutes to post a bit about PAX as I wait in line for a panel on PC gaming. Nothing could have prepared me for the scale of this convention. The amount of video game fans present and eager to tear through the endless halls of video game culture is incredible.

I heard there were 60,000 tickets sold and that doesnt surprise me. Had to take a few breaks away from the crowds due to the scale and intensity of things.

I'll post more tonight, with pictures and more awesomery! Having a good time with the army of nerds.

Cool new Borderlands 2 trailer narrated by a new character, Sir Hammetlock. In this 7 minute video he gives an awesome run down of the new classes and some characters skills. A few new enemies are shown as well as some gun and grenade abilities.

This game looks epic!

Happy PAX day!

A really fun documentary about the Starcraft craze. The video covers the history of Startcraft to Starcraft 2 and eSports.

A fun watch on the eve of PAX.

Leaving for PAX Prime in Seattle tomorrow. Reading over the presentations and noting which ones I want to attend:

"Story Time with Ted Price"
"Chiptunes"
"The Double Fine Adventure Adventure"
"Assassin's Creed III PAX Prime Panel"
"Epic Games Presents: Fortnight Reveal"
"Behind the music of blockbuster video games"
"After notch the new minecraft team"
"Which Interactive Lie Did I Tell: A conversation on game writing with Chet & Erik of Valve Software"

I plan on hitting up others but these were the ones that stood out to me.

According to Bethesda Doom 3 BFG Edition will be playable as well as Departed. Gearbox will be showing Borderlands 2 as well so I will have much to write about in the next few days.

Stay rad.

After completing a ton of quests in Whiterun I decided to pick up the main quest and make my way to the place to meet up with the Greybeards in the mountains. From Whiterun to the destination it looked pretty close but as I made the journey I realized how far things in Skyrim can be. The journey took me over grasslands, rivers a bridge and to a town at the summit of the 7,000 steps. The 7,000 steps leading to the area the Greybeards inhabit.

Ivarstead is the town at the mountain summit and I talked to a few people and rested up at the Inn. There were a few town quests, one being to check out a haunted shack at the edge of town that I haven't started yet. Hanging out in these small towns is fun, nice to see every town in Skyrim isn't "Whiterun sized." I picked up a quest from a NPC on a bridge to take a sack of food to the top of the mountain for the Greybeards. He said the only stuff he encountered on his trip up were the occasional wolf or rabbit. Yeah, that was pretty misleading as I had a few sizable foes to kill on the way. One Frost Troll killed me 5 times before I put it down. Apparently many players had problems killing that one too from a few Google Searches on the topic.

Summiting the mountain was fun. Its was cool to see the weather change and read the text of the stones on the way to the top. After I hit the steps I snapped the above image and saved. I want to enter High Hrothgar in a later session.

The Portal 2 Perpetual Testing Initiative is a really fun map editor and sharing platform. Making maps and sharing them with friends really brought me back to my early map making days with Wolfenstein, Doom, Warcraft 2 and Starcraft. Looks like Valve is taking the Perpetual Testing Initiative one step further and allowing people the ability to make co-op maps!

A snip from the Valve blog post:

"That's right: Puzzle creators can now design and publish co-op maps, which puzzle players can now greedily consume. Well, as long as they have a co-op partner. Which the 75% off coupon should help them (i.e.: you) find. We've also added a "Quick Play" feature that creates never-ending, auto-generated playlists of the top-rated maps in a variety of categories. It has literally never been easier to figuratively jump in and literally play some Portal"

http://www.thinkwithportals.com/blog.php?id=8663&p=1