I'm heading there this year, next Friday! I went to the original but missed out on the last one.

What games do you guys think I should try or keep an eye out for? Or are there any you'd like some impressions about? ETC ETC

I remember going last time and waiting in line for a few hours to play Red Dead early. Hoping some other games will be there playable early this year too.

I think Ubisoft have said that Assassin's Creed 3 will be there in some capacity, so if you could look out for it that'd be super. Hopefully they have the multiplayer mode there or something.

Yeah I tend to forget too. My friends and I tried to wait till the game competition schedule came out. It became apparent however they weren't going to release it till after all the tickets sold out. Kinda stupid

I will keep an eye out for sure.
Apparently Borderlands 2 will have a playable demo there which will be interesting to try out!

Too bad you're goin' Friday. I'm going Sunday :( This will be my first Games Expo, so I'm stoked. I'm also going to see if I can meet some devs and gets some lines out for a job...

What area are you guys from (Froz and Grift)

I'm just north of Boston so PAX is really close to me here. My gf is actually playing a show down in Philly next month. I was debating going as well since I've never seen Philly.
Is public transportation there any good? It would be great if I could take a bus and be able to tool around the city with her or while she practices with this band.

PAX is a somewhat long drive from where you are though, so I don't blame you missing it

Yeah Boston public transit is pretty excellent as well. If there are train lines to get to some cool spots that's all I need

whats red dead?

Red Dead Redemption. No wait...........you're going to pull a Phaethon360 on me aren't you? lol.

I just moved to Salem NH, so I'm close :) I'm used to driving (just got a VW GLI, which is awewsome btw)...

Okay so I went, played some gaaaaaaaaaaaames

When you go Froz, make sure you wait in line for a game called "Smite" it's by Hi-Rez Studios who are also responsible for the cool looking new Tribes game Ascension.
It was easily my game of show.
I signed up for beta immediately after getting home today. It's a similar to League of Legends.
http://www.smitegame.com

2nd best game I played there was another I didn't know about called "Primal Carnage"
This game is nearby Hi-Rez's booth in the far corner. It's basically a TPS but it's humans vs dinosaurs on the UT engine. It's very cool and so much fun. You can pick people up as a pterodactyl and drop them for kills, blind with a dilophosaurus, or rage with a velociraptor or trex. Human classes are cool too.

There were a few games I didn't play because the lines were soooo huge and I felt it wasn't worth my time. Max Payne 3, Borderlands 2, and Aliens vs Colonial Marines were all 2-4 hours wait time. I wasn't willing to do that for a sequel that doesn't excite me, a sequel to a game I've played the living shit out of, and a game that has look like crap. Somehow Aliens had crazy lines.
Also somehow a game called "Fireflight" also had intense lines. Didn't look like a very special TPS to me.
Far Cry 3 was there too, but also a long wait for a game was MEH about.

I got to play Orcs Must Die 2, which was cool.
Ghost Recon was actually pretty interesting, but I feel like people will be swimming (diving) all over the place in that game. The weapon customization and the way your stats change based upon your cover situation is really interesting. It just happened to work out that I faced some younger kids on it and schooled them. I felt kinda bad about it. The customization seems pretty intense.
It's worth noting that all the crazy movement we've seen in the trailers so far is just in SP. When I played multi it was pretty standard movements just like Gears.

Natural Selection 2 was there and that was really great. The whole look and feel of the game was awesome and I can't wait to get it when it comes out eventually. I didn't get to play as a commander but I did try out both aliens and humans.

That new Resident Evil Raccoon City was pretty bleh.
I also really dislike the 3DS. I know that now.
As expected the Kinect version of Steel Battalion is awful and ruins the game.
I didn't see Bioshock 2 there anywhere which was also disappointing.
Star Wars was also boring. Mind you an MMO is hard to judge from short playtime and terrrrrrrible key bindings.

Tera looked cool but I didn't get a chance to play it.
Behemoth's new title was fun to play. I think it's new? Battleblock Theater. Was a pretty fun co-op platforming experience.
The new Streets of Rage actually looks pretty bad.

Indie games were out in full force, especially XBLA games. Sony was pretty non existent.
I got to see Deadlight, Hell Yeah! Wrath of the Dead Rabbit, Jet Set Radio, Dust: An Elysian Tail, all played and in motion. Each were cool in their own right and people should be looking forward to them.

Peeped a new Tomb Raider trailer on the floor too which was awesome.
No Assassin's Creed or Guild Wars 2 either surprisingly. Blizzard and Activision were almost non existent aside from another party bringing in Diablo 3.

Anyone who likes Monster Hunter or Demons Souls should look into a game called "Dragon's Dogma". Game looked really awesome


I'll probably think of more later. I can go in more depth on these games too.

i can vouche for Tinks since i accompanied him this past friday.

Natural Selection is back, boy have I waited a long time =]

Woo. PAX was pretty cool. I was mainly there to do some networking and hide my business card on as many developers as I could, lol. I got to meet Dean Dodril (Dust: an Elysian Tail). He's super cool and he really liked my work (enough to keep my card and introduce me to the guys from Big Giant [Bastion]). I also chatted quite a bit with the guys from Tequila Works (DeadLight) and we exchanged cards. I was also pretty surprised one of the devs asked for my card while I was looking at the Witcher 2 booth after he saw me holding one of my splash pages. Not sure I'd move to Poland though, lol. I got a lot of positive feedback and it relieved some of my concerns that I'm not at a high enough level yet. Really great experience.

I spent most of the day doing that, but I did spend a couple hours looking at some games. I didn't have time to stand in most lines though, so I didn't really get to play much.

First off Dust: An Elysian Tale is looking incredible. The artwork is top notch, and there is a bit more to it than just fighting. The game crashed on me, so I only played for a few minutes, but what I did play was very smooth and responsive with plenty of combos and un-lockable moves. There is also a parry system that I was glad to see implemented.

DeadLight was right next to it (It's how I got to meet so many Devs- we were all standing around talking about game art and stuff) and all I can say is feels like Prince of Persia in a survival horror setting, complete with control being effected by the animation (which works fine for the setting and makes you time your moves more carefully. Very cool, I liked it a lot and was extremely impressed with the way they presented Fore, Mid, and Background planes. The zombies actually come toward you from 3d space in the fore/background, lending a very immersive and large-scale feel to everything. Great art and the devs were great guys (one guy even has the same first name as me :) ).

I got to play Max Payne 3 too. I got to skip half the line because no-one wanted to play it on PC (their loss). The demo was a whole 3 minutes long, lol. It was a very controlled demo, with every station having an attendant who explained the controls and gave a bit of backstory. I will say- it WAS Max Payne with cover implemented and an "Iron sight"/over-the-shoulder zoom, and the portion I played had Max in his classic attire. It felt just like I remember, so there is no fear of it feeling clunky. It was a little weird playing a TPS with M/K (and a High-speed one at that- I had to lower the sensitivity to 2, lol). There was lots of destruction on tap and the kill cams and cut-scenes were seamless, making for a very cinematic feel. There was plenty of detail and it looked good, but the graphics aren't mega-jaw-dropping. The was some small amount of screen tearing but it was hidden pretty well (however that works). The implementation of Euphoria was top notch, with seamless transitions and reactions to EVERY. SINGLE. Bullet. Cool stuff and definitely on my must-buy list.

Next up was the Assassin's Creed 3 game-play presentation which by the time I got there the line was quick (10 minutes). They'd bring in small groups and we all sat on these wooden crates in a room decorated with lots of historical stuff. There was the obligatory Frag Doll presenting "firing up" the crowd, but on to the game- The vid was a PAX specific presentation that has Connor tasked with assassinating a British officer on Bunker Hill in the middle of the battle. There were a couple thousand NPCS with Army level AI duking it out. They were certainly behaving right with firing lines and slowly marching toward each other, with cannons hitting and bodies staying on the ground. There were some animation niggles (WIP of course) like walking animations that didn't account for the rifles in their hands and some characters doing the same death animations right next to each other.
Connor himself had some cool animations that included contextual reactions to close explosions. He snuck around the side of the hill into the trees and that's where they showed of the navigation, which was nice. I liked how the trees weren't just horizontal branches, and I guess it is generated by the computer to be natural looking. At one point Connor is sitting on a branch waiting for some reinforcements to come up from the the beach. The ambush was cool as he had a rope dart that he used to yank a soldier into the tree and used him as a counter weight to get down. He then used one guy as a human shield so the soldiers would use their one loaded round. He then waded in and very aggressively took out the other five guys.
Then they showed how they studied rock climbing techniques to make the climbing realistic looking and so that they could design rockfaces to be more natural looking. Connor then snuck through some bushes surrounding the British camp on top of the hill to line up his attack. This is were they showed Connors running attacks. I actually involuntarily shouted YEAH. He rushed out of the bushed and slammed a soldier off of his feet, throwing him down in stride, and vaulted up to kill the officer on horseback. Sweet stuff...

Yeah, but it's hardly integral. You can jump over everything just like before. It doesn't bother me at all, it just provides for a different play-style...

I saw some footage from PAX on youtube, the aiming and recoil seems to be pretty nasty IMO, its too much recoil for a game that isnt so realistic, not even Uncharted is like this.
How was the controls and the actual gunplay when you played it? Was it floaty, responsive, tight controls, movements wasent clunky (looking at your GRAW MPs!), recoil, prone?...etc.

Any more info about gunplay and movement would be nice if you could share.
I am guessing there was no multiplayer and only co-op Guerrilla mode. I would like to ask how the cloaking would work as in, easy to spot or encounter it with a special vision or something.

Much appreciate it.

What's wrong with that? It's not gonna turn it into Gears of War... people instantly flank you so you can't really stay in cover, you're constantly on the move.

There are a few things I don't like about the upcoming Max Payne, but the cover system ain't one of them. It's a welcome addition for me.

Ghost Recon was an MP demo but you could only play Assault Class. So naturally I didn't have access to any sort of cloak function in what they had there. (either Recon has it or you have to be very high level)

Movement and gun play were all good. I had some concerns from the videos that they'd stylize everything too much but that hasn't happened, at least in multi-player.
Everything was really smooth control wise, and I didn't really notice any problems with recoil but that wouldn't surprise me.
To me the game came across as pretty realistic which surprised me. After all the trailers I thought it was headed down the COD road.
In the demo I played, and I'm sure when you first start playing, all your accuracy will be told to you based upon your positioning and how you interact with the environment. You'll be shown percentages based upon whether you're standing against a wall or laying on the ground. It changes every time just as it would irl.
Prone is also fine.
It's interesting that you can gain certainly abilities based on special items equipped. With the shield I could do a sprinting charge on someone and barrel into them. I expect there to be more items like this, which is probably where cloak falls maybe.
The mode I played in was a point capture style of play, which is kind of an odd mode in a Ghost Recon game I think. I would take control of two points then a 3rd final point appeared to win the game.

Also there's a chance that the station I played at, that the weapon was already leveled to give more stability to my weapon. You'll earn different attachments to your guns that will alter their stats, accuracy, recoil, power, etc. There was a store in the demo but with limited access to upgrades.

There was actually another play type on the other side of where I was playing that was non-PC and on Xbox 360 but I didn't wait for it. It looked like TDM but in some paintball dessert looking arena instead. Boxes and trucks all over the place. Characters had bandana over their mouths, baseball hats and sunglasses on.
So I should have pointed out I played this on PC and not a console.


I didn't know Assassins Creed 3 was there. I guess I should have perused Ubi's area more thoroughly

Thanks alot of the quick impressions Tinks, I appreciate it alot.

Yeah I know that when you are being fired upon the stress level of your character will rise and makes your aiming and shooting overal much more difficult, so thats something new to shooters IMO that is why teambased flanking would be great.

I also heard about weapon customization, but not the basics like scopes and barrells, but you can swap the inside of the weapons as well. So I am guessing with enough time and effort you can make your own special custom weapon for less recoil, long range...etc. which to me is good enough as well.

About prone, well prone encourages and leads to camping IMo and that is something i hate, but whatever.
Its the cloaking that bothers me the most, especially cloak + prone, so I am hoping for a cloak encounter.

But anyways, the videos on youtube is Guerilla mode only, I am hoping for some TDM or something like that to show up.
Anyways, thanks for the answer :)

NP
I think it will encourage swan diving and camping. Your accuracy is just better on the ground and you're less of a target. Granted I didn't play against anyone decent, but I didn't die because I kept going prone.
I started doing it right away and never stopped.