Most of the experiences at PAX are “All right! I finally get to play this game I’ve been hearing about,” but this isn’t the first time we’d seen Slam Bolt Scrappers. Last year an early version of the game was present on the show floor, and Nick and I tried it out. In the last year, the games developer Fire Hose Games has grown by leaps and bounds, and so has Slam Bolt Scrappers.
So I decided to give Saints Row 2 another try this past weekend, and honestly: I'm not sure what made me get rid of it the first time. Probably the fact that the Xbox was in the main living room and the game's less-than-family-friendly content was wafting into the kitchen and play areas. Now that the loft is the main location for gaming, my family scruples can be less...scrupulous.
I would be a bloody liar if I said that Guild Wars 2 wasn’t one of my major reasons for going to PAX East. I’ve been playing the original Guild Wars since the launch of GW: Factions back on April, 2006. Guild Wars is the game I always fall back on when I’m in-between games, and as a result, I’ve logged over 2,000 hours in the game. It’s safe to say I’m pretty darn excited about the sequel. That may or may not have come across in the preview I wrote up last fall. Mike and I had the opportunity to have an interview/demonstration with the developers and Mike, Nick, and I all had a chance at other times during the event to try out the game for ourselves.
We recently had a chance to play Brink, the highly customizable co-op class shooter from Splash Damage. In our hands-on preview we covered character and weapon customization along with mission structure and class synergy. This new trailer focuses on the four available classes; soldier, medic, engineer, and operative. Since the majority of XP is dished out for supporting your team and completing objectives, choosing the right class is key. This game looks incredible, even though all the characters look like they have the same hatchet-faced father.
Poor Point Man. He can't catch a break. First of all, he's got one of the most forgettable names in the history of gaming. Maybe he can get together with Jump Man and Pac-Man and form a band. He also has some serious sibling rivalry issues with his brother, Paxton Fettel. I can just see Thanksgiving dinner now. Paxton roughly passes the mashed potatoes. Point Man's all like, "What's you problem?" Paxton squints and rubs his forehead. Pointman has had just enough to drink, so he calls Paxton out on his passive aggressive attitude; "Really? You're still pissed about that? I said I was sorry. Man, you can hold a grudge." Then Paxton telepathically throws the cranberries on the floor, and that's not going to come out of the carpet.
Something we missed in the whole PAX East shuffle is a PlayStation 3 update that included a brand new feature for PlayStation Plus subscribers. The feature is cloud storage and what it does is adds the ability for members to store and backup saved games and data to Sony's servers much like PC users can do with Valve's free Steam Cloud service. Why would you want to do this? The answer is two fold really.
This year's PAX East 2011 show floor was jam packed full of gamers and gaming goodness. The show saw a record breaking 69,500 atendees - the biggest PAX convention on any coast to date. Despite that many people the new convention center was wide open with plenty of space. With that many people and that many things to see we don't always get a lot of in depth time with soemthing. Still, there were plenty of things we saw that we want to share with you.
Tim Schafer’s Double Fine studio has been coming on strong recently. After putting out Brutal Legend a few years back they’ve come right back with Costume Quest and Stacking. With a Sesame Street game for Kinect on the horizon its hard to believe the studio has time for another title - but they do - and that game is a downloadable title for Xbox Live Arcade called Trenched. We got some hands on time with the game at PAX East and came away pretty impressed with another take on the tower defense genre.
Print out this screenshot and stick it to your forehead for an authentic 3D experience
One downloadable game that may have snuck past everyone late last year in the holiday rush was Hoard. The PSN "dragons are the good guys" title was quite good, though the co-op was so limited as to be very disappointing, as you can read about in our review. It turns out slaying knights, kidnapping princesses, and burning down buildings with a co-op buddy gets a bit old when there's only a couple maps.
F.E.A.R. is a series of horror shooter games that I had an interest in to begin with, then it waned with time. I primarily blame the fact that I don’t normally enjoy shooters that leave me on my own. In the case of F.E.A.R. 3 that loneliness is not only gone, but you’ll end up terrified together quite effectively. Tally and I played through a bit of the F.E.A.R. demo at PAX East in a mode very fittingly titled “F**king Run!”
It was a few months back that Atom Zombie Smasher caught our attention with its three player co-op tower defense like gameplay. Players take control of a section of a city and use various methods to rescue as many citizens as they can. While we enjoyed the title it did have two downsides in our opinion -
