For those who are not aware, and for those who are aware, but for some reason still want to know, PAX (Penny Arcade eXpo) is an annual convention that brings together everything nerdy, and puts it under one roof for a few days. There are actually two PAX conventions, one on the west coast and one on the east coast, and in case you skipped the title of this review I went to PAX East today, and I brought the whole family!
Let me just start out by easing a lot of peoples fears, at no point during the entire day did I ever fear for my children’s life. Too dramatic? Okay, there were a few times where my three year old daughter made things a little tougher than they had to be, but I never felt like she was unhappy, actually she seemed elated to be there. My one year old boy is always pretty laid back, and today was no exception, in fact he managed to catch a nap while we walked the expo floor. I really just want to stress the fact to any parents that although it was a little bit of work going to the expo with two children, it was totally fine.
The worst part of the day was trying to actually get to the Expo center. Boston is a wonderful city, I love the history and culture, but it is sucks trying to drive in it. We arrived outside the city at 10am, and then it took about an hour and forty minutes trying to get to our parking spot. I really don’t want to dwell on it, but I think next year we are going to try and get a hotel and stay over just to avoid this problem again.
How the family handled it!
Once we got to the Expo floor the first thing my daughter did was yell “NOPE NOPE NOPE, Let’s go daddy!” and try and run out. It was cute, but she really didn’t expect to walk into a HUGE open hall with lots of noise and people. I suppose I should have tried to prepare her more, but I honestly wasn’t prepared myself. I haven’t been to PAX before and even as an adult it was almost scary how big it was. It took her a minute to adjust and then just a minute later she was laughing and squealing at someone dressed up as a princess walked by us. After that she was fine, but I do regret not taking things a little slower, and I would recommend any parents who bring their kids do the same.
The floor was really busy, but at no point did anyone ever scoff at my children, or us. My daughter really wanted to walk around on her own so most of the time I or my wife held her hand and she walked nicely alongside us. A few of the walkways were a tight squeeze and more than once she ran into people, but everyone was exceptionally nice, and always smiled at her and said it was okay. There have been children’s playgrounds where my daughter bumping into people has been met with groans and mutters, but everyone today must have been Canadian because most people apologized and smiled at Lucy even if she bumped into them. It was heartwarming to say the least.
Most of the people running the booths actually didn’t mind her either. Lucy loves to goof off, and most of the time she smiled and engaged really well. My favorite moment was when she found a open couch at the Astro Gaming booth, slapped on a pair of headphones and attempted playing Gears of War. I would guess that her team mates didn’t like her (it was a LAN game) but she absolutely loved it. One of the men working for Astro was snapping some pictures of her saying “next generation gamer right there!” I can only hope! But what impressed me more was after a minute or two, a young boy (I would guess around 8 or 9) came up and when I asked Lucy to share she held up the controller, took of the headset and said “Here you go! Thanks!” to the young boy. I could not have been more proud!
My one year old son just hung out happy as could be the whole time. He needed to eat, so we had to find a quiet place to feed him, but other than that he just smiled at everyone and relaxed.
As parents, it was an incredibly long day, my wife fell asleep around 8 and I plan on following her pretty soon after I post this. We only spent around 4 hours walking the floor, and I imagine that if we had spent much more than that I would be here typing up a whole different story, but it all went really well. We had a total of two meltdowns, but both were resolved just by moving to a quiet area, sitting and having a snack, then moving on when things were better.
The games!
Of course most of you don’t read this to hear me gush about my wonderful family, you want to know what games are good, what I didn’t like, and hopefully which ones a parent can play in their free time!
One of the first games we ran into today was Smashmuck Champions
Besides having one of the most ridiculous names for a game I can imagine, this game looks really fun. On the outside I thought it was another MOBA, but after watching it for a little while longer, I really can’t put my finger on what it is. The game has a lot of character, and looks like a lot of fun so I can’t wait to try it out and report back! It looked pretty straightforward and didn’t look like something that I wouldn’t want the kids to see, and my daughter liked what she saw while we were there, but again I didn’t get to play it. Note: the game is in open beta right now, but the developers website is a little under-cared for hopefully they send some updates to it regarding when the game will be out of beta, where to download it, and so on.
Orion’s Forge
I am going to level with you all, I am a big fan of cartoonish looking games. So this next game shouldn’t surprise anyone.
Orion’s Forge is a game for iOS and Android. It is currently priced at $.99 for both platforms and within just two minutes of playing it I bought the game on my Nexus. The game itself is a Puzzle narrative according to the developers (who were really cool!) and the idea is that you help Orion make constellations and stars. The game was incredibly charming, and Lucy loved watching me play. I hope to have a review on this game soon! If you would like to buy the game for iOS go here and for Android go here. NOTE: I didn’t notice while I was playing the game, but later when I was looking at my pictures I saw the “Color Sheep” sticker and looked into it. From what I see the game looks really fun but I have absolutely no idea how it plays! Here is the iOS link, and here is the Android link.
Seed
Seed is another mobile game that was in the featured indie games section, I only got to play it for a few seconds, but it looks like a really neat game and even the few minutes I played I really enjoyed it.
The game is pretty simple in terms of gameplay from an adult perspective, but Lucy just could not understand what to do. A lot of the game has dragging and dropping with no visual prompts to help. I really like this game, and all the developers I spoke to were really awesome! The game is on sale right now for $.99 and you can get it here (iOS only)
Transistor
Remember my review of Bastion from yesterday? The Developer Supergiant announced that it is working on a new game that is due out in 2014 just a few days ago (3 to be exact) called Transistor. It actually is what inspired me to write the review, so imagine my delight when I saw that Transistor was actually being demo’d today at PAX!
- Sorry for the low quality, holding a three year olds hand and taking a picture is tough.
Transistor looks just as amazing as Bastion but for all its familiarity the game looks like it will be really different from the teams first game, and I’m really sad I didn’t get to play! Obviously this is a really early build so it’s hard to say exactly how the game will be, but I have my hopes up!
Other thoughts
The League of Legends booth was massive, I cannot even describe how cool it was to watch all the pro’s playing, it really made me want to get into the game and play a few rounds.
Bethesda had The Elder Scrolls Online up for people to demo, but the line was insanely long, and the booth itself was walled off so I couldn’t see much. It is worth noting thought that after we “camped” out nearby when the kids needed a break and some food, a guy was walking by us and stopped to ask if we wanted some water, or food. It was really cool and I wish him all the best. It honestly made me think better of Bethesda for him!
Magic: The Gathering had a really cool booth set up and some tables where people could play, I wanted to stop but something about a three year old near stacks of cards seemed like a bad idea.
My best swag grab was from Moga, a game controller for my android phone! It’s a pretty cool controller, and has a nice feel, my only problem is that it only works with certain games and I don’t have too many of them yet.
For more reviews and posts, check out my site at gaminglikeadad.wordpress.com
That’s it for now, but hopefully I can think of more later, for now I’m exhausted!
