PAX 2008: The Games

Hands on

PAX was crowded. This was a problem for some games.

Left 4 Dead had two banks of four systems. I heard that people from the aisles were sitting down at them, essentially cutting the line. I'm not blaming them. It could have been an honest mistake. But the fact that I stood in line for an hour and a half and we rocked through the demo level in what felt like seven minutes did not leave me happy. The game itself was solid. We'll enjoy it at our LAN parties.


Little Big Planet had one station when I was there. 58,500 PAX attendees and one Little Big Planet Station. Yeah. Sony has faith in this game being a system seller. And I have a bridge you might want to buy.

The guy running it was giving thirty minute demos. Then when I got my turn a competent woman started running it. Man, @%*& that first guy (and the Escapist writer who came back for multiple demos). I waited two hours and ten minutes for a ten minute demo.

And to top it all off, my fears about Little Big Planet were very much on target. It's fun to goof around with four people causing trouble. But I don't think the game will be strong enough to pull off single player. The jump button only seemed to work half the time, and the physics were exactly the kind of floaty imprecision I've come to expect from physics based platformers (except for N, which is really awesome except for the fact that there's nothing to do but jump and dodge, so I get bored).

On the plus side, you'll never have to hear me talk about the game again unless it starts doing phenomenal sales.


So, I've already described nearly four hours worth of expo hall time and have only seen two games. Eventually, I got around to seeing games with less demand and more stations.

I'm afraid for the new Destroy All Humans. It was a little choppy, which is weird because Mercenaries 2 which is from the same studio and is already out, looked and felt really nice. I'll be looking for a good price on Mercs 2 when the PC version hits.


Simply because it had no line, I took a test drive of Yakuza 2. I have never heard anyone say that Yakuza is like the Shenmue game SEGA never talks about. But that's what it felt like to me, as I wandered down Japanese streets, reading snippets of random conversations, wandering in and out of stores; fighting off a band of street punks. I'll be very interested to read some reviews when it hits the PS2. The rich feel of the environment also reminded me of Bully. That is a good thing.


I also got hands on with some older games.

Ratchet and Clank for the PS2 was my favorite franchise. On the PS3, I was less impressed. The install process and load times were slow, the frame rate was a little hitchy, and the graphics were nowhere near the Pixar quality that had been touted by various outlets. The pace of the game also felt sluggish. I kept wondering when something awesome would happen, but all the moments that were intended to be awesome felt scripted and dull. I'll probably still enjoy the game someday, but one of my major reasons for even considering a PS3 just went poof.


Earth Defense Force 2017 is now ordered. It will be sitting in wait for the glorious day when there is a cheap, reliable 360 to play it on. Or possibly a backwards compatible Xbox 720. :P While I'm sure Destroy All Humans 2 on the original Xbox will remain the sci-fi blasting game of choice, I will still force my weekly co-op partner to partake in the joy that is EDF. (Hi partner!)


Eyes on

Red Faction: Guerrilla didn't look like the greatest game (The demo was just deathmatch, and the feedback upon shooting someone seemed lacking.), but watching a guy break through a concrete wall with a sledgehammer then leap through the hole and ragdoll a guy with a follow up swing was cool.


Mirror's Edge looked like every other online video I've seen of it. I still don't feel I've seen enough to know if there's a game there, or if it's just another Assassin's Creed (probably not enough variety to keep it interesting).


BioWare's Sonic the Hedgehog RPG for the Nintendo DS looked solid. I thought the combat system mostly looked like Paper Mario except instead of using timed button presses to get extra damage and defend yourself, it used stylus taps and rolls like in Elite Beat Agents. It will almost certainly be the best Sonic game since forever.


StarCraft 2 looked like StarCraft.


Legendary looked Average.


Three days later, nothing else is coming to mind as worth writing about. I'm sure if the public at large actually read this they'd all be screaming about games I overlooked, but the truth is the convention floor was packed and noisy and full of lines. I didn't really want to be there much.


Epic Fail

There was no Wii Motion Plus at the show. Wii Music, the symbol of everything that was wrong with Nintendo at E3, had multiple stations, of course.


I didn't even know Dead Space was playable. I would have like to have at least seen it.