It's sad to say this was my last day of PAX, but what an experience I had along with the friends that I spent it with. The first order of business was going straight to the Inside Gearbox panel roughly 2 hours ahead of the scheduled start time, and what an attendance it was. The line turned out to almost fill the entire theater entrance and almost into the lobby. Rightfully so considering Gearbox is known for giving away awesome stuff to all attendees of their panels. This PAX, they gave away a free season pass for Borderlands The Pre-Sequel. This was certainly a perfect early birthday present to a game that's getting released on my birthday. Later that same day a friend and I went over and stood in line for another 2-2 1/2 hours to play the game for 30 minutes. It was a little bit of a rough start since they were running the 360 version of the game and I play on the PC, so I had to take some time learning the controls first.
We stopped by to check out the LCS for a little bit, and then moved on to have lunch at GameWorks across the street from the convention center. It was the first time ever going there and it reminded me a lot of Dave and Busters only focused more on the games with 2 floors of various games that were NOT redemption! There was Tekken, Marvel vs Capcom 2, SSF IV, 5 DDR machines, Pop'n Music Fever, Taiko no Tatsujin, DJ Max Technika 3, various racing, pinball and shooting games. It was a blast to play there after the nearly 1 hour wait for food that we ordered...
That's pretty much all the gaming-related goodness that happened throughout my PAX trip this year. I don't how much I gotta say how much more awesome it was than PAX East, a lot more than I expected. Definitely going to try and go next year if funds are nice to me.
Day 2, just as awesome, maybe more awesome than the first day. More panels, more celeb meet ups, lets just break it down.
First stop was the TwitchPlaysPokemon panel. Lets just say there's more than a load of data that's been archived from just the first run through Pokemon Red. Data such as the most popular command used, the user who posted the most commands, how long people watched the stream on average, number of unique viewers, and so much more. Next up was a trip to watch a couple matches from the LCS semifinals. Lastly was an improv panel with a couple members from LoadingReadyRun and Extra Credits. It was generally a geek filled version of Whose Line Is It Anyway. It was an absolute riot and was very glad I caught it. Definitely looking forward to Late Night Dub Fight tomorrow night. Also got a chance to meet and chat a bit with Graham Stark and beej after the improv panel before the night was over.
That's basically day in a nutshell aside that I bought myself a 10 year anniversary of PAX T-shirt and also the Zelda Hyrule Historia book which will take me awhile to get through. It's a book that I've been looking to get since it was released that basically gives the official rundown on the Zelda series and the proper chronological order of the games. A very informational book that I'm sure to enjoy!
Day 1 has concluded and what a way to start. So many amazing panels happening all at one and I missed nearly half of what I wanted to see. What I did manage to see were the Hironobu Sakaguchi panel, The AVGN movie screening, and Bioware's demo of the single player of Dragon Age Inquisition and preview of Dragon Age Keep.
The AVGN movie was pretty much just as I expected. Though it felt a bit long, the story progression also felt as though it was picking up speed the further into the story it was getting. I was almost losing track of what was going on at times with all the action that was going on at once. Whether or not the progression on its own was a parody in itself, the movie left me laughing and cheering the whole way through.
The Hironobu Sakaguchi panel was probably better than I had expected it to be. It was mainly a one on one interview discussing his thoughts and feelings about his various works along with his opinions on today's market of RPG's both Japanese and Western. He also revealed a photo of the team that developed Blue Dragon for the PS2. Amongst the team were Hironobu Sakaguchi and Akira Toriyama standing next to each other in the front of the group, which is one of the more rare pictures of the man behind the amazing Dragonball Z. He also released info on his latest game Terra Battle, which is a turn based grid-battle system for mobile. The game has a download system where every time the game reaches a certain amount if downloads, new content is created for the game.
That's pretty much all there was for panels. I did manage to catch a few more famous faces including Kris Straub and Mikey Neumann and while ordering breakfast, happen to run into romscout of SDA / speed running fame.
Hopefully the next update isn't as delayed, but that just goes to show how much activity there is and the amount of fun you can have!
It is currently 5am and I've been up for nearly an hour now due to my internal clock still thinking it's already 8am on the east coast. It also doesn't help that I went to bed at roughly midnight-1am, so I've only had maybe 3 hours of sleep after being up almost 24 hours due to having to get up early to catch the plane to come here.
All that aside I figured I'd do a quick post to say I'm at my first PAX Prime. I'd be lying if I said I wasn't all that excited after being at PAX East the past 3 years. However, this being my first Prime, I am definitely excited to see it. As I did with East I'll update on all that I saw and the panels I went to and the people I saw.
Speaking of which, while I was hanging around just outside the convention entrance I happen to already spot some famous faces of the Internet. So congrats to Corey and Ian Horner of LoadingReadyRun, James Portnow, Lucahjin, and NintendoCapriSun, you are my first sightings of this years PAX Prime! And if that wasn't enough, one of my friends ran into Justin Wong randomly at the airport while waiting to meetup with me. Unfortunately this was one celebrity meetup I wish I was there for but it was not to be. :( Hopefully I'll run into him myself during PAX, but with thousands of other people walking around its unlikely but you never know. I am certainly looking forward to meeting some new faces including Dodger and Sam, James Rolfe (AVGN), and Zoe Quinn. Unfortunately there probably won't be any Something Awful goons I'll run into, but there will be some SDA speed runners that I hope to catch a sight of, most notably Mike Uyama and romscout. They're doing a panel this year on Monday, but unfortunately I am heading back home on that day. It certainly breaks my heart not attending and supporting the one community that I am most proud of being a part of, but I do hope to run into them beforehand.
Well that's going to so it for my fist post from Seattle, and I'll keep you guys up to date tomorrow!
First off, the game is very English friendly. There is very little Korean you need to worry about other than item names, song titles, and interface, but those are pretty minor to the overall gameplay. The game starts out with a series of options such as free, standard, and network modes, a jukebox for casually listening to the music, and a collection option where you can customize your character's look, and check out various unlocks you have obtained. When you first start the game, you only have 2 stages, 20 songs, and a couple of outfits to choose from. In order to unlock more you'll need to play through the game's Standard Mode to get more unlocks.
Overall, the game is a very nice alternative for when you're not near a computer and need to get your Audition fix, or get some arrow-reading practice. The game comes with a nice collection of over 60 songs along with some exclusives not found in the online game from artists like Sweet Box, XR, The Gold, and Wa Wa. If you are lucky enough to find yourself a copy of this rare game and you love the online game, I highly suggest you grab it while you can. It is a nice alternative to the online game and also gives you a taste of what the gameplay interface looked like before all the graphical updates you see today!
A couple weeks ago I started my grand adventure into the Ys series with Ys Chronicles on Steam. The first game was pretty straightforward and wasn't too hard of a game, even on nightmare difficulty...that is until I hit the final boss in the game. I probably spent a good 5 or so hours trying to beat this one boss, and not once, but TWICE was I cheated with 1 last hit before I died. It's the worst kind of situation you could ever think to deal with when it comes to an epic conclusion to an epic boss battle with tense music playing in the background. Ys II thankfully was not as difficult to finish, but did take awhile longer to finish due to the extended leveling system compared to the first game.
Yesterday I started my adventures through the Organ Trail and it's a pretty fun game, pretty much everything I had imagined it to be as being a spiritual (indie) successor to the old 80's classic Oregon Trail. I'm currently working towards getting 100% achievements, but with the little bug in the Steam counters with this game, it's a little bit of a hassle trying to get achievements as investigating 30 points of interest, or completing the game 5 times. Half the time they count, while other times they do not, leaving me to work harder than what is required of me. :/ But, it's an enjoyable game so I'm sure I'll manage the setback, even if it means beating the game 10, or even 20 times to get just one achievement that asks for just 5.
Also a couple of games that I have played previously (BIT.TRIP beat/core, Hack, Slash, Loot, and To The Moon) that did not have trading cards finally got them, so I went back for a couple hours and replayed a bit of those games to collect free cards from them. What's interesting about this is that one particular game, namely Hack, Slash, Loot, I gave up on after only an hour of playing simply because I wasn't understanding the game mechanics, and was not grasping the thought that you unlock (better) characters as you continue to die. Going back to that game to get the cards I finally grasped that mechanic, and I'm a little on the fence about giving the game another serious shot someday. Were it not for the card collecting I don't think I would've given this game a second chance after my first impression.
Ok maybe not in the literal sense, but it sure does feel that way when you've lived nearly 30 years of your gaming life and never had an NES when you were a child. We were the one in 50 households that had the Sega systems starting with the Sega Master System back in the 80's. If I was living in Brazil or anywhere in South America I would be one with the popular crowd, but unfortunately that was not the case. I can remember when I got the Sega Genesis for my 6th birthday I asked my dad if we could get a NES, and his response to me was "When you're 18 you can buy one yourself.". Little did I know at the time once I hit 18 the NES was no longer in retail. I had a Playstation 2 all the while fully indulging myself in the beauty of emulation and playing all the Nintendo favorites on my computer.
College life comes and goes and I soon find myself in the adult working field. After roughly 5 years slaving away at a job that's nowhere near who I am I thought up the idea to start my own business and become my own boss buying and selling video games. This brought me back to the realization I was free to buy all the Nintendo consoles that I had missed out on. Without a second to lose I look through a picked up a NES console and (35) game lot for $250!
A week goes by and the big heavy box finally arrives. I have never been this happy to own a console in a very very long time, and it certainly won't stop there. The SNES and N64 will probably be next in line that make me orgasm with thrill and excitement. Afterwards the Gamecube, Japanese Wii, and maybe Wii U later on. I know it's weird I'm looking to a Japanese Wii, but when you're a Fatal Frame/Project Zero fan you have to go all out...and besides, doesn't the Wii U play Wii games? Both regions covered right there.
There are a lot of great games that came with this system. All the Mario's, Zelda's, TMNT's, Contra, Double Dragon II + III, Battletoads, Kid Icarus, and Metroid just to name a few. Out of all the games there's at least 9 that I would personally keep for my own collection, however if the sales from the rest of the games do not net me a profit from what I paid, then I will sell a couple games to make up the difference and keep whatever is left. From the pricing research I've done I should make roughly $70 in profit just on the games alone, which is nice.
While I can safely say I have played on an NES console at friends houses in my childhood, I have never owned one myself until today, and I will certainly take great care in it and treasure it as I play and sell games for the console!
While I may not have any of the NES games listed at this time (need to order some dust covers first) if you are at all interesting in seeing what I have available, you can check out my listings here
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