I'm reluctant to call this a "blog post" because this is hardly a "blog", seeing as how I haven't posted to in in forever. At any rate, I say so much cool shit at Penny Arcade Expo 2007 that it must be told.
FRIDAY
Had a very pleasant flight from Boston to Kansas City on Midwest airlines. Strangely, I was the only one on the flight to be continuing to Seattle so I sat on an empty plane on the tarmac for a half hour. Then when the plane began boarding for Seattle, it rapidly became filled with about about a hundred of the oldest people I've ever seen. Needless to say, I was not on a plane filled with PAX attendees.
Got to Seattle and checked in, and then it was to the convention center!
Fuck! The line to get in was unbelievably long. After what seemed like forever we finally got out of this room and into-- ANOTHER ROOM WITH A LINE 4 TIMES AS LONG.
I simply cannot overstate how huge this show was. Every room, theater, hall, hallway, and lobby in the center was crammed with gamers and cool shit for them to look at.
After we got in, I made my way to the exhibition hall.
Now, I'm lucky to be friends with a bunch of guys at Harmonix, and my buddy Sean had agreed earlier to room with me for the show. After scouting out the hall I finally found Harmonix's booth so I could say hello and give him the room key. The booth was already mobbed.
I got a picture with drum-playing Ken later on:
"You Win!"
Other highlights from the exhibitor's hall:
Local retailer Pink Godzilla had an impressive booth.
Newgrounds/The Behemoth were showing Castle Crashers, which is still looking incredible. If you were a fan of the old Saturn RPG/Beat-em -up "Guardian Heroes", than this game will give you ten woodies. They had lots of great T-Shirts and swag on sale.
These are the Alien Homind trophys that the Behemoth sends out to the best players. Also, the cute wittle castwle cwasher figuwines! Awwww!
Free Radical was showing off Haze for the PS3, and it is looking like it could be a real sleeper hit. Hope they announce a 360 version soon. This dude was showing off the prop gun that they're giving away in a raffle and handing out "Nectar" (Breath mints). I told him he looked and sounded just like Thomas Haden Church(which he did) and he had no idea who that was.
Totoros! Candy!
I forgot to try out the DS Zelda game, but I did get a chance to try out Metroid Prime: Corruption. I know it's getting great reviews, but I'm still not sold. The controls take a lot of getting used to, especially since the Wiimote is not self-centering.
Later, surprise special guest Uwe Boll showed footage of Postal.
So anyhow, after that I went back to the Rock Band booth to hook up with Sean before the hall closed up for the night. But my boy hooked me up with an exhibitor badge so I could hang out with the guys after the hall closed! PAX cheat code activated!!!
So after the hall closed, the PAX staff started handing out drink tickets and some food stations got set up, and all the exhibitors were free to mingle and check out everybody else's booths. Beer and wine flowed, cards were exchanged, yadda yadda.
This was probably the coolest night of the show for my money. I got to meet Jerry "Tycho" Holkins, Robert Khoo, Kim from BioWare, Dan Paladin from Behemoth, who was kind enough to draw a pirate for my "100 Pirates" book:
He was dubbed "Turdbeard". Saturday I brought Dan a few White Russians to thank him. Because I like to get the people I admire drunk. (More on that later).
While meeting all those people was rad, nothing could compare to meeting legendary Penny Arcade family member Porkfry.
Pork came over to the Harmonix boys (and Harmonix girl Tracie) to declare that he had CAUGHT THEM ALL. That's right, Pork assembled all 469 Pokemons. He now refers to his DS as "The Living Pokedex." Also, we got to see his knife, engraved with the words "Mr. Stabby". Porkfry got into an animated discussion with Sean and PAX Enforcer Brian on what songs need to be in Rock Band and the relative merits of Chris Cornell and how best to Rage Against various Machines.
Then we returned with Jerry Holkins to the booth to play the game. FUCK YES IT'S ON.
Here they are: Porkfry, on guitar, A M$oft guy named Jack, PAX Enforcer Brian and HMX Sean rocking out with their cocking out.
Later Jerry took the stage as well. BALD ROCK BAND SPECIAL. (I don't remember who the dude on drums is.)
After it died down in the hall, We all went to the Taphouse bar to meet up with the gang from Hothead(The guys doing Penny Arcade's game.) this bar was great, they had something like 160 beers ON TAP.
There, the term "Hotmonix" was whispered by the stalwart men and women of the 2 companies, and dark future plans were spoken of in code.
After that everyone was pretty tired, so Sean went back to his old room at the Sheraton to grab his stuff and bring it back to our room at the Red Lion.
He crashed, but I was still ready for action so I went back to the Expo to catch the end of Freezepop's show. Yeah, they did "The Final Countdown." Rad.
Later: The lowdown on Saturday.
FRIDAY
Had a very pleasant flight from Boston to Kansas City on Midwest airlines. Strangely, I was the only one on the flight to be continuing to Seattle so I sat on an empty plane on the tarmac for a half hour. Then when the plane began boarding for Seattle, it rapidly became filled with about about a hundred of the oldest people I've ever seen. Needless to say, I was not on a plane filled with PAX attendees.
Got to Seattle and checked in, and then it was to the convention center!
Fuck! The line to get in was unbelievably long. After what seemed like forever we finally got out of this room and into-- ANOTHER ROOM WITH A LINE 4 TIMES AS LONG.
I simply cannot overstate how huge this show was. Every room, theater, hall, hallway, and lobby in the center was crammed with gamers and cool shit for them to look at.
After we got in, I made my way to the exhibition hall.
Now, I'm lucky to be friends with a bunch of guys at Harmonix, and my buddy Sean had agreed earlier to room with me for the show. After scouting out the hall I finally found Harmonix's booth so I could say hello and give him the room key. The booth was already mobbed.
I got a picture with drum-playing Ken later on:
"You Win!"
Other highlights from the exhibitor's hall:
Local retailer Pink Godzilla had an impressive booth.
Newgrounds/The Behemoth were showing Castle Crashers, which is still looking incredible. If you were a fan of the old Saturn RPG/Beat-em -up "Guardian Heroes", than this game will give you ten woodies. They had lots of great T-Shirts and swag on sale.
These are the Alien Homind trophys that the Behemoth sends out to the best players. Also, the cute wittle castwle cwasher figuwines! Awwww!
Free Radical was showing off Haze for the PS3, and it is looking like it could be a real sleeper hit. Hope they announce a 360 version soon. This dude was showing off the prop gun that they're giving away in a raffle and handing out "Nectar" (Breath mints). I told him he looked and sounded just like Thomas Haden Church(which he did) and he had no idea who that was.
Totoros! Candy!
I forgot to try out the DS Zelda game, but I did get a chance to try out Metroid Prime: Corruption. I know it's getting great reviews, but I'm still not sold. The controls take a lot of getting used to, especially since the Wiimote is not self-centering.
Later, surprise special guest Uwe Boll showed footage of Postal.
So anyhow, after that I went back to the Rock Band booth to hook up with Sean before the hall closed up for the night. But my boy hooked me up with an exhibitor badge so I could hang out with the guys after the hall closed! PAX cheat code activated!!!
So after the hall closed, the PAX staff started handing out drink tickets and some food stations got set up, and all the exhibitors were free to mingle and check out everybody else's booths. Beer and wine flowed, cards were exchanged, yadda yadda.
This was probably the coolest night of the show for my money. I got to meet Jerry "Tycho" Holkins, Robert Khoo, Kim from BioWare, Dan Paladin from Behemoth, who was kind enough to draw a pirate for my "100 Pirates" book:
He was dubbed "Turdbeard". Saturday I brought Dan a few White Russians to thank him. Because I like to get the people I admire drunk. (More on that later).
While meeting all those people was rad, nothing could compare to meeting legendary Penny Arcade family member Porkfry.
Pork came over to the Harmonix boys (and Harmonix girl Tracie) to declare that he had CAUGHT THEM ALL. That's right, Pork assembled all 469 Pokemons. He now refers to his DS as "The Living Pokedex." Also, we got to see his knife, engraved with the words "Mr. Stabby". Porkfry got into an animated discussion with Sean and PAX Enforcer Brian on what songs need to be in Rock Band and the relative merits of Chris Cornell and how best to Rage Against various Machines.
Then we returned with Jerry Holkins to the booth to play the game. FUCK YES IT'S ON.
Here they are: Porkfry, on guitar, A M$oft guy named Jack, PAX Enforcer Brian and HMX Sean rocking out with their cocking out.
Later Jerry took the stage as well. BALD ROCK BAND SPECIAL. (I don't remember who the dude on drums is.)
After it died down in the hall, We all went to the Taphouse bar to meet up with the gang from Hothead(The guys doing Penny Arcade's game.) this bar was great, they had something like 160 beers ON TAP.
There, the term "Hotmonix" was whispered by the stalwart men and women of the 2 companies, and dark future plans were spoken of in code.
After that everyone was pretty tired, so Sean went back to his old room at the Sheraton to grab his stuff and bring it back to our room at the Red Lion.
He crashed, but I was still ready for action so I went back to the Expo to catch the end of Freezepop's show. Yeah, they did "The Final Countdown." Rad.
Later: The lowdown on Saturday.