Well guess what guys? You're about to get my version of PAX, and it's awesome.  Coverage of the coolest PAX East games, a couple Bitmob exclusive details on unreleased games, screaming matches with Adam Sessler, Shane Bettenhausen's crazy stories, and my own stupid adventures to top things off.

Prologue!

Thursday night started off with pizza and beer, a Boston delicacy. Too cheap to get a hotel, Brian and I decided to find a bunch of cute girls who'd let us sleep on their couch. Unfortunately, there was only one couch, and two of us. We stared at each other, then looked at the floor, and then to the couch. We then did what 2 men do when faced with this situation, we both cuddled up onto the same couch.

So as not to make Brian's imaginary girlfriend jealous, I'll clarify that it was an L shaped couch, and despite an accidental (Well mostly accidental) game of footsie in the middle of the night, we had our own space. We woke up at around 8 slightly hungover, took showers, and geared up to go. Brian said he knew where we were going, but he's a damn liar and got us lost. Apparently following the first tall building you see does not get you into the city, in fact, we started off walking in the complete opposite direction.

Chapter 1: 4 Hours of Waiting For Nothing

We made it to PAX at around 10 o clock, and the line was huge. What we didn't know was that the line was huge for the keynote. Turns out we were actually the first 40 or so people in line to get in the actual convention. I slept on the floor for about an hour, played a bit of Chrono Trigger, and then played an awesome line game.  After 4 hours of waiting we ran upstairs in the hopes we'd be the first to do something.  We then got in the wrong line for the exhibition hall, and although we ran straight to Rockstar's Red Dead Redemption booth, the line was already about an hour long. Fiddlesticks.

Buster from Arrested Development was there.  He misses the show as much as all of us.

Chapter 2: BattleBlock Theater Edition!

We played a little of Behemoth's new game, Battleblock Theater, and it was fucking hard. We played multi-player against two other random people, and they kicked the shit out of us. I don't think I've ever felt worse at a game in my entire life. It's really hard to stay alive for any prolonged length of time; death is very frequent. The game itself is a competitive 2D platformer where you jump around and try to avoid a shit ton of death traps. You can throw grenades at each other, or jump on the opponents head twice to kill them. When someone dies, their soul wanders off, and the other team has to collect it and hold onto it for points.

There is also a co-op and single player mode, but I didn't bother checking it out for very long. It was definitely a lot easier and less frustrating. There will be over a hundred co-op levels, but I have a feeling this mode will be a lot more fun.

Do you enjoy being terrible at video games? Then play Battleblock Theater.

The Behemoth representative said they weren't ready to comment too much on the level editor, but so far it's looking like it will only be used for multi-player maps only, and that's the most I could get out of him (I don't think he was even supposed to say that much, so "Fuck Yeah Bitmob exclusive!") The multi-player maps really lend themselves to user customization, as everything is blocky and looks like it could be placed on a grid (Think Super Smash Bros. Brawl level editor). My guess is that this will be the highlight of the game once it is released. Hopefully some users will make levels that can keep me alive longer than 5 seconds. This game is going to be released in Microsoft's next Summer of Arcade in a few months, so you'll have to wait until then.

Chapter 3: Jeff Green is Awesome

I went to the Developers vs. Journalists panel and met Jeff Gerstmann and Patrick Klepek briefly. I actually just went to get a good seat for Wombat's panel on Internet relationships, but it turned out to work favorably for me later on. Everyone was running up to the panelists, but one man, one moderator, one Jeff Green, was left out! Not a single person went up to him to say anything, and he began to quietly pack up his stuff and leave. I was shocked that they were ignoring the most legendary human being in the room, but I wasn't going to make the same mistake. I was the only person to go up and say hello, and he was super nice. I didn't actually know what to say, so I lied and told him I gave My Sims Agents a 10 in my review for Bitmob (I didn't actually review it). I'm not sure how, but he figured out I was lying.

Jeff mentioned the death of his magazine about 8 times during the panel.  Poor guy is still pretty broken up over it.

Apparently they clear out the hall after, so we ended up not getting to keep our new front row seats. We actually didn't get to see Wombat's panel at all since the line outside was full. I was sad at first, but then I remembered I met Jeff Green. Did I mentioned Jeff Green is awesome?

I'm going to try and post one of these every day until I run out of shit to say.  This was only the first half of the first day, so I'm guessing there will be about 6 of these.  Hope you guys like it!

You can find my subsequent episodes here:

Chris Davidson vs. PAX East Episode 2 Shank Preview!

Chris Davidson vs. PAX East Episode 3 Puzzle Quest 2 Preview!

Extra Stuff!

I'm a comedian, writer, electrical engineer, and all around terrible person.  Follow me on Twitter at http://twitter.com/CasualAlcoholic

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