Approximately 60,000 gamers from across the country converged in Boston over the weekend for the first PAX East video game expo. I made the trip all the way from Seattle just to be a part of that number. Now that I'm back home and have had a little rest, I'll share my impressions and pictures with any Bitmob reader who wants a closer look at PAX East.

FRIDAY

After grabbing breakfast, I took the T train over to Microsoft's NERD (New England R&D) building to attend Major Nelson's Twitter meet-up. I scored a PAX East Xbox Live Avatar hoodie for dropping by, plus a Halo calendar and Beatles: Rock Band Avatar shirt since I asked a question during the Q&A session. I won't look a gift horse in the mouth, but will mention that I'm quite envious of the other participants since quite a few of them received copies of Halo 3: ODST and Forza Motorsport 3 or Turtle Beach headsets.

I did get a chance to finally get a bad photo with Major Nelson. In case you're wondering, no, this was taken BEFORE I received my prizes! Once the meet-up ended, I passed on a free continental breakfast that Microsoft provided since I'd already ate. Boarding the T once again, I returned to my hotel, which was the Sheraton.

After prepping my convention gear, I took the short walk over to the Hynes Convention Center, which was in close proximity to the hotel. The line for the expo started at 10 AM, while the event actually began at 2 PM. My arrival was about an hour prior to opening, and things looked busy, but not too bad.

I grabbed my swag bag, which contained a Magic card deck and several promotional flyers. Even though I wore my usual Pink Godzilla lanyard, I grabbed one of the Behemoth lanyards as a souvenir. I then stuffed the official PAX East convention program into my bag before walking to the next room. I didn't intend on using the program since I saved a link to the PAX East mobile web app on my iPhone, but it's still a nice keepsake.

Damn, that's a lot of people! The noise and crowds even made the activities displayed from a projector very hard to hear and see. I whipped out my trusty Pokemon DSi to pass the time. Unlike just about everybody else at PAX East, I was playing Shin Megami Tensei: Strange Journey instead of HeartGold or SoulSilver. The clock eventually struck 2 PM, and it was time to move in!

Rockstar Games was one of the first booths that passed the eyes of attendees as they entered the exhibit hall. They also provided large paper swag bags, posters, and stickers to anyone who wanted them. Over the course of the show, Red Dead Redemption attracted one of the largest lines. While I did enjoy the presentation at PAX Prime, my interest in trying the demo was low enough for me to wait until May 18th for the full version.

I was soon drawn to the Skate 3 exhibit when I saw several people walking away with Skate 3 skateboard decks. I don't skate or play many games in the genre, but I had to have one! To win one of the 2 board designs, I'd have to hurl my character off a cliff and score at least 50,000 points. It took several attempts and a few tips from other participants, but I finally got the board and actually breached the 64,000 point mark!

Turbine was showing off some older titles like Lord of the Rings Online and Dungeons & Dragons Online. I wasn't interested in playing any of those titles at the moment, but did join the line for freebies. I got a replica of the One Ring and a copy of the Lord of the Rings Online Collector's Edition.

Moving on, I saw Nintendo's exhibit. Pokemon HeartGold and SoulSilver were a prominent focus. I played SoulSilver for a brief moment and felt that it was just as good as any other mainstream Pokemon title on the DS. That's a good thing, but I'm still not ready plunk down a huge chunk of time on training and capturing a whole new crew of monsters. As I  left, the Nintendo rep handed me a neat drawstring bag sporting the game logos, Lugia, and Ho-Oh.

Hudson was also at the expo. As much as I enjoy their bee mascot, I was disappointed to see that they were showcasing a bunch of games that have been out for quite a while. In regards to swag, they had a mixture of old and new stuff.

For example, to the left and right of the DS Lite are Deca Sports 2 handkerchiefs. I ended up picking up the system and stylus so I could give the game a quick try. I chose arm wrestling as my activity, which was played by basically rubbing the screen to overpower your opponent. You'd then watch a gauge gradually fill up, tapping the screen as soon as it got close to maximum capacity. That would make you pin your opponent's arm. I'll just say that my team, the Disco Knights, lost twice and I quickly moved on to something else.

That something else happened to be the Aksys Games booth! They had several upcoming games on display that I was interested in purchasing, namely BlazBlue: Continuum Shift and the US port of DeathSmiles. In fact, they were running a DeathSmiles high score competition on the game's insane Level 999 difficulty. Since I spent a few hours on the Japanese version, I thought that would give me a bit of an edge. NOPE! My score wasn't even near the top. At the time I played, the best player had over 2 million points. Whoever ended up winning received a DeathSmiles faceplate, which I unfortunately didn't get a chance to photograph.

Relocating myself a bit further, I spotted the online shooter APB. The executive producer stood on stage, using his mic to explain the principle concepts of the game. He mentioned a few interesting features, like certain players in the test version who are finding work as clothing designers more profitable than going around and doing the actual missions. I gave the game a try as both the cops and criminals. The graphics were sharp and the animation ran at 60 FPS. The overall feel felt like a mixture of Left 4 Dead, Grand Theft Auto, and an MMORPG. Missions were primarily quick and easy tasks like defending a particular area for a set time or delivering items to specific locations. The person playing before me used up all of my main weapon's ammo, and I was kind of disappointed to hear the rep tell me that I couldn't get more during the course of the mission. I still managed to dispatch a few players with my sidearm. It will be interesting to see how well APB succeeds, especially since the game is only coming to PCs.

Further away was a couple of tables run by two indie game stores. They were Game Underground and Game Universe. These dealers had quite a few sealed Dreamcast and original PlayStation games for sale, along with dozens of retro titles and accessories. They even had a few cheap imports, which generally ran around the $10 price point. I ended up grabbing a couple of those, which you will see later.

While I was eyeballing their adorable refridgerator magnets at the Pangea Online display, a worker asked if I'd like to demo the game. I said sure, figuring I'd play a quick game of online golf. Wrong game... that's Pangya! Pangea Online was actually a very simple MMORPG that is aimed at teaching players Chinese. It also includes a translator. There wasn't really much to do in the demo, as the presenter noted, except talk to the NPC standing around in town. I don't think I'd play the game, but I do find the concept slightly interesting and wish the dev team good luck!

The good folks over at Digital Press had their own booth at PAX East. They were selling various classic video games and several magazines aimed at video game collectors like myself. They had a whole bunch of original Game Boy and Game Boy Color games, which made me smile with glee as I flipped through them. I'd say I spent the most money here out of any booth at the show, and did score a few titles that I've been hunting for quite some time, like Serpent and Trax.

The exhibit hall was getting ready to close for the evening, so I stepped out. In the outer passageways, I spotted the Magic: The Gathering digital photo setup shown above. It was unfortunately closed for the day, but I made a mental note to come back the next day. I always love getting strange novelty photos!

Bitmob had their official member meet-up across the street from the expo at a place called the Pour House. I made my way there, trying to use Jeff Grubb's trademark hair as a landmark. I apparently wasn't the only one who did that! As always, it was nice to finally meet a few people face-to-face, like Derek Lavigne and Brett Bates. Catching up with some old friends that I met back at the PAX Prime gathering, namely Mr. Grubb and Evan Killham. This time around, they even raffled off a whole bunch of random swag, which included Muscle March briefs, a Hudson book bag, and a Goku costume. Several horrible video games were also handed out to random "winners", like Scooby Doo: First Frights. I'll be honest... I would have LOVED to walk out of there with that entire bag of loot! The very nice Punch-Out shirt that I won managed to keep that urge at bay. As the evening went on, I eventually said adios to my Bitmob comrades and retired to my hotel room.