Digital Life

Oh man, what a weekend. I am so tired right now lol. PAX is crazy fun but it takes about a week to recharge afterward haha.

So this year I went with not one but two of my oldest friends, let's call them K and E. Last year was just two of us, but I am slowly convincing people to join.

Friday, we went to three panels. We were going to go to four but K was on call and got paged so we were somewhat delayed leaving. Missed the Blizzard announcement, but it turned out to be 'lame' anyway, as E would say. So the first PAX panel we went to ended up being one of my picks, Recreating a Legend: The Talent Behind the New Lara Croft in Tomb Raider. Interesting stuff, learned a little bit about how localization works, a little bit on game design and how the different teams cooperate, how things evolve. Very neat. As a result of that panel I also got a neat little comic about the beginning of the mission, when they were just setting out on the Endurance.

After Tomb Raider it was over to the Final Fantasy PAX East Panel, which we all wanted to see. Sadly, nothing about Lightning Returns, but some interesting stuff on XIV and a bit about the new XI expansion, which really made me want to play again lol. According to SE, phase one of the work on XIV is almost done, so be on the lookout for some new announcements coming soon.

After that it was a late lunch at this awesome Mexican place called Papagaya. If you're ever in Boston and want some seriously good Mexican, go there.

Then to a panel called RPGs are Awesome. Slightly disappointed in that it was about tabletop games, which the panel description made highly ambiguous, but still cool. Entertaining still.

Aside from wandering around the Expo hall and such and K dragging us around to every raffle he could find lol, that ended up being most of the day. Back to his place, ordered some wings, went to sleep.

Day 2, sadly we again missed the first panel of the day, do JRPGs Really Still Matter? I was of course inclined toward yes, just thought it would be interesting to see an industry opinion. Apparently boys need way more sleep than I do. So more wandering around the Expo hall, checking out all the awesome. Then I went to one of the game journalism panels about why would you want to be one, which was cool. Mostly the panelists sharing stories and telling you what not to do, stuff like that.

More snacks, then the Nvidia panel, got to take a look at Project Shield, Nvidia's handheld system. Looks pretty awesome actually. But makes me disappointed that I simply can't maintain a gaming PC. That's why I have consoles, man. This computer can barely handle Dota 2.

Anyway, after that dinner was at a place called Fire + Ice. It's an improvisational grill. Basically you get a bowl, pile whatever random stuff you want in it, added sauce, bring it to this huge round grill and the chefs cook it right there in front of you. Pretty cool to watch, and you occasionally get a bit from someone else's food lol.

And back to the apartment. E let me try playing a bit of some random Toho games, basically insane arcade shooters. I didn't fail as hard as I thought but man, I feel like I would get extremely frustrated if I played it for any length of time.

Sunday, winding things down a bit. Went to The Future of Playing a Role in Videogame RPGs, which was basically talking about, well, where things are going, both with technology and what developers are moving toward with AI, game design, that sort of thing. Really interesting stuff. Didn't manage to sneak any hints out of the BioWare guy sadly, lol.

Then OC ReMix, them showing off their new site, which will be launching soon. Yes it's coming! Peeks at some upcoming albums, always cool. A live performance, also cool. And then a Shaq-Fu tournament for prizes, lol. Oh man, that was crazy haha.

Some more Expo wanderings, some shopping (final day of a con is the best day to buy anything, no one wants to lug their merchandise around so it all goes on sale) and that more or less wrapped it up for us. Came home and conked out, now here I am lol. I'll probably upload some pics later, maybe. If I feel like it.