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Spring break needs to be two weeks long
So as I mentioned on Thursday (Thursday?), I went to PAX East this weekend. It was a highly-fun weekend where a couple thousand gamers descended on the city of Boston for three days of gaming and gaming-related panels and music. Video games, boardgames, card games, tabletops, you name it, it was probably there. Plus, companies came to show off their new wares. Let me tell you, NVidia's new 3D graphics card (that actually does 3D) is really, really sweet.
I didn't really go to any panels, other than catching the tail-end of the chip tune one, mostly because the ones that interested me either conflicted with other things or I didn't want to get up that early. Plus, you know, the bane of any con: lines.
That said, I did stand in line to play Steel Battalion twice. What is Steel Battalion? It claims to be the most realistic giant mech simulator game. People, there are jet airplanes less complicated than this thing. Two sticks, three pedals, and more buttons than god. Oh hell, here's a picture of the thing:
There's also an eject button. When your mech is exploding, you have to hit the eject button in time or else one of two things will happen:
1)in multiplayer, you can't respawn anymore, or
2)in single player, all your save files will be deleted. Because you died. You don't get to try again. Roll up a new character.
There are other really crazy things about this game, and I was proud of myself for making the mech walk in a straight line without falling over the first time. But it was definitely worth standing in line for, just so I could say I've played it. There weren't a lot of copies sold, unsurprisingly, so this was one of my only chances to play the thing.
I also went to the opening keynote speech and the concerts Friday and Saturday night. The keynote speaker was Wil Wheaton, who is highly, highly entertaining. Getting up early and standing in line for 4 hours to get into the keynote was also worth it not only for him, but doing so guaranteed us floorspace for Friday night's concert, which was the Protomen, Anamanaguchi, Metroid Metal, and MC Frontalot. We had to ditch after 3 songs by Metroid Metal in order to catch the subway home, but Protomen and Anamanaguchi were totally worth it. (Also, I didn't know that Anamanaguchi was doing the music for the Scott Pilgrim video game to go with the movie. They played the opening song for it. And yes, it is awesome.)
Saturday's concert was the Video Game Orchestra, Paul and Storm, and Jonathan Coulton. The third was as I expected it would be (awesome), the second are bloody hilarious, and I want to give the VGO all my money. Seriously guys, a classically trained orchestra with a rock band playing arrangements of video game music? How can that not be awesome? And yet, these people took it to 12.
Today, I decided to forgo the last day of PAX in favor of going to something else. The Tamagawa University's Taiko and Dance performers put on a show at the campus auditorium. I wasn't entirely familiar with taiko prior to today, beyond the basics, but all I can say is, if you get a chance to see them, do it. They're amazing. They're doing a bit of an east coast tour right now (I think they're going to be in DC for the National Cherry Blossom festival on 4/10, I think).
I didn't really go to any panels, other than catching the tail-end of the chip tune one, mostly because the ones that interested me either conflicted with other things or I didn't want to get up that early. Plus, you know, the bane of any con: lines.
That said, I did stand in line to play Steel Battalion twice. What is Steel Battalion? It claims to be the most realistic giant mech simulator game. People, there are jet airplanes less complicated than this thing. Two sticks, three pedals, and more buttons than god. Oh hell, here's a picture of the thing:
There's also an eject button. When your mech is exploding, you have to hit the eject button in time or else one of two things will happen:
1)in multiplayer, you can't respawn anymore, or
2)in single player, all your save files will be deleted. Because you died. You don't get to try again. Roll up a new character.
There are other really crazy things about this game, and I was proud of myself for making the mech walk in a straight line without falling over the first time. But it was definitely worth standing in line for, just so I could say I've played it. There weren't a lot of copies sold, unsurprisingly, so this was one of my only chances to play the thing.
I also went to the opening keynote speech and the concerts Friday and Saturday night. The keynote speaker was Wil Wheaton, who is highly, highly entertaining. Getting up early and standing in line for 4 hours to get into the keynote was also worth it not only for him, but doing so guaranteed us floorspace for Friday night's concert, which was the Protomen, Anamanaguchi, Metroid Metal, and MC Frontalot. We had to ditch after 3 songs by Metroid Metal in order to catch the subway home, but Protomen and Anamanaguchi were totally worth it. (Also, I didn't know that Anamanaguchi was doing the music for the Scott Pilgrim video game to go with the movie. They played the opening song for it. And yes, it is awesome.)
Saturday's concert was the Video Game Orchestra, Paul and Storm, and Jonathan Coulton. The third was as I expected it would be (awesome), the second are bloody hilarious, and I want to give the VGO all my money. Seriously guys, a classically trained orchestra with a rock band playing arrangements of video game music? How can that not be awesome? And yet, these people took it to 12.
Today, I decided to forgo the last day of PAX in favor of going to something else. The Tamagawa University's Taiko and Dance performers put on a show at the campus auditorium. I wasn't entirely familiar with taiko prior to today, beyond the basics, but all I can say is, if you get a chance to see them, do it. They're amazing. They're doing a bit of an east coast tour right now (I think they're going to be in DC for the National Cherry Blossom festival on 4/10, I think).