disruption.ca

Edit: Here are my PAX photos.

I’ve had a few requests (ok, one) to write about PAX ‘05, and I have finally overcome procrastination to deliver.

Scott, Todd and I rented a blue PT Cruiser, left Edmonton at 6:30 Wednesday morning and made it to Bellevue at 8:00 that night. ~15 hours in the car was much less painful than expected. Scott and I even won a co-op game of Starcraft on the laptops during the drive.

Thursday was spent exploring Seattle. We hit the Sci. Fi. museum, which was pretty cool. They have a full size Alien queen and the powerloader suit from the Aliens movie, which alone makes the museum worth the visit in my mind. We also hit the Experience the Music Project, which was ok, but was much more museum and much less “Experience” than expected.

The expo opened Friday, and unfortunately started as an exercise in waiting in line. We got to spend some time on the consoles and PCs, but we had a lot less game time than I expected. The crowd of 7000+ people was too big for the space they had available. Saturday was better though. We brought Scott’s gameboys and his DS, which made the lines less painful. Also, the exhibition hall was open, where Nintendo was dominating the show. They had a playable demo of the new Zelda. Mariokart DS was playable, along with a pile of other DS games. But the most eye catching demo was Mario Strikers, a new soccer game. Other highlights from Saturday include Scott and Todd advancing to the second round in the Mario Kart tournament, and the three of us being interviewed by Attack Of the Show. They didn’t end up using our interviews on tv, but you can briefly see us on camera at the beginning of part 2 of their PAX coverage.

Saturday night we got into the theatre for the musical acts, which were surprisingly awesome. It started with the Karaoke Revolution Omegathon round. All of the Omeganaughts sucked, but Tycho and Kara showed the crowd how it was done by singing “My Immortal.” Even though they weren’t very good, you have to give the Omeganaughts credit for singing on stage in front of 2000 people. Seeing Karaoke Revolution in action made it seem like loads of fun, and was enough to sell me on the game. I might pick it up when it comes out on the Gamecube in November. Next we had Final Fantasy music on a concert piano, then MC Frontalot followed by MC Chris. Unfortunately the audio system wasn’t really working for the rappers, and you couldn’t hear their vocals while they were signing. But when MC Chris was talking between songs he was amazingly funny. He knows his geek material, and he worked the crowd perfectly. The night closed with the Minibosses, and they were excellent. Much to Todd’s delight they played Megaman 2 as their opening song.

Sunday was more of the same, with the highlight being the final round of the Omegathon. It was revealed as the best of three rounds of Combat for the Atari 2600. It was so epic I can’t even begin to describe it. I didn’t know that game could be so intense. I guess a crowd of 2000 people screaming with every point can have that effect.

When the convention ended we went to Fatburger for dinner where Scott and I took the triple king challenge. The idea is to see if you can eat a loaded triple king burger faster than the 13 minute 32 second time posted by a local radio celebrity. The burgers were huge, featuring 3 half-pound burger patties, cheese, bacon, egg, chilli, lettuce, tomatoes, onions, mustard, ketchup and relish. I finished mine in 9 minutes flat, and Scott ate his in 8:15. Pretty impressive for a man who was a vegetarian a few months before.

Here are some random PAX related links:

Loads of PAX photos on flickr:

• http://www.flickr.com/photos/tags/pax05/

Attack Of the Show’s coverage:

• Part 1
• Part 2 (Watch for us on camera at the beginning.)

A million other blog postings about PAX:

• http://technorati.com/search/Penny+Arcade+Expo