Over the past weekend I was able to go to the Washington State Convention Center for the annual Penny Arcade Expo (PAX) where thousands of gamers get to see the latest games coming out for the next year.
This year, most of the top companies are pushing VR for their latest projects. Sony has a slew of VR games to be ready when the VR headset becomes available. Also PAX had a floor a the Westin hotel dedicated to VR gaming including a section for Indie VR devs to how off their work. Also adult swim showed off some new VR games, such as the new Rick and Morty VR game.
The new south park game was shown at the show, it satirized the Oculus Rft by creating a smell-o-vision headset called the Nosulus Rift. Whenever a character farts in the game, the players would “experience” the smell in real-time.
There were also plenty of new games to check out, such as the new Resident Evil 7: Biohazard, Heavy Metal Machines, Dishonored 2, Dawn of War III, and others.
For ad spaces, there were Final Fantasy themed Uber cars, there was a Tank down the street of the convention center to promote World of Tanks.
Another thing I found cool was a new Nintendo game for the classic NES system (with original NES cart!). They told me that they coded in assembly just like the classics. Pretty fun game, they already have a sequel that got funding on kickstarter
Getting gaming swag was kind of meh, there were few retailers, such as Jinx, Loot Crate, and Pink Gorilla. On the plus side there were some good hardware sellers, I got a nice SSD for ~$80 on the showroom floor. Free swag that you’d normally get in previous shows were kind of absent. This year, I did get a couple of free shirts. Others you had to wait in line for several hours to play a game or fill out surveys/give personal info to get a free item.
One thing I noticed was quite odd is placing the gaming arenas in the same spaces as the retail spots in the past. I was only able to go to the convention for one day. It would have been better to go multiple days to get to check out more games and the sights due to the geographic location of all of the activities (in a couple mile radius). Hopefully next year when the convention expands in size we can get better placement of things to check out.
Have any cool pics or stories, feel free to share in the comments.
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