Unless you live under a rock or not a fan of games and conventions, this past weekend in Boston, Massachusetts a little convention called PAX East took place. If you’ve never heard of PAX East or have never visited a Penny Arcade Expo, I highly suggest you do and soon! Although the weather up in Boston this weekend was brutally cold and windy it didn’t stop us nor the thousands of fans of attending the convention and enjoying everything that it had brought us. As much as I would love to cover everything that PAX East had to offer there’s far way too much to cover, so here’s my Top 5 stops for the convention that I thoroughly enjoyed.
#5 Nintendo
With the new Switch being released not even two weeks before PAX East you could definitely feel the electricity around the Nintendo booth, especially since there were lines all convention long, especially since they had to extend the lines and also cap lines over and over again. Not for nothing to say the least since Nintendo had Breath of the Wild on demo, along with Bomberman, Arms, and 1, 2, Switch. The plus side if you didn’t want to wait in line to see the action, they had a mini stage showcasing Mario Kart and Street Fighter as well.
#4 XBOX
Xbox tends to always have a great display whenever a convention happens, it’s always hard to miss the big green XBOX logo. For PAX East they definitely brought some great games out to play. Xbox had Gwent, Halo Wars 2, and Mass Effect Andromeda in full rotation at the Xbox booth had everyone lining up. Whether it was getting pins, badges, or buttons to trade some of the guys running the booth, the entire area seemed relaxed and fun.
#3 Bethesda
With Prey, Elder Scrolls Online: Morrow Wind, Elder Scrolls: Legends, and Quake Champions on deck at the Bethesda booth there was a lot to take in. Being a huge PC gamer myself I couldn’t help but enjoy being able to try out the new Quake Champions and see what new things they’ve introduced into the game. Along side Quake, Bethesda had a great display for Prey. They had a developer demo session with play testers doing live runs of the first 20 or so minutes of the game. Being able to see how much the game changes each play through was interesting to watch, since enemies can mimic anything in their environment. Safe to say the person running the demo died multiple times, sometimes because of the mimics but mostly because he blew himself up with explosives, but it was nice to see a company showing off a game in such an intimate way to gamers.
#2 Board Game / BYOC
After running around all day it’s nice to see people taking time out of their busy con life to sit and play a game or two with other con goers. Also props to people who brought their computers to the convention for the Bring Your Own Computer area. As busy as a PAX is, taking the time to learn how to play a new board game, and investing time into teaching others plays is actually pretty cool. I mean when’s the last time you played Dungeons and Dragons, let alone a game of Monopoly, Risk, or even Catan? Considering on the last day PAX holds a live DnD game, and PAX will soon be holding something called PAX Unplugged which is dedicated to board games, definitely something to look forward to.
#1 Twitch
Twitch seems like they’re everywhere nowadays, and for good reason. Twitch has been a staple to a lot of gamers. What was once a dream to play games and get paid for it actually can happen. Twitch always has a huge production, with the stage being the first thing you walk into you’ll more than likely see one of the huge partners like Zeke, or John Carnage. On top of that, next door to the stage is the partner lounge and streaming booths. So why not catch people you watch doing it live on the expo floor? On top of that Twitch took care of their viewers with coat checks, and even a Twitch Prime lounge where people could sit, relax, and play games when they were too tired from walking around.
