Pricing is as follows:

Friday Only: $35
Saturday Only: $35
Sunday Only: $35
3 Day Pass: $65

The site does note that the chosen weekend is Easter, so, if you ever have family obligations around that holiday…well, consider them.

Also note that these badges sell out quickly. The italics I just used are serious. If you’re going and don’t get in pretty soon…well, you’re not going. At PAX Prime this past September, people were selling badges outside the door, and a ton of them happened to be fake. So counterfeit PAX badges are now a thing.

Constant vigilance (and quick purchases) are your friends.

Who wants to be Salvador's Midget?

One of the many things I was extremely excited to see at PAX Prime was Borderlands 2.  I love all kinds of games, but at times like this it becomes obvious that at heart I am such a FPS girl.  2K set up camp in “FPS Alley” as I coined it.  Once you entered the far right gate of the convention center there was Battlefield 3, Counter Strike,  and 2K with Xcom, Borderlands 2, and Darkness 2.  So many shooters, so little time!  The line for Borderlands became epic within a few minutes.  They were checking IDs since this game will be rated M and so was the developer discussing the game.

It’s been five years in Pandora and things have changed.  Handsome Jack has teamed up with the Hyperion Corporation and created a base on the moon. Who is he you might ask?  One of, and probably the most important, in an unknown number of villains bringing the pain in Borderlands 2.

The demo starts about a third of the way into the game and we see a Gunzerker, Salvador, ready to battle an arctic Bullymong.  Gunzerkers are a modification of the original Berserker class capable of dual wielding.  The Bullymong, which I can’t really describe, but sort of seems like a gorilla mated with a skag and then sprouted two extra arms, just for kicks, or punches in this case.

The Bullymong has its own AI and thus there is no pattern to its behavior.  He will throw snow, rocks, stalagmites, or even your own car at you, all at a rapid pace with his many arms, to which you have to be ready to dodge. Salvador hurts the Bullymong and for the first time we see that the enemies show a different behavior when they are wounded than when they are at full health. Once the Bullymong was defeated, the loot left behind was a completely redesigned Tediore firearm.  This particular Tediore was “The Wal-Mart of Guns” because it is disposable. Instead of reloading your gun, you just throw it at the enemy.  A level of strategy needs to happen with this particular weapon, as you can either shoot until your clip is empty, or you can toss it at the enemy to cause damage. The more bullets you have in the gun, the greater the damage.  As the gun exploded on the Bullymong, it showed a ridiculous amount of blood and gore, as expected  from Borderlands. The next gun we got to see was the Bandit brand.  Clearly, you could tell that it came from a group of bandits as it was put together with “nuts, bolts and used condoms” and hand painted or perhaps that was old blood… who knows.  I particularly enjoyed the sight on the gun as it was a screw, mounted upside down with a nut turned on its edge as a reticule. Not the most accurate gun in the game, but with a magazine of seventy two bullets, no one complains  and it is a fairly low level gun.

We moved on in the demo and Salvador encounters the new Borderlands car. 2K and Gear Box are aware of how bad the driving was in the first game, enough to quip, ‘because the driving in Borderlands was the best driving ever’ with sarcasm dripping out of every pore of that sentence. So they started from scratch and improved the driving in a number of ways:

• Party Truck: driver, gun turret and two in the back.
• The suspension and physics were all redone, adding the ability to power slide and hitting a rock won’t stop you dead in your tracks anymore.
• Now when you hit an enemy or skag it will not automatically kill them, unless you squish them or cause enough damage the enemy won’t die.

The mission we were watching was about infiltrating a camp of the Bloodshot Bandits as they have taken one of our friends.  Using the bandit gun, Salvador shoots the gate and it opens, letting loose a ton of psychos running directly at you.   These psychos were a bit more nimble than in the first game, as they took dive rolls and moved out of the line of fire, but they are still psychos after all is said and done.  We also see that if you can climb up or down an structure, so can the AI.  Long gone are the moments where if you found high ground the AI will have no idea how to work stairs or climb boxes. After the area had been cleared, a huge nomad, another new enemy, jumped into view and said, “It’s time for the big guns” showing a shield with a midget tied to it. The comedy of Borderlands was definitely still intact as the audience burst into laughter at hearing the midget screaming while trying to get out of his predicament.  This boss battle required a bit of strategy.  The strategy used was to carefully shoot the chains off of the midget as the nomad approached, so the midget comes loose and starts attacking the nomad.  This way, the nomad is distracted with the midget and you are free to go behind him and kill him, not dealing with the shield he carries.  You have to be fast, as the midget does not have much life and the nomad just crushes him.

After the battle was over, Salvador received a skill point and we got to see the new user interface for leveling.  To be honest, anything would have been better than what Borderlands had, specifically when playing split screen, but Gearbox took it a step further and made a nice, polish, easy to use UI.  At this point, a character I am dying to find out more about, Maya the Siren, entered the game.  Unfortunately, besides being able to see her, no more detail was given about her. She carried a sniper gun at all times, which seems odd, unless there is another character class twist coming, and we never saw her fight.  At points I wondered if she was really helping Salvador at all.

The friend we had been going to save was none other than Roland, the soldier from the original Borderlands, who had been captured by the Hyperion Corporation and the Bloodshot Bandits. So now we were encountering a three way fight and as our presenter put it “S**** is about to get rowdy. ” The W4R-D3N, a floating cell, moved around carrying Roland, and Salvador needed to put as much firepower in it as possible.  The missions on Borderlands are far different as you can destroy the W4R-D3N early on or you can mess that up and fight it many missions later.   Salvador shot at anything in his path and the Hyperion sent in reinforcements from the moon base.  It basically launches robots at you like bullets; fully equipped bullets that can fire more bullets.  As the robots got hurt, they called for repair. If the repair units were not dispatched quickly enough, they repaired the damaged robots which were back attacking you as if nothing had happened.  Salvador was in a bind and at this point the Gunzerker special ability made it’s appearance.  He can duel wield any two weapon, and he quickly got the upper hand from the psychos and the robots, but the W4R-D3N escaped with Roland.  Salvador kept pressing forward, shooting robots and eliminating them limb by limb. If a robot got both of its legs blown off, he would crawl towards you so it could explode near you to cause more damage.

Salvador put more and more pressure toward the W4R-D3N but the W4R-D3N quickly generates a robot in between. So Salvador had to defeat the robot and destroy the W4R-D3N so it didn’t escape again.  As we watched Salvador gunzerking on the W4R-D3N, a huge explosion occurred, causing Salvador to fly off a cliff.  As he falls he flips the W4R-D3N the bird with both hands.  We then saw Salvador spraying guns all over the place, showing us that, yes… this is Borderlands and we have TONS of guns in the game.

The game looked finished, but we have to wait another year for its release!  It’s not going to be out until late 2012.  It is a safe bet that if you love Borderlands 2 and want to go to PAX, you better save the money and buy your tickets as soon as they become available for next year, since I am sure that 2K will bring a playable demo for the next show.

"I made a B2 class 4 @ GamingAngels"

Yeah… nothing much.  The wait until PAX seemed to drag on as more details trickled out and the secrecy surrounding it grew bigger and stronger.  PAX Prime 2011 was around the corner and I was bursting with excitement as my anticipation for the event grew bigger and bigger.  I wanted to tell someone, I wanted to shout, I wanted to inform the world where I was going and speculate about the wonders I was about to see, but the safety of my fellow soldiers rested in my hands in the form of a dense NDA. I would not betray my brothers and sisters in arms!

Hands on with co-op and multiplayer

The day to travel came and the amazing people of EA/DICE had paid for me to fly into Seattle and stay at the Westin hotel, only a few blocks from the convention center.  Not only that, but they also provided passes for those of us that needed to get into the sold out PAX convention.  Yet the location of where the event was kept secret, until just before the event.  Our fearless leader, Seeson, sent us one last email, telling us the location.  I left PAX Prime and went to our top secret location, to find a room filled with computers and PS3s all with the Battlefield 3 logo.  In the middle of the room was  an array of tables and chairs, and towards the back an amazing buffet of food that made us all very happy.

Not only was the food was delicious, but the company was out of this world.  I finally got to meet in person so many people I have followed on twitter or read their work on their websites.  After a complete re-enactment of “The Lonely Island” videos as they played through the sound system and the laughter that followed, it was time for us to approach the machines in order to give Battlefield 3 a try.  We were one of the few that played the co-op campaign at this exclusive event. Only 32 people were asked to participate and we all worked together in order to beat the co-op demo in front of us.  My partner, Kelly Brown from The Married Gamers, and I moved swiftly through the first objective of the game.

We ran into a building, fill with terrorists, as we attempted to save a hostage inside of it.

Picture from @ Battlefield tweeter feed

We quickly picked up how to move and work as a team.  I would kneel or go prone to cover around a corner, while Kelly moved and headshot any enemy in sight.  We quickly started to say “CLEAR!” as our communication devolved into code words and shorthand.  We moved out of the building, with our hostage in tow, without a scratch, but outside a full on battle was raging that neither of us had seen before.  We found an ammo case, I got a sniper rifle, and Kelly protected my 12 as I took care of our 3 and 4 o’ clock.  YES!  We became a unit!  The game forces you to know how to be as specific and use as much shorthand as you can in order to make this work.  I was in love.  While moving around and killing every enemy in sight, we were pampered by using ASTRO A40 headsets with custom Battlefield 3 tags.  The crispness of the sounds, the footsteps, reloading, shooting, and the accurate sounds of the sniper rifle versus the pistol enveloped me in another world! I did everything I could not to drool and fall into a geek trance.  As we made progress enemies poured out of balconies, windows, alleys, and from behind cover strewn over the streets.  I worried about how the graphics engine would work with all this madness going on, but Frostbite 2 seemed to thrive. Textures, particles, lighting, just everything looked and felt as real as it could be without going into the Uncanny Valley.  As I immersed myself in the game, the more I started to believe that I could smell smoke coming from the flaming car near me.  Kelly and I moved to the next area and were greeted by RPGs firing at us from all angles. The inability to hear from the ear closest to the explosions just added to the game.  Kelly quickly fell as she happened to be too close to an explosion.  I looked for cover and went prone to revive her. My heartbeat racing, I knew I had three enemies at  11 and two RPGs at 3 o’ clock.  I held “X” like my life depended on it… because it did. In that moment… my character froze.

Even though the game was performing very well, it is still in Alpha stage and some bugs still plague the game.  The unit got reset and we started over.  We moved onto the PC version and this demo was multiplayer.  Two teams were formed and we played against each other.  It took a bit for me to get used to the keyboard, as I mainly play FPS on consoles (don’t worry, I’m working on that☺),  and to get some sort of shorthand going on to tell each other where the enemies were located.  At one point I heard “The enemies are by the trees!”  I looked at the screen and we were in a park filled with trees.  I almost face palmed at that point as I called out, “Which tree!?! We’re in a park!” followed by laughter from my team mates.

From left to right: PAX, my personalized PAX tag, E3 Battlefield 3 demo

We had an amazing time and if it wasn’t enough, we each received a pair of Gunnar glasses, a Razor gaming mouse, a Battlefield Lanyard, an Astro Gaming backpack and a handmade paracord bracelet.  The event met and exceeded any and all expectations I had.  The game made me wish it was about to be released, even with the bugs and crashes.  I was oddly ok with it since when it did run, it just transported me into a full experience, one I have not had since Call of Duty 4.

The goodies were not just for us; if you stood in line (for 4+ hours) and played Battlefield 3, you got to try out Astro A40 headsets and at the end of the demo you got a set of dog tags that you could personalize with your name or gamertag. I think most people put their gamertag on them, including myself.

I want to thank Seeson Mahathavorn, Daniel Matros, Ian Tornay, Matthew Pruitt and everyone that helped them for this amazing opportunity and for working so hard for us. Thanks to the entire Battlefield 3 team for making such a great game, that is guaranteed to give Call of Duty a run for its money. You all know how excited I have been about Battlefield 3 since E3, and this was just the cherry on top!

Huge convention center to hold it all in? Check

Best group of people you’ll ever hang out with? Check

New and up-coming games from E3 and some PAX exclusives available to play?  Check

Halo fest?  Chec…..WAIT WHAT?

Yes, if it was EVEN remotely possible PAX just got better-er-er-er-er.  During PAX Prime, Halo waypoint announced that a Halo Fest would be happening all 3 days from 10am to 6pm.  Bringing tournaments, panels and sweet prices.

So, if you are still reading and you haven’t passed out do to how exciting this is, I have one more thing to say….IT’S FREE WITH YOUR PAX PRIME PASS!!!

*passes out*

What will they find there? Well, no press, for one. (Darn.) No great big exhibition hall. Just learning and debate with fellow developers with no distractions, only game development. That includes all games, from the video variety to pen and paper and collectable card games.

“The idea started with friends in the game dev community asking us to host an event where they could really focus on exchanging ideas without any distractions,” said Robert Khoo of Penny Arcade.  “There are events that are great for signing your next deal or promoting your current project, but that’s not PAX Dev.  We’re 100 percent focused on the craft of game development.”

Early registration costs $249, with at-the-door pricing jumping up by $80. Only around 750 tickets will be available, though, so there may not even be tickets available day-of.

If you’re interested in submitting a panel, registering or just getting more information, visit http://dev.paxsite.com/.

For hardcore Civ fans, let me tell you what’s changing:

• No more square tiles! Hexes are coming into the world which allow for a far more dynamic movement system when it comes to getting troops from one place to another. It also allowed them to do a lot more with the space both in animation and in the graphic style with the terrain.
• However, the hexes also mean they’ve moved away from the stack of doom combat style. Now, it’s one unit per hex — not however many you can build.
• Fully animated leaders speaking in their native languages. Native languages you might think shouldn’t be such a big achievement. But, when you consider that it meant not only finding someone to speak in Russian but also some languages you might never have heard before, like those spoken by Montezuma or Ramses II. (I personally was pretty stoked to heard whatever Egyptian dialect they had Ramses speaking — kind of a geeky moment for me.)
• Little things called City States: small nearby cities not owned by one of the leaders on the map. These small places, are most likely just level one cities. But, if used properly, these places can give your own areas benefits just because your friendly with the neighboring City State. Also, if you’re allies with a City State, you’ll offer them protection against the other leaders in the world and in return they’ll help protect you if someone starts a fight with you.
• Social Policies: a sort of social tech tree that might eventually give you access to a game winning wonder — The Utopia Project. The policy trees are broken into groups with names like “Liberty” or “Freedom” and under each tree you’ll find certain boosts for your empire. However, you won’t have access to all the trees — as having access to one might mean you’re restricted from another. The trees are also unlocked a different stages of play, so it will require a bit of strategy to decide which ones you’ll want to work on.
• I briefly mentioned this, but there’s going to be actual terrain in the game, that’s not just pasted on.  Your troops will be on hills; there’s even a combat advantage to have troops on higher ground.  Also, each area of the world (the Earth) will have a unique feel, so it’ll look like the places you’re conquering, not just the same patches of green (and other green) ground, blue water and the occasional brown/tan patch.  This is definitely a big part of the improvements made by use of the hex in the game that is making it look so much better than it’s predecessors.

So how does the game look overall? In a word: Fantastic.

If you’re a fan of the one-more-turn game obsession, I don’t think you’re going to be disappointed by Civ 5 when it releases on September 21st. If you’re new to the Civilization games, it might still be worth picking up the new release if you’re familiar with turn-based strategy games. However, if you’ve never tried either, and you still pick it up (or get it as a gift) it’s going to take some getting used to (like all good strategy games). But in watching the demo it felt like a lot of things were a little more streamlined now and it’ll be a good game play experience for old and new fans of Civilization alike.

I can’t say yet whether I think that $99 collector’s edition is really going to be worth it, but I know the game will be at my house September 21st, for certain.

Currently, there is no price. If you wish to see some cool gaming gear and maybe get a heads up on the new feature, then I suggest that you check out PDP and the Afterglow Prismatic Special Edition during your visit to PAX this year.

You’ll be able to get your indie game fix at Pax East coming up on March 26- 28 at the Hynes Convention Center in Boston. Pax East is concentrating on the Boston indie scene showcasing games from Fire Hose Games, Dejobaan Games, MIT’s Gambit game lab and more. The idea is to showcase companies that may not get to be shown at the larger indie festivals.

“Boston welcomed us with open arms and we wanted to give a little of the love back. We knew there are some great companies in Boston that can’t normally take booth space, so the Showcase was born,” said Robert Khoo of Penny Arcade. “Our winners have put together a selection of titles that are fun and original; but most importantly they show what gamers with passion and dedication can do.”

The winning entries are:

· Slam Bolt Scrappers – Fire Hose Games – A unique combination of engaging in building challenges while fighting off wacky, cartoon baddies in a beat ‘em up brawler

· AaaaaAAaaaAAAaaAAAAaAAAAA!!! – Dejobaan Games – Jump off buildings floating above Boston performing stunts and making split-second decisions as you weave around buildings to score points

· Dearth – MIT Gambit Game Lab – Save the Tribal Lands from monsters and drought playing as a great shaman in this exciting co-operative action-puzzler

· Waker – MIT Gambit Game Lab – Players are challenged to use both mind and reflexes to solve puzzles, creating platforms to form a path in this puzzle/platform game set in the world of a child’s broken dream

· Turba – Keith Morgado – A puzzle game where each song played will generate unique game boards on which players much create combos of 3 or more of the same color

· Miegakure – Marc ten Bosch – A platform game where you explore the fourth dimension to solve puzzles.

Of course there are tons of things to see or do at Pax East. Our very own Cherith and Stealthyslyth will be covering the con along with The Married Gamers!

“The Penny Arcade crew might be some of the most flippant, adorable game fans out there,” said Meggan Scavio, Event Director for GDC. “So obviously, we’re delighted to recognize their efforts in providing a genuine voice and event for gamers, and working with both fans and developers in the Child’s Play Charity to raise millions of dollars for a great cause.”

The award will be presented during the Game Developers Choice Awards on March 11 in San Francisco, CA.

PAX

Tickets are now on sale for PAX East 2010. The infamous Seattle games conference is now heading to Boston. The show itself will take place on March 26 – March 28 at the Hynes Convention Center.

PAX East will feature the sort of things that PAX is known for such as pen-and-paper tabletop games, CCG, PC and video games as well as concerts, panels and new games on the show floor.

“We’re bringing the craziness the fans have come to expect from PAX, but with an East Coast twist,” said Robert Khoo of Penny Arcade. “Most of all this will be a place where you can be yourself with fellow gamers.”

The three-day pre-registration cost is $45. It’s $10 more at the door. You can find all the information on registering here.