PAX East 2011 Wrapup

Short version: It was a BLAST! Long version, after the jump...



BEST PART:
Finally meeting my editor Susan Arendt, the Loading Ready Run crew, Shamus and all the other Escapist peeps in person, plus doing the movie-night panel that went KICKASS.

WORST PART:
Ah, cons - where $5 for a slice of pizza somehow sounds briefly reasonable...

3DS:
For the first half-second of picking it up, my heart-sank: "Oh no... the 3D doesn't work." But once your eyes find "dead center" magic-eye style a half-second later... damn, that's a nifty effect - it really does look like the screen is a "portal" reaching much deeper into the background than possible in your hand, which is freaky as hell at first - and I'll bet it'll be even more impressive when not under harsh convention lightning (i.e. when the screen is the brightest thing in your field of vision.) I'm still not 100% sure if the effect has a practical application outside of looking cool, and I can see myself switching the 3D off for longer sessions, but it works and even absent 3D the graphics/controls are - as expected - terrific.

"FIREFALL"
Hadn't been following development on this, but evidently an online/co-op 3rd-person shooter that looks like "Gears of War" with a stylized, cartoon/comic inspired design aesthetic. They were putting on quite a show.

"MORTAL KOMBAT" REBOOT:
It's "Mortal Kombat 2" gone 2.5D in High-Definition and with tag-team play... and there isn't a DAMN THING wrong with that! They had it set up in oldschool arcade-style cabinets complete with "fighter stick" controls; played a match against a friendly stranger and suddenly it was the tolerable part of the 90s again - sooo satisfying to hear "Finish Him!" again. This thing will be HUGE.