PAX, a paradise i wish that existed every day...

I woke up at 5am on Friday, to head to Seattle and head to mystical place called PAX... The journey was supposed to feel long from all the excitement me and my comrades had, but to be honest, it was the quickest trip to Seattle i ever had. I think it was because we were discussing strategies and counters for League of Legends, since we were planning on going in to the Tournament there... Long story short though, we didn't end up in the tournament because we didn't sign up for it day one, cause we heard you had to sign up the morning of the tournament.. But NOPE it was the first day, so that was disappointing...

Anyways, on to PAX. When Robbie and I walked in to the Exhibition Hall, i seriously was baffled about everything i saw... It was literally a dream come true... I have never seen so many video game memorabilia, and cosplayers at one place before... Man, i loved it there, i loved it all three days and i wish i could stay there much longer than 3 days.

While i walked around the halls, Robbie and I were looking for a Riot Games booth because we assumed they had one, but you know what caught my eye AND excitement at the same time? BRINK, the one game i have been waiting for all year... SO i had to wait in line for it. During that long, long, long wait; i saw riot employees walking around! I pointed them out to Robbie. He decided to run after them and ask them where their booth is, but they actually did not have one, but they gave him a singed skin anyhow.

We waited in line for 2 and a half hours for Brink, we met 2 other guys who were cool, and talked to them the entire time. What was awesome, is that i talked to one of the developers for a few minutes and asked him about customizable configuration files and he confirmed it, and the other one even told me it will be the most open one out of all of their games, which is quite ridiculous because their other two games, Wolfenstein Enemy Territory, and Quake wars were really customizable. The second time i played it on Sunday, the developer was talking to a person behind me while i was playing the game that he wanted to speed the game up a bit, because he thought the game was a little on the slow side, and i got really excited because that was the only fault of the game, was that it was only a little too slow.

Brink impressions:

Brink is a First Person Shooter made by Splash Damage, a developer well known for making team, and objective based FPS games. I am excited about this game because they have made my favorite FPS shooters, Wolfenstein Enemy Territory, and Enemy Territory Quake wars. I loved these games because they were solely skill and team based, which are my favorite type of Competitive games.

Wolfenstein and Quake wars game design were very similar, and were not necessarily really creative, but Brink on the other hand, is a completely different story. Brink is a parkour esque objective and team based FPS. My god, it is really well put together too... i was really surprised. The only problem was that they had it set up with controllers, and the controls are really confusing for a console... It was using an Xbox 360 controller but since i don't know the buttons for it so i will use PS3 buttons to explain it.

R2 is used to shoot, R1 is for grenades, L2 is for iron sights, L1 is for Sprinting and the SMART system. Triangle is to switch weapons, O is to crouch AND to slide, X is to jump AND vault, Square is to Reload AND for Class Abilities. R3 is for melee, and L3 is to use class abilities on self. the D pad is to choose what kind of grenades you want and to choose your mission, which i never used since it seemed like a waste of time. You could lean around corners, and it was a two button combo but i forgot what it was...

On to the game play now... The game looks amazing for being an alpha build. You could customize your character during this short play through, and you really could customize your character quite a bit, and the security looked just plain bad ass.

The actual game played out really well, it was a little on the slow side but it was tolerable enough because the spread was not too insane when you didn't use iron sights. It was the same type of gameplay i was used to... and i was actually playing pretty well for playing it the first time.

The game has 4 classes, and each one of them are used for objectives. There is soldier who plants bombs, and i think they even give out ammo. The bombs are used for objectives throughout maps. Second there is engineer they can set up sentries, mines, repair objectives. They are needed for defense, and primary objectives. Mines go back to the style they had in Wolfenstein; mines are invisible and can only be spotted by a Covert Ops. Third is medic, they are one of the most important classes in the game for the fact that they can keep the team alive and allow them to push. They can revive, heal and even self revive... They are used for hostage objectives, which were not present in the demo. Lastly there is covert ops, they can disguise themselves as the enemy, hack objectives and sentries.

The one aspect i was really nervous about was the SMART system, from the videos and the description that gave of it, it seemed like it would automatically do everything for you and there would be very little skill involved, but that was quite the opposite and it made me really happy. The SMART system allows you to vault over objects, climb up boxes and ledges, and in my own opinion, a streamlined version of "Trick jumping". It's really neat, and has tons of potential. I am excited to see more maps and see how the SMART system is used for alternate paths.

The one mechanic that really worries me is that medics can self resurrect... This will cause much trouble to newer players because they will not be accustomed to gib players. However there is a cooldown on it, but it is a mere 2 or 3 minutes and it resets on respawn, and if one is careful enough they could be on the front lines at all times. It may be possible that if two medics team up they could cause quite a bit of havoc. 

While i was playing the game, i mostly played medic because that was the one class i played the most on the other 2 games. The SMART system is awesome, and while running you can choose to slide to cover or to simply dodge bullets. Meleeing in this game knocks enemies down, instead of insta killing (which would be dumb if it did) and makes them easy targets. While playing, this other player and i were having a melee fight and it was really disorienting, since we both kept on falling down and shooting at each other.

Overall, i am totally stoked for this game... It definitely is the FPS i have been waiting for, for a long time. Its definitely a first day buy for me...

After i played this game, i took time to play many other games, which were Vanquish, Yakuza 4, Marvel Vs Capcom 3, Final Fantasy 4 heroes of Light, Killzone 3, and Infamous 2.

4 Heroes of Light Impressions:

I only got to play this game for 5 minutes or so, but it used a weird system that makes sense... I guess. Each move requires a special orange orb thing, and you gain one each turn if you use the Boost action. You need these orbs to be able to cast spells and use abilities and even attack. I dunno how it will be, but i think its mainly done for multiplayer, which makes sense then. It prevents players from spamming powerful spells over and over again.

I really liked the stylized graphics, it adds a nice touch to the game. I really do not have much to say about this game, since i only played it for about 5 minutes...

Infamous 2 Impressions:

I loved the first Infamous, it was probably one of the only open world games that is ACTUALLY entertaining all throughout. The Infamous 2 demo was really short, but it gave the player a good idea of how the game will be.

During close combat in Infamous 2, it slows down and changes camera angles, and it makes the game that much more immersive. The new Melee weapon is awesome, and it makes battles really fast paced and exciting. The demo only allowed you to kill some monsters, chase a limo, and fight a helicopter. But at the end of the demo, it showed off a new move that was an electric tornado. It was really neat, but at that point of the demo it was really bugged. You could only use that move...

This game is really slick, and i am really excited for this one as well. Hell, i'm really excited for most of the games i played...

I'll post my impressions on the other games in the next few days, i'm kind of tired of writing right now...