PAX Part 1: Setting the Stage

Friday September 4th, 5:00pm

I’m sitting in the corner of a relatively low-traffic area of the Seattle Convention Center, taking advantage of the gracious free Wi-Fi. A couple of scouts from Team Fortress 2 walk by, chatting. Across the room, a wall of windows gives way to the Seattle skyline. In front of it, a plush green-clad Prince from Katamari Damacy bobs around energetically in a circle with other enthusiastic attendees. It’s the 2009 Penny Arcade Expo.

A floor below me, a hundred people are sprawled out on beanbags with laptops, PSPs, DSes. Where I’m sitting is probably the only free space to let my legs take a breather.

Four hours earlier, legendary game designer Ron Gilbert—creator of games such as Maniac Mansion and the first two Monkey Islands—spoke to the packed main theater. He shared memories of days where he had a piecemeal computer yet no games. He solved this conundrum by watching arcade games, taking meticulous notes, and created versions of them himself at home. He spoke in praise of the indie games movement with its increasingly public presence, relating them to the early days of creative game design where seven people could sit in a room and make a game without need of market research or investor consultation.

Several hours before that, I wandered through the packed show floor and began to make my way through the future releases on display. A stop at the Sony booth began with a brief glimpse of the bizarrely cute EyePet being demonstrated on a table flooded with back-light so as to function in the darkened hall. The little critter scampered around on screen in its doppelganger world being captured by the PSEye observing the table.

Toward the back of the booth was a single TV that caught my eye: a hands-on demo of Heavy Rain, Quantic Dreams’ anticipated PS3 adventure game. I watched the attendee ahead of me as he confronted the situation that the demo presented him: While searching a convenience store for clues to a serial murderer, the player—controlling a classic gumshoe detective—must deal with what happens when the store is held up at gunpoint. While the clerk and thug argued at the front of the store, the detective made his way to the front of the store. Along the way, precariously-shelved goods threatened to fall off their shelves. Carefully, with analog control, he replaced said items to remain stealthy. Too fast, the presenter noted, and he might attract the same attention dropping them would cause. Successfully sneaking up behind the thug, the detective was able to knock him out after a brief struggle.

My playthrough wasn’t as stealthy. Choosing to confront him head-on, I approached the thug from a distance. Upon being noticed, he trained the gun on me and shouted to put my hands up. I did, holding both shoulder buttons. As I slowly advanced toward the thug, nervously blurry options began popping above the detective’s head, thoughts swirling about how to deal with the situation. Through carefully chosen topics, I eventually convinced the thug that he was better than this, to put the gun away and go home. Another successful outcome.

Other games at Sony’s area included an intense encounter in Uncharted 2, one that I was precariously thrown into after another attendee put the controller down after reaching a particularly difficult shootout. It took me a while to get the hang of it; enemy soldiers positioned both down the street to my front and in the alley to my right. There were probably at least five or six deaths while I plotted the perfect take-down. Enemies fell, a tank burst into the street, and I found myself in an almost impossible standoff. That’s when the game stepped in to pat me on the back for surviving, triggering a cinema where new girl Chloe appears heroically on car-top, figuratively punching the tank in the face with a rocket. Great acting and animation abound as the two plot their next move through the city. And scene.

At this point, someone I knew spotted me and we began to chat. Look for more post-PAX impressions soon!