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Thursday, February 4, 2016

PAX Populi

Continued . . .
Beware the ghostly gamers!

The Aggronaut navigated his way through a maze of electronics and humanity with Scooter and me in tow. The apparent star of the exhibition floor was literally a Dreadnought. Meatbags were willing to wait for hours for the chance to sit down and play the latest blockbuster before it is released. Our companion was more focused on the smaller independent developers and their wares. Meeting up with several others in Bel's orbit, I joined in a game of Ultimate Chicken Horse—a fun little game of cooperative competition played on the XBox. Unfortunately, that was the last time we would see and recognize any of the Candy Van Crüe except another quick visit with Bel.
PAX Pox Incubator
Scooter and I spent hours weaving through the milling sea of humanity in the PAX exhibition hall, checking out everything from fancy anti-glare glasses and fancy leather hats to luxury gaming tables. There was plenty of merchandise to drool over from folks like WeLoveFine (the booth under the floating unicorn, above), and also demos from big-name and indy game developers. There were even charities like a "Gamers for Jesus" group and a veteran's organization. Despite packing well for our excursion, I completely forgot I was toting victuals and found myself famished by about 1 o'clock. We were headed out to find some grub when Bel caught up with us again for just a minute before heading off in a different direction.
And then all the Formics were wiped out.
After a delicious lunch on the nearby Riverwalk, the highlight of our afternoon was an opportunity to play some games in the PC Room (brought to you by Intel!). After our fifteen minute wait stretched into thirty, we were ushered to the computers, told we had thirty-five minutes to play (instead of forty-five), and left to our own devices. After a warm-up on Peggle Nights, I played several rounds of Rocket League against bots with names like Iceman and Goose. The game is hella fun. In case you don't know, it's a soccer-like game played with cars and trucks. All too soon, our twenty-seven minutes was over, and we were unceremoniously frogmarched from the venue (not really).

After wandering about for a bit, I checked the Candy Van group texts and discovered that Belghast, who had worn himself out, had headed off to meet his wife and her friend for dinner. We decided we would check out the tabletop side of the exhibition hall the next morning and left the convention center for our hotel.

To be concluded . . .
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2 comments:

  1. What did you think of those "gaming glasses"? Yay or nay?

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    1. I could see them possibly being useful if you spend your day in front of a computer screen and then go home and spend your evening in front of another one. The representative we spoke with said they can get prescription lenses made, too, but I am not sure of the costs involved.

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