PAX 2017 SOUTH SAN ANTONIO. TEXAS

[usagi-ayumi]

hello my lovely readers, this year we're going to PAX 2017 SOUTH SAN ANTONIO. TEXAS  for the first time.
because this is the first time we're going to a real game event, there is a chance some of my team mates will be doing a live broadcast on it.
there will be a chance we have some gaming set up problems, so do check my facebook... since i am sure you will hear my team mates screaming and our support staff trying to set things up... ah... so.. yep... i am sure i might not make it, but you won't miss a single thing so do look forward to it.

The Queen's Account 'king way in the background half tied up"

This account belongs to our queen, so you will mostly hear her screaming at the king later on.. and who's the king, you'll find out soon on that day.

[usagi-ayumi]

this his first time writing and some information might be missing, but do enjoy reading it first.
 

Day one at pax was a amazing thing to go through, even though I had very little rest I did do my best to make it on time and get on time for the interviews I had set up. One of the games I review was Has Been Heroes. This game I have to say playing on the Nintendo Switch. I didn't get to play with the new remotes as they use the pro controller.  The game took some time to get use to it uses a very interesting take on the whole pause of the game. Thanks to Santtu who was with me during the live demo of the game he walked me through it.  Let me speak about the game before I talk about the pause change. The game is a 3 lanes in which enemies will rush down trying to kill your people.  You start off with a rogue , warrior, and a monk following behind them would be two princess that gather energy from the enemy your team kill.  So in a way the game has the plant vs zombies where the zombies rush towards you in lane you have to use the skills you are given to kill them, or else you lose.  Now here is where I go back to the pause. When you attack with one of your person as they hit the game will go pause this gives you a chance to switch a character into the lane to combo on the same enemy or cast spells. Sounds simple well as you figure the enemy get tougher and you  have to react faster and be more thoughtful on how you use your spells. 

The game has about a doze hero in the game and about 300 spells. That's an insane number and guest what from the interview I had with team it appears the game will not be more then 19.99$ and it seems all the game will be there. No hidden dlc being kept from the game at launch. The one thing I was slightly sad  is the game felt a bit harder to gasp at the start and I believe that the Switch new controller will be well suit for the game. Over all I love the game and will have to say its a game that I will keep an eye on and pick up the day it comes out. 

Another game I came across and had a pleasure speaking to the ceo of Holospark  Rusty Williams. He spoke to me in depth about his game. From the first time I looked at the game I got the vibe of vales Left 4 dead games. However, unlike Left 4 dead it appear the game will not just leave the player in the dark on how things gotten to this point in the 1 year time skip that happens. It something I actully liked to hear as the game play seems a combination of tower defense elements. You can build walls and create choke points to funnel enemies into. Another thing I found nice and possible cool is the fact that you use 3d printers to build your weapons. Its a bit odd but very possible as of now printers are taking off throughout the world. 

After speaking for a while about the game I was invited to play it with a group of other players. Lets just say it didn't go so well. We easily made it to the 3d printer but quickly came overwhelm by the alien forces.  In a matter of moments one of our teammates had become pin trying to rescue them our team was just slowly rip apart until me and one other were left alive but it was only a matter of time before we would go down like the rest. Crushing defeat but the game did bring me back to some old feelings I miss when I use to play games like Left 4 dad with my friends.  Before Pax I didnt know much about this game but now I am really happy to see that this game is coming out on pc, ps4, and xbox one.  I will try my out most to get my friends to play this game and hope to learn of what is going on in this world. 

I cant forget to mention this very interesting development team Dire Wolf. I spoke for a while with Matt Hudson and he walk me through the 3 games they had currently displayed at pax. All being broad/card games which his team are very skill in. He was happy to tell me that some of the people on his team are top tier players in Magic and that helps them understand ow to support their game. Which is nice change as you know many card games have the attends of getting broken cards and just make the game unbalance in the long run. This is something they do the out most to avoid and seem to be the case as they do catch it while its being tested within house.  

Another interesting thing was the game called Eternal, "Usagi here to confirm some information on Eternal and that is a card game that you can play online." while it looks close to blizzard heart stone it isn't the same game. While this is a bit odd the game is total free to play only having to pay for cosmic items. The Team and company behind this game strongly believe that you shouldn't be able to spend a lot of money on packs just to get the best stuff right away and go around crushing people. That's not saying if you play the game for a long time that you wont, you most likely will. This is a nice take on the company has take to their game.  Over all I have to say speaking to them was an amazing time, it also appear the group of players playing the table top game called Crank enjoy them as well. Very energy driven booth it was. 

There was a lot to take in and i'm sure the next day will hold even more for me. Sorry pics will take sometime to put up when I get back but i'm sure you will enjoy them all. I also saw some nice cosplay as you be a bit shock cosplay at this event isn't as high as I thought but its nice to see them out and about. Over all the place radiates energy all over the place. Looking forward to day two of this event. 

[usagi-ayumi]

PAX GAMING LIVE 2017 - first time for them so give them high five.

Now let's give these two monkeys a high five for their first live, trust me they are relaxed some how some of their fans thought they are steaming from home when they are at the event so let's just give them more agreement on doing the next live.

[usagi-ayumi]

Side Note for all readers, On day one I did get hands on Rising Storm 2 Vietnam, the game seems really fun and hard. I don't recall to much of the first Rising Storm game, but it does seem to be shooting for a more realistic game play.  I played a match and have to say I am not the best, that's me putting it lightly that it was rough.  Over all it was fun and I have to say its nice to play a game set in the Vietnam its very rare, not to many games touch that time line. 

I spoke a bit with someone from the up coming game Dauntless, and from what I seen it looks to be good. I didn't see it at the 16 game awards so this game kind of blind side me. However, looking at it closely it seems to be really close to Monster Hunter, but from speaking to the person at the booth. He told me how there no loading zones on the island and thats a nice little thing. They only have 4 hunters, but they are to be fully customization to them. Also they only have two monsters but they team has hope to get sizable hunt list for the players. The two hunts I saw is a giant owl that seems to get enrage when close to death and a freezing crystal looking Dino. Really cool looking game will try to get hands on day 2. 

Day 2 start off with a blast, walking into the main hall I could tell it was going to be a fun day. I saw many cosplayers out on the floor in many different video game characters. I went quick to work take pictures, asking before taking not to be rude. While I saw more I knew I had get onto the main floor, I still had a few games to go check on and try get my hands on. Sadly some of these games I couldn't get in line for, just simply to long for me to wait. There was a nice music/bullet hell game I found.  So the game is simple you are a shape on the screen and you have to avoid objects being sent out to kill you. Easy right? Well you be a bit shock but its following the music so when the music picks up the bullet hell starts. Very assuming and fun demo I got to speak to.  

The name of the game by the way is Just Shapes & beats, spoke to one of the guys who is also working on it. I was shock to learn of the trouble they had while working on the game, but it seems they are back on track on finishing the game. The game itself at South Texas Pax had 3 levels and if you finish all 3 you go to a secret level. Very fun game one that I think everyone should play as well. Music selection and designed of the bullet hell really nice. A bit more en-depth about the game machines is 4 player game. Every time you get hit you lose a bit of your shape making it easier to avoid getting hit but closer to death. Each time you get hit as well you get push around and a small shield appears around you. If a player dies , get hit 4 times, you become a little white ball that slowly moves off the screen if a alive player touches you it bring you back into the game. You think oh this makes it easy, you be wrong ! While yes you can bring people back you also run the risk of having to go through some hellish bullet hell areas to achieve it. Overall very fun game one I will pick up when it comes out.

At the end of playing this and having a nice talk to the guy at the booth, and wish him luck on finishing the game, really great guy. At this time my friend who was cosplaying along side another friend where already coming to the main entrances I went to go meet them and to get some picture of her cosplay. It was the only Mercy from over-watch that did the full default armor I seen one the day before but it was a bunny outfit one.  She was rush for pictures and took us about 30 to an hour to get onto the expo floor. It was fun seeing how many people wish to take a picture with her and such, but I want them to enjoy the expo as well. So I did my best with my other friend help to try get in as fast as possible.  Once in didn't change much people just seem to love the cosplay. However, I couldn't stay round for to long I still had work to do. So I remind her that we had a streaming starting at 4 to 5 and point her in the area of which to meet, and with that said I took off to resume the work I had set up for that day. 

The last interview I had set up was for a MOBA(massive online battle arena) coming to use called Hyper Universe. It appear the game was a 2d 4 player MOBA which I never heard being done. It was an odd take on the MOBA format. Speaking to Sv Producer Hyun of Nexon explain me how it was set up. It had a total 7 layers that you use ladders and drops to move from each floor while on the map it looks like a straight shot to the enemy base it isn't there's a wall in the middle that prevents the middle center path letting you just rush to the enemy base.  So other then that its simple destroy the enemy base. Lets me tell you how the map works now over all. The top upper layers and the bottom layers are what to be consider jg where your temporary buffs be. So the top and lower middle rows have the towers and the center is for moving quickly to all the layers. 

While fighting to get to the towers and attack them you unlock your skills, just like any other MOBA, but sadly I believe you cant chose how to unlock them. Also you don't have to back to buy shop or gain health and mana just back away from the battle for a while and slowly you auto recover.  Item wise you get gold for killing things like normal and you can upgrade things your character starts with if you don't it will auto upgrade your items. The mouse is not need for this game type as all things can use key inputs to achieve what you need. Over all the game was fun and I found out at the end that our match took a bit longer then the normal match time which was around 20 to 25 minutes we lasted to 30 or so minutes. Enjoy the chat with them and cant wait to see more of the game when it comes out. As far as their style they going for its going to be free to play. Sadly more information on that is not clear as now but I assume its be close to other MOBA games in the market. 

After that interview I had to rush to the streaming as I was running a bit late. Setting up the stream took a bit longer then I had hope as it was my fault for not giving them the need information at the time they requested. However, it was a fun stream that I would gladly like to do again. By the time we ended the stream time was already up and the expo floor was closing up. That would also be my last day as I had to rush back home because of college that started on Monday and I didn't have my room for another night.  Over all day two was amazing fun joy ride. Small side note for all those reading the expo floor did close but they left the table top gaming floor open until 11 which was fun meet up with a few other friends and played a few games on the floor until they kicked us out. It was fun and enjoyable time playing table top games. 

South Texas PAX was an amazing event for me to go and do wish to cover more events like this, hopefully ill get better and able to handle more on my own. I think I did a good job, covering as much as I could on my own. I hope you as the readers felt a bit of that magic I felt when I was running around on the expo floor, not really running as there was no room to run. Many great people,with many great cosplayers hope they can keep it up as its such a joyful event to attend. 

Usagi: now the following pictures for you all to enjoy!!