With an hour-and-a-half left, PAX Day 2 is almost finished. Day 2 at PAX South was just as busy as last year considering it falls on a Saturday. The line for Nintendo Switch apparently started three hours prior to the opening of the convention, and had a three-hour wait when the expo hall officially opened. Nintendo Switch had a line for the line. The Expo Hall on Day 2 becomes a little overwhelming, you don’t know what you want to see and the crowd is a bit much. I attended two more panels’ today, one first thing in the morning, and the second midday.
The first panel entitled ‘How to Make it in the Gaming Industry’ was from the viewpoint of the women in the video game industry, but was not for the women in the video game industry, this panel was for everyone and served plenty of valuable information on how to make it in the industry. Not only as a developer, writer, or channel host, but we also got the inside look at game law, Twitch, and the higher editors in video game journalism. Andrea Rene, who you’d recognize from GameStop TV, was on the panel and she is an amazing person! I personally love her work, and meeting her was one of the highlights of my day.
The second Panel I attended was ‘Hidden Gems – The Best Games You Haven’t Played (Yet).’ The panel was presented by three well known game developers, Grace Blessey from Arkane, Mikey Neumann from Gearbox, and Mike Laidlaw from Bioware. Each picked a game that was truly a hidden gem and defended why these games were good and needed to be played, honestly their list were games that are ‘SO BAD that they need to be played cause they’re actually fun’ games. Grace Blessey presented The Pirates of the Caribbean; she provided the mechanics, story, and reasons why the game needed to be played. The irony of it all is the only way anyone is going to play this game, and I quote Grace directly, “The only way you’re playing this game is to well…pirate it. For I found this game on Amazon for $80, and it’s worth it, but not at that price.”
Mikey Neumann chose a game for the NES called Faxanadu, pronounced ‘Fax-ana-do.’ The game was a terrible sprite game that lacked resources, money, and time, but was so terrible it worked. The sprites used the same size box while the developers just fit more into a tiny box.
Mike Laidlaw spoke on the inception of a game called Shadow of Destiny (Shadow of Memories) in which only one person had ever heard of the game. The time traveling confusion of a game had four endings with a satisfying fifth ending that would only unlock after unlocking the previous four. The fifth ending is what makes this game perfect, for it is the only ending that actually makes sense. The previous four are bittersweet, while the fifth and final ending is pretty much the real ending.
With the final day of PAX South approaching and so many games left to play, I expect to have a final grand day at PAX. It has been a pleasure to attend PAX again this year and when it’s over I look forward to attending next year. As a final note, you might also wish to see yesterday’s action – Day 1 of Pax South.
Featured photo credit: Kiko Villasenor.
