Seattle PAX Day 3

NOTE: We are out of OFFICE attending the PAX convention in Seattle. Our blog is temporarily our front page so you may keep up with our misadventures.

 

We began the day again in our favorite morning place this whole trip… CAFE SIENA. We updated the blog and got our stuff together for PAX. Today was mostly a work day because we had appointments and interviews all day.

In true BG fashion we were late to our first appointment and couldn’t find the place it was being displayed. Gritz went to that appointment, and Crutchboy and I went to the mighty Warhammer Online exhibit to our next appointment. The Warhammer rep had his stuff together, he was able to tell us what seperates their MMO from the most likely game it will be compared to (WOW) and was able to tell us who it benefits you busygamers out there. (and it does)

After that, we were lucky to find a interview oppurtunity on the fly with the
Sugar Rush game.  The game is totally free and lots of fun to look at. (Very stylized graphics.)

We went on to the Strongbad booth, the Destineer booth and checked out Iron Chef (fun), Little Red Riding Hood Zombie BBQ, and Word Jong Party.

We talked with Starslay3r for a while, took some pics, and then left for the day.

Later that night, we went to a noodle house, filled up on Mongolian Beef, and went in search of Casinos. We went to 3, but finally found one that had some one armed bandits. The drinks weren’t free, so we weren’t there long.

Today: we play tourist.

Seattle PAX day2…

NOTE: We are out of the office in awesome Seattle and Kent WA for PAX. Our blog is temporarily our front page so you may keep up with our misadventures.

 

Day: 2

We began with breakfast (crutchboy and I) in a neat little coffe shop/eatery in Kent WA. If you are ever in Kent, stop by CAFE SIENA, the staff is oh so nice, they make the best greek salads and breakfast sandwiches, and the hot chocolate aint bad either. The owner chatted us up and caught us up to date on the Seahawks, the waitresses (Liz and Felicia) are friendly and the WiFi is free. It’s our new favorite morning place here.

We went on to the convention center early. Press conference was at 1030 am. In BG fashion we showed up late. We met the PAX 10 who were indie game designers and played their games at the early exhibition for the media. SUSHI SAMURAI is one of our favorites.  We spent a lot of talking with the creator Casey and will feature him soon in an upcoming article.

The doors opened at 2pm to frenzied fans and the place was overrun by about 65000 people. Thats the population of a small town.

Played lots of cool names not even out yet. Smackdown vs Raw, Lightsaber duels, Warhammer online, Mirrors Edge, New Lord Of thenRings, and too many to mention. Saw our Gamette Starslay3r as Judy Nails ripping it up on the Guitar Hero stage. Met Jonathon Coulton. That was cool.

GRITZ lost ownership of busygamer.com to me in a foozball match. (I’m your boss now fools)

 He’s still paying for the Vettes.

After the con, we went to the Chamions Online party where we drank free booze (Mistake mistake…) They served all the classy stuff.. Henieken, imports, wine, and of course.. Pabst Blue Ribbon. They must have known Texas boys were coming.

We passed out over 500 pieces of swag (beer Koozies) There was a sea of BG skulls at this event (which was a public library by the way). We met the creators and owner of Chamions Online and many other media and video game creators. The Destructiod guys were ultra cool, but i did not get a chance to have arm wrestling championships with anyone.

We left the library loaded. And took it to the Meeker street bar next to the hotel until about 2pm.

Now we are back in the lovely CAFE SIENA enjoying breakfast, cocoa, and the cool weather.

Today: there are tons of appointments, including IRON CHEF for Wii… cant’s wait.

SEATTLE DAY 1: The road to PAX

We woke up at 4:20. Contrary to popular belief, this does not mean that we smoked pot. We are BUSY gamers after all.
Got into Austin Bergstrom Airport and went into the security gate, which is quite an adventure with Crutchboy, who was searched in a special room and wiped down for testing of explosive chemicals.
After that debacle, we grabbed some breakfast and went onto the plane. The first leg of the plane trip was to Santa Anna California. It was about a 2 1/2 hour flight but that was ok, because we all had a lack of sleep, so we all just crashed.
Santa Anna is beautiful. The clouds opened up and we lowered into the mountains, which is quite spectacular to a bunch of boys who live in the flat land of Texas.
The second leg of the trip was proabably about as long, but seemed longer because we were awake. I brought a graphic novel with me, and finished it. So now, I’m bored.
We got into Seattle, Gritz rented us corvettes.
Then we checked into this hotel about 20 minutes from the place. It’s quiet, out of the way, the best thing is that there is a bar next door, which is where we just spent the last 2 hours.
NOW: we are preparing to go to the covention center, register as press, and hopefully meet new people and party it up.
If Seattle is lame, Willie Nelson is playing tonight, and there is a punk rock show in downtown. So we’ll see what happens.
PS Eddie Vedder did not meet us in the terminal.

2 Days till Seattle for Penny Arcade

We are almost there, a few more days – our schedule is getting crammed for the weekend. I put some extra duct tape on my braces, and replaced my crutchtips in case I end up doing some stunt acrobatics. Ya never know. Im crazy like that.

Some things we are scheduled to be covering…

War Hammer Online

Iron Chef

Strong Bad

Electronic Arts Games

Nerdcore Rising

Guitar Hero World Tour

Just a few things we’ll be hitting up…

-Crutchboy

www.busygamer.com

THE FORCE GET’S UNLEASHED

Well this weekend marked Xbox Live’s release of Lucasarts new Star Wars : The Force Unleashed demo for those of you who subscribe. First let me tell you that I downloaded this free demo Sunday, waiting 2 days of thinking that it may spoil my anticipation of the full game arriving september 15th. The 900 something byte DL didn’t take too long, I casually got in a few of the Fable 2 Table Games while i waited (also a great demo).I wanna say that the game mechanics are pretty damn phenomenal. The graphics are greatly on par with a Star Wars game for 360. I was a little hesitant at first, since these titles have been in the past “known” to not do so well after the Star Wars brand wears off. Let me tell you what DMM and Euphoria have done to this game is truly amazing. The force powers actually over ride the fact that you are wielding a lightsaber (which was always the big draw for me – yes I’m a geek).

The environment’s reaction, windows blowing out of the star port, sucking objects out in a swoosh with a blast door shutting behind was quite entertaining. Force lifting and smashing that little R2 unit into the door that was previously closed made me chuckle. For it being a demo I probably played through the thing about 6 times before stopping. You really feel powerful in this game, tossing troopers to and fro watching as they grasp on to objects within their reach (even if it’s another trooper) made me feel that this AI was really reacting to what was going on. Some enemies even fled as I approached menacingly towards them with my sith weapon.

The cut scene at the end of the demo left my mouth watering for more. Not the victim of a terrible movie spoiler, but really excited about the full release of this game.

It will probably replace my Jedi Academy game for old Xbox that proudly holds a spot in my permanent “I’ll never trade this in” section of my game library. So go check it out, it’s free, and will give you a great close to your day after your hectic monday, you can’t force choke “your real boss” you know.

It’s gonna be a swell experience.

MTFBWY

Crutchboy – Out

www.busygamer.com

Red Stapler. 8-Bits of Jude Buffum.

Jude Buffum

I was watching Coin-Op TV today and this weeks guest was Jude Buffum, an artist that does all his work in an 8-bit style. Was really retro game feeling, like Nintendo, or even pre-nintendo. Good stuff, and the show interview was great too. You can check out the live show here at http://www.thestream.tv/watch.php?v=983 or Jude’s work at www.judebuffum.com.

-Crutchboy out

www.busygamer.com

Toy Hunting At Midnight…

I’m a dork… So what.

I was toy hunting tonight. (Really I was in a local Wal Mart trying to pick up a few things.) So you know how that goes, one minute you’re there to pick up some asprin the next thing you know, you have everything but asprin in your cart. (At one point I had a goldfish…)

So what the hell, stopped by the toy aisle and found this awesome toy…

It’s super cool because not only does it have mad articulation, but the sculpt looks really nice in the package. What I love BEST is that it is the comic book version of Doc Ock, and not the movie version which has already been exploited to the point it is not funny anymore, for some reason the movie Doc Ock looks a lot like my Dad, and that just creeps me out.

The Unleashed line first caught my eye a few years back with all the Star Wars Unleashed toys (Check out the Star Wars Unleashed Slave Leia figure on ebay and thank me later)

I’m done… goodnight

St. Timothy Dangerrrrr

www.busygamer.com

“Montauk Monster” a fake?

A few weeks back, you may remember a much “to-do” on the news about a weird looking corpse that had somehow washed up on the Montauk N.Y. shore.

There was a crazy looking creature corpse photographed… quite clear mind you. The corpse mysteriously seemed to vanish, authorities never got a hold of it, the woman interviewed seemed a bit of a ditz. “I don’t know what happened to it… We didn’t think it was a big deal” (Yet enough for onlookers to snap a pic)

There are several new speculations about it now. Some say, in the age of photoshop imaging, it is simply a fake, others claim it is part of a new marketing ploy for some movie.. Whatever the case is, it did spark the imagination of America for a few days.

Which leads to the question. Should we believe things we can even see with our own eyes? Hoaxes become more and more sophisticated every year. A scenerio like the movie “Wag The Dog” really isn’t that hard to beleive. This reminds me of the FOX special a few years ago charging NASA with faking the moon landing. Think about it… Area 51’s buildings look like movie soundstages from the outside.  New Mexico is a desert. With the right lighting and effects, we can make a movie set look believable, and with the space race with Russia at the time… who is to say America didn’t have a cause to fake it?

If that’s the case… who can you trust? Not me, if I had the means, I’d stage a hoax in a heartbeat

I’m just sayin…

St. Timothy Danger

www.busygamer.com

Fake? That

Tropic Thunder Controversy?

Tropic Thunder seems to be under a lot of fire for use of the “R” word. (Retarded)

Special Olympics chairman Tim Shriver and Special Olympian Loretta Claiborne talked about the “Tropic Thunder” controversy on Good Morning America. They find the movie and use of the words offensive. Moviegoers seem to find the controversy overrated.

The weird thing about comedy movies, is that… well it is supposed to be funny. So we have to decide what borders on funny, and just plain mean.

I guess I can connect similar things, I am not by any means a thin frail boy, In Texas we grow everything big, but I didn’t get angry at movies like Shallow Hal, Nutty Professer, Norbit, or Wall-E for it’s portrayal of fat people.

I don’t want to sue the makers of the Selena movie for making her an unworthy icon of hispanics everywhere. Thanks to that movie, whenever I travel to the midwest people think I carry hotsauce on a holster in my belt, wear a hairnet and drive a lowrider. (Edward James Olmos barely redeemed himself with Battlestar Galactica)

We make fun of old people, foreigners, and even tanned people in movies… Quite honestly the best job in the world must be to be a comedian because you can say just about anything on stage and probably get an HBO special whereas in the office you would just get a trip to the unemployment line.

We should sue the makers of Scary Movie 1-3, Meet the Spatans, Disaster Movie, etc and anything the Wayans Brothers do for making all of America look stupid. (They make ‘em, and someone keeps buying the damn tickets)

I guess the whole thing is… well…  a little retarded. (pun intended, not an attack on a group)

Tim

Needs sensitivity Training

www.busygamer.com

Obligatory Star Wars Post

If you have to ask whether I saw Clone Wars or not, I should probably punch you in the neck.

Yeah, I saw it. I was pleasantly suprised. I’m biased, I grew up on Star Wars, so the hum of a light saber is like an nerd battle cry to me.

I dig it, because quite frankly, I can’t let Star Wars go. I can’t I try and try, but I need it to live on and give me something to look foward to. Usually, I’m like the other whiny little protesters.. the purists. But I gave that up a long time ago.

Star Wars… it’s for the kids man, It doesnt matter if a 30 something year old man is upset because the plot is a little too kid friendly. Hell, we were kids when we got into SW, so doesnt today’s generation get a shot at total sci fi happiness? You bet they do. I could bitch all day about Anakin’s padawan, or how the soundtrack doesnt sound right, or even the lack of scrolling text in the beggining, but I’m not. Because honestly, it was a heck of a ride, and the 5 year old in me loved it.

 

St. Timothy Danger

“May the Force Be With You”

www.busygamer.com