Taken From: Penny Arcade Expo 2006
Penny Arcade Expo!
Posted by KPaul at 8/28/2006 4:20 PM PDT
Friday, Saturday and Sunday were dominated by PAX out here in Bungieland. PAX is a gaming “festival”, in their words. There were a ton of events going down all weekend, you could go to them all and never feel like they were getting repetitive. There were all sorts of games on display from video games, tabletop games to role playing games. Along with the displays in the exhibition hall there were many panels , of particular relevance to Bungie fans were one in which Frankie participated and another which the RvB guys hosted. Of course Tycho and Gabe (Penny Arcade’s founding fathers) participated in a few panels of their own. They even had various tournaments running the entire time (including Halo 2) and musical concerts on Friday and Saturday night.
I showed up on Saturday morning around 10:15 so I could watch the Halo 2 tournament and cheer on the Bungie team. After the doors to the tournament opened (with Frankie already inside, sneaky bastard) the Bungie guys went in first to set up the tournament gametype on a quarter of the Xboxes. There were 27″ LCD TVs for every two players, so everyone was pretty comfortable. The gametype was Battle Rifle primary, no secondary, no motion tracker, weapons on map were normal and the rest was pretty standard. There was a list of about 6 maps or so that the gametype was to be played on. After a little confusion in the initial setup - there were a ton of people there and it was all being organized by one (capable, brilliant, yet harried) man - we got things going.
More HDTVs than you can shake a stick at.
A cavegirl needlessly sets up her appearance before the game starts, earning
an exasperated comment from the tournament’s organizer.
The photographer fuels Noguchi’s silent rage as he awaits the Bungie team’s first actual match.
The first couple of rounds were full of mismatches, some of them not too bad but some of them made you feel kind of bad for the losing team. The Bungie team was in an odd pool which meant that they had to wait a while before they had a chance to play and when they did their first opponent forfeited because they didn’t show up. But eventually they had a chance to play against one of the groups there representing PMS, it was the first good match of the morning and maybe the best of the day.
Noguchi fiddles with the TV’s settings, trying to give Bungie all the help it can get.
It was on Beaver Creek so the combo, rockets and overshield were all hotly contested items. It was a cautiously played match by both sides; Bungie displayed some fantastic teamwork at times. They ended up controlling the backs of the bases for most of the game. PMS would rush them but their only success came when they flanked at the same time and when they blew the hell out of the back of the base with grenades before proceeding. They eventually broke Bungie’s hold each time, but they traded a pretty even amount of bodies up until the end when Bungie wasn’t able to regain control of an area and PMS pulled away with the win 50-40 (that’s a guestimation, I don’t remember the exact score). Bungie still got a prize, though.
Abe Frohman receives the coveted Pink Spartan on behalf of Bungie for its
loss to the PMS team.
The PMS team proceeded to the semifinals and ended up placing third. The finals were pretty even, best of three matches on Lockout, Beaver Creek and then Midship. The first game, on Lockout, was won by the same team that placed second last year, who were… boisterous. They were pretty talkative throughout the day and especially after this win, thinking they’d maintain their winning way, but it was not meant to be. The next game was on Beaver Creek and was very close, but the other team pulled it out. The third and final game was close as for the first few minutes, but the newcomers suddenly pulled away from the pack at about 30 kills to win by nearly 15. The (again) second place team won some pretty cool stuff, but the new guys were pretty much showered in swag. Much thanks to the PAX crew for running the tournament and giving us and every one else a chance to take part and have fun in a Halo 2 tournament.
After the H2 tourney the group I was with went down to check out the PAX exhibition room. There were some pretty cool exhibitors around. There were small showings from a bunch of developers and publishers of various types of media. I got a chance to play Splinter Cell Double Agent, which was pretty cool. I played some DS and some PSP games as well, which were neat but nothing I was that excited about. There weren’t any gaudy displays with gratuitous neon lighting and laser beams like at E3, which made things feel less like a spectacle and more focused. There was also plenty of merchandise to be purchased in the exhibition hall. The Red vs. Blue guys had set up in a corner of the hall to sell their wares, sign RvB stuff and talk to fans.
On the matter of Red vs. Blue, I’m told that they had quite the raucous panel. Allegedly, there were great questions, much laughter and heavy drinking, in typical RvB form. Unfortunately I couldn’t make it to that panel, but everyone who went told me that it was a blast, so I’m sorry I had to miss it. Frankie’s panel was at 7 that night, entitled, “Forums, Blogs and Fanbois: The Role of Community and PR in the Game Industry.” He and three other panelists spoke about the importance of the community, specifically the hardcore community versus the casual gamer and its impact on their jobs and the actual process of game development. Then the floor was opened up to questions and they ran the gambit from well thought-out, relevant questions to borderline trolling - why we still let Shishka in front of a microphone is beyond me.
Left to Right: Not Frankie, Not Frankie, Frankie, Not Frankie.
Only one of these people is paid to worship Frank, the other three are just sick.
With that, most of us packed it in for the night. Much thanks to Tycho, Gabe and Robert for throwing one hell of a shindig, to Robert Plummer for organizing the H2 tournament and to the enforcers for doing their thing and keeping the whole event running smoothly. See you all next year!
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