PAX East 2011

It's one thing for game developers to listen to their fans, but the makers of Guild Wars 2 are took that idea a step further by calling on fans to actually create part of their game. The company used their panel at Pax this year to invite the Guild War faithful behind-the-scenes of their development and letting them create an event chain for the upcoming game. Some version of the events voted on by Pax's panel-goers will end up in the finished game. 

 

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Fowl Space was a lovechild of boredom. While in class, two of the developers started passing designs back and forth. Somewhere in the middle of all that ink and crumpled paper, a chicken in a space helmet was born and thus we have Fowl Space. The story follows a chicken that wants to destroy the sun only to find it inhabited by lingerie-loving Vikings – and then things get crazy. This rather easy to control platform-shooter is filled to the brim with style, off-colored humor, and frantic action.

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UPDATED 10:29 AM PST: Gearbox Software head Randy Pitchford confirmed during a presentation at PAX that Duke Nukem Forever is scheduled for release in 2011 for PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, and PC.

Duke Nukem Forever is real! It’s being developed by Gearbox Software and being published by 2K Games, and it’s playable on the show floor at PAX this very second!

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I checked out Atomic Games' upcoming multiplayer shooter Breach when the company was in our offices last week, and it's really good, but it's not worth going to jail for. Sadly, a gamer at PAX may not have gotten this message. Apparently, Justin D. May, 20, of Wilmington, Delaware, was at PAX East last week and tried to steal the Breach code.

Joystiq reports that May downloaded some of the Breach code from Atomic's computer, and then ran off into the crowd. Atomic designs simulations for the military, so they know from security, and guards were able to catch the suspect when he'd only downloaded around 14MB of the game's code. 

"The suspect did admit to us several times, including as he was doing it, that he was stealing the code," David Tractenberg, a spokesperson for Atomic, said. "He said to myself and several other team members, after being caught, that it was not a big deal, he just really liked the game and wanted to play it with his friends."

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The panels you'll find at Penny Arcade Expo, be it the traditional end-of-summer show up in Seattle or this year's Eastern debut in Boston, aren't like the ones we just covered at Game Developers Conference. While GDC panels look at the nuts and bolts of programming, design, art, audio, and economics, PAX panels have a definite fan-flavor to them. Topics range from tabletop D&D  to community management,  to publisher behind-the-scenes looks to live podcast recordings and concerts. (And, praise be, all sorts of panels investigating the current state of video game journalism.)

The PAX East program is three days worth of interesting conversation and entertaining debate...here's what Patrick, Adam, Abbie and I are looking forward to checking out (while we're not foolishly provoking drunken Red Sox fans). And by all means, if you're attending the show and see us in the hall or passed out in the street somewhere, be sure to say hello and/or call for emergency assistance!

Friday, March 26th

Journalists vs. Developers: The Ultimate Grudge Match -- 2:00PM, Manticore Theatre

Our own Patrick Klepek will be joining Wired Game|Life's Chris Kohler, Harmonix's John Drake, and our old friend and former editor-in-chief of Computer Gaming World Jeff Green, who is currently in editorial command of EA.com. As you might surmise from the panel's title, this will be about the tenuous but symbiotic relationship between the journalists and the publishers. But it should be fun, because we're all still good friends. (Right...?)

PAX East Keynote -- 3:00PM, Main Theatre

Wil Wheaton, aka Wesley Crusher from Star Trek: TNG, is delivering this year's keynote address. Wil's been a lifelong gamer and pretty much has the world's biggest stockpile of geek cred, so this speech should be worth catching.

The Misadventures of P.B. Winterbottom -- 6:30PM, Naga Theatre

Winterbottom started out as a student thesis project and made its way up to a fully featured downloadable release. Paul Bellezza and Matt Korba from The Odd Gentlemen are going to walk us through how that unfolded.

Indies Will Shoot You In The Knees -- 8:00PM, Naga Theatre

A panel of Boston-based indie game developers are fired up and ready to explain their strategies for fighting against the Halos and the Calls of Duty and the Uncharteds and the what-have-yous of this industry.

Mega64: Panel for the Soul -- 9:30PM, Manticore Theatre

If you've never seen a Mega64 video before, your life is seriously deficient in comedy. Watch them all. Go on.

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