pax-2009 posts (Subscribe to this feed)

During PAX 2009, we stopped by Valve's booth to chat with Chet Faliszek, one of the leading minds behind Left 4 Dead 2. Read on for insight into the differences between Left 4 Dead and its upcoming sequel, the possibility of user-created levels on Xbox 360 and just what's possible with the L4D2 editing tools:

So, you guys have talked about fleshing out the story in Left 4 Dead 2 a bit more, and having a more involved plot. How do you do that with a game like this?

I think that's one of those "I'm just going to ask you to wait and see." Some of it is simply ... Left 4 Dead 1's world was at the same stage every place you went. The infection had been there for a little bit. This time we're seeing what it's like to be in a city before the infection hits. And you see different people's reaction to that, as you cross around the country, and there's some other bits we tie in with the original Left 4 Dead in Left 4 Dead 2 as well.

Jeff Rubenstein over at PlayStation.Blog recently got a chance to check out Fat Princess' new stompin' grounds at the game's demo booth at PAX -- you'll find his video preview of the Roman-esque New Pork arena posted after the jump. The map not only possesses a visual aesthetic that stands out from the title's pre-existing levels, it's also got a neat instant-travel sewer system and a central resource hub that should lend itself to some fairly hectic skirmishes.

Also discussed in the video is the upcoming content patch, which will renovate the ranking system, balance the classes a bit and make the team switching mechanic less exploitable. Not discussed are the quartet of new classes hinted at by Titan Studios last month. We want -- nay, we need ninjas in this game.

After the recent announcement by the folks at Penny Arcade that PAX 2009 sold out the Washington State Convention and Trade Center, today they officially released attendance numbers for this year's Penny Arcade Expo. Speaking with Big Download, PA's Robert Khoo said 60,750 people packed into the convention center -- though he had earlier predicted "roughly 75,000" -- and that the show's organizers are looking into expansion plans for next year to accommodate more showgoers.

We'd say with the unveiling of PAX East, some people may very well have stayed home in anticipation of a shorter travel distance early next year over this year's Washington-based soiree. This might help explain the relatively small attendance growth from 2008's 58,500 people to this 2009's numbers. However, Khoo said he's surprised how many people plan on attending both PAX East and next year's PAX, umm, West. We'll see you a year from now, Khoo -- with facts!

Despite the copious amount of gigglebytes and Dilithium Crystals under the hood of the PS3, it's never enough for developers. Their lot is constantly pushing envelopes and raising bars everywhere they go -- and the fine folks at Naughty Dog are no exception. During a preview of Uncharted 2 at PAX, Naughty Dog's Amy Hennig commented that the first Uncharted game only managed to utilize a third of the PS3's power, but Naughty Dog has "maxed it out" for the sequel.

This is something Naughty Dog achieved by taking a lot of the processes on the main processor and shifting them onto the SPUs (which may be one of the reasons why it could never work on Xbox 360). This allowed the developers to significantly increase the quality of the animations and other aspects of the game, leaving the main processor to "focus on getting all of that richness in the backgrounds." Well, whatever that means, we're glad they did it. This game is purty.

Head past the break to watch the video interview -- around the 3:37 mark is where she starts talking about the powah of the PS3.

In the aftermath of PAX this year, we almost forgot to post one of our favorite event pastimes: a cosplay gallery. We've been too busy slapping on facemasks and hazmat suits to quell the nerd flu outbreaks. There weren't nearly as many people dressed up as last year, but we're hoping that Tycho and Gabe add a full-on costume contest to the mix next year for PAX East or West.

Did you see that Big Daddy costume we posted about? Well, that guy wasn't at PAX ... but we wish he would have been. Still, there were some impressive efforts up in Seattle this year, and you can take a gander at them in the gallery below. And yes, we've included a photo of War's horse Ruin from Darksiders, because he was a mechanical bull who just happened to be wearing a giant, killer horse skin. Cheater.

Anyhow, knock yourself out in the gallery below. After all, we braved a freakin' virus to get these pictures for you.

When I saw that Team 17's upcoming Alien Breed Evolution was playable at Microsoft's pre-PAX shindig, I leapt at the chance to try it out. As a huge fan of the Worms series, I really wanted to give Alien Breed Evolution a go. After spending a few minutes with the game -- which appeared to be the trial version of the XBLA game -- I have to admit I was disappointed. That's not to say it's bad, but it failed to elicit that instant 'click' of the Worms series.

Making online, 256-player battles unfold without lag or disconnection issues is nothing short of pure techno-wizardry. However, according to producer Alan Van Slyke, who recently spoke with us at a PAX preview event, that's exactly what MAG will bring to the table thanks to a groundbreaking new form of server architecture.

"Before we started working on the front-end client technology, we started building the servers. We wiped the slate clean and asked 'what do we need to do to scale to these numbers to make sure it's not laggy, and make sure people can't exploit,'" Van Slyke explained. What they decided was that peer-to-peer hosting was insufficient -- instead, the MAG team created their own networking solution which would host and authenticate game data from a (presumably beefy) central server.

Van Slyke couldn't reveal the specifics of the technology (the patent for which is still pending), but promised that it would reduce latency and completely eliminate connection griefing which has plagued other multiplayer shooters in the past. In addition, he said Zipper's not worried about having its servers crushed by a day-one rush of new recruits, explaining that "we've invested a lot in our server technology and our load test harnesses and the things we can do to replicate the scalability of it to ensure that it's stable and rock solid."

While nearly all of my demo appointments at PAX required me to absorb information about new games at blinding speed, the XNA Dream-Build-Play Finalists booth demo tasked me with getting a feel for six games in just under an hour. It would be difficult for me to develop any kind of deep analyses on these brief gameplay slivers -- instead, I've collected my initial, hastily acquired thoughts about the games after the jump.

Here's the short version: They're all pretty fun, but Dust: An Elysian Tail is clearly the leader of the pack.

Speaking to Valve's Chet Faliszek at PAX, we asked how many melee weapons will make it into Left 4 Dead 2. At the time, Faliszek told us he wasn't sure, but he knew there were more melee weapons in Left 4 Dead 2 than there were guns in the original game. We followed up with Faliszek after the show and we can now share all ten of the game's melee weapons. Without further ado, they are:

• Baseball Bat
• Cricket Bat
• Crowbar
• Electric Guitar
• Fire Axe
• Frying Pan
• Katana
• Machete
• Tonfa (police baton)
• Chainsaw

The question you have to ask yourself: Which one of these would you abandon your teammates for? Remember, a teammate constricted by a Smoker is a teammate that can't pick up that katana over there.

There's a list of flights over at Penny Arcade of those with confirmed cases so, if you attended, make sure you check that out. But whether or not yours appears there, you need to keep an eye on your health, okay? Don't freak out, just be smart.

Important note for non-PAX attendees only: Okay, we're going to have to be smart about this thing if we're going to survive it. If you know someone who went to PAX, it's very sad, but they're dead now. You hear us? DEAD. We don't care if your own brother is banging down your door asking for NyQuil, you just keep telling yourself, "That must be the wind. It can't be Griffin, because he's dead."

Also, invest in power armor.

Hi. I'm Joystiq writer Griffin McElroy, and those are my feet. They're attached to my shins, which attach to a long sequence of other appendages which stop at my brain -- which at the very moment this image was taken, was likely in a confused, panicked state. It's a reflex reaction I usually turn to when placed before an alien video game peripheral, although in most cases, it quickly subsides, and is replaced with a steely determination to figure out how it works.

By the time I'd reached the end of my brief hands-on session with Tony Hawk Ride, I had only just begun to deconstruct the hardware's machinations, and started determining how to deftly manipulate it in order to do sweet tricks. I was making progress in this endeavor when the demo came to a halt, but I'm still not sure my mind had completely wrapped around how I was supposed to manipulate the device. Is that indicative of the peripheral's weakness? No, I think it can be entirely chalked up to the fact that skateboarders move in mysterious ways.

During a panel held at PAX 2009, Bungie's CJ Cowan, Joe Staten, Lars Bakken, Michael Wu, Curtis Creamer, Marty O'Donnell and Brian Jarrard explained the creative process behind Halo 3: ODST. The panelists spent a good deal of the session discussing one of the major influences of the game: film noir. Film noir influenced nearly every aspect of the game, from the artwork and gameplay to the music and story. Halo 3: ODST borrows elements from the genre, such as dark lighting and moody music. Also in the tradition of film noir, players will be tasked with solving a mystery -- what happened to the rest of the ODST team?

In addition to the film noir talk, we got to take a look at some concept art from the game, including an Elephant adapted as a waste collection vehicle (renamed the Oliphaunt) and the Covenant Engineer, which will be making its first official appearance in a Halo FPS game. We also got to see the early, hideous model of Nathan Fillion's character, Buck, which you can see above. Apparently, Fillion's agent actually cleared it to be included in the game. Thankfully, Bungie did not.

Bungie also dropped the news of the Fourth Wall Studios meta-game within Halo 3: ODST at the panel, which you can read more about right here. And, finally, there was Connor. Check out images from the event in the gallery below.

We spoke with Battlefield 1943 producer Gordon Van Dyke at PAX and asked him why there hasn't been any DLC at all for the game so popular it crashed servers and broke sales records. The main reason? DICE is busy. Apparently it's working so hard on the next two Battlefield games that it doesn't have time to show BF1943 any extra love at all, which is a bit perplexing given the popularity of the title.

Gordon told us, "We don't have any immediate plans right now, but it's not ruled out. There's a lot of pressure on the team for Battlefield 3 and Battlefield: Bad Company 2 ... we don't want to stretch things too thin and and make something that's not up to quality. Battlefield 1943 is a huge game with a lot that we can pull from. We just want to make sure we keep our options open, and make sure that the decision we land on is what's best for everyone. We don't want to be that company that pushes out DLC just for DLC's sake."

Fair enough, but we'd still like to see more maps and modes come to Battlefield 1943 like ... yesterday. Hey, hire some interns already!

Red Dead Redemption's promised Wild West sandbox came to life in a build shown off to attendees at PAX over the weekend. One of the first things we noticed is that you can end a life whenever you want. What kind of lives? See a bunny bouncing by? Kablam. Attacked by a wild bear? Kapow. Angry at your horse and want to put him down? Kablang. You can kill literally every living thing in the game and, in some cases, skin them and sell their hides to the furrier in town to make some dough. We doubt he deals in horse skins, however.

There's more beyond the break, just mind you don't get shot.