PAX is set to begin September 4 in Seattle, and today the organizers revealed some of the first details of what revelers can expect at the geek-a-palooza. The event is expecting over 60 exhibitors, including Microsoft, Nintendo, Valve, Blizzard and many others. Sony isn't currently listed and we've contacted the publisher to ask if it plans on attending.

The nerd herding event will also feature performances by Freezepop, Jonathan Coulton (sing "Brookline!"), MC Frontalot, Anamanaguchi, Metroid Metal and Paul & Storm. Registration is already open, with a three-day pass costing $50. Remember, this is one the few events where having the best-looking velvet dice bag makes you cool ... don't be the guy that shows up with dice in a Ziploc bag.

With a little under a year to go, PAX East registration is now open. Taking place March 26-28 at the Hynes Convention Center in Boston, a three-day pass will cost $50, while individual day passes are $30 -- add $5 if you're planning on picking up your tickets the day of the show. So far, no exhibitors, participating hotels or schedule of events are posted. Take it from a Bostonian, you can stay in any hotel near a T stop (we should probably do a post detailing this) and make it to the convention center in under an hour.

If you're planning on going to GDC, don't worry, that show takes place March 9-13 in San Francisco. It'll certainly be interesting to see how game marketing and PR treat this new high-profile East Coast gaming convention. Team Joystiq will be there in full force ... considering a third of our staff is within driving range.

[Via Kotaku]

Jerry Holkins and Mike Krahulik, founders of Penny Arcade, are legendary folk heroes to much of the gaming community. For ten years, they've served as unparalleled industry commentators, strong vocabulary enthusiasts, and proponents of citrus-assaulting robots. However, these virtues recently took a backseat to their more charitable contributions to society when Penny Arcade was discussed on the floor of the Washington State senate, where legislators adopted a resolution honoring the two men for their philanthropic exploits.

Senate Resoultion 8640 ennumerates the achievements of Holkins and Krahulik, such as their successful webcomic reaching its 10th anniversary, the launching of the Penny Arcade Expo, and the $4.5 million raised for improving the lives of hospitalized kids with Child's Play. While we're sure they would have preferred a law being passed in their name which mandates the death penalty for people who drop out of online games when they start losing, it's still a pretty cool gesture.

[Via NeoGAF]

Where can you discover the wonders of puppetry, rap with game developers, ogle cosplayers, and hang with the Luddites in a three-story annex of board games -- all while getting quality time with upcoming games? If you answered, "PAX," we salute you. If you said: Poughkeepsie, New York, we'll give you a second guess.

The Penny Arcade Expo is one of our favorite gaming events, hands down. The East Coast version of PAX won't launch until 2010, so you've got one more opportunity to make the pilgrimage to the original Seattle location. Lucky for you, registration opened today! You can pick up a three-day badge for just $50, and pre-registrants are also eligible to participate in the Omegathon gaming competition. The grand prize: all-expenses-paid trip to the Tokyo Game Show and, uh, other prizes. Plus, we'll be there!

Last week during PAX 2008, we sat down with Hothead COO and Penny Arcade Adventures Producer Joel DeYoung as he guided us through Episode 2 and improvements to the engine. The gist of it is: if you liked Episode 1, you'll like Episode 2 that much more. Here's the rundown from our talks:

• Highlighting points of interest has been made easier! "If you have your proximity putting you close enough to 2 or 3 things, you can slide through that with bumpers," said DeYoung.
  
• There are now difficulty levels, including an Insane Mode (unlockable only after beating the game). Special collectibles and pickups are only available if you play Insane Mode. Comparatively, Episode 1's difficulty is "a little easier" than medium.
• All the weapons have been replaced. Tycho gets a shotgun, Gabe has new fist upgrades and your player now possesses -- wait for it -- a hoe! Also changed are the special attack minigames.
  
• You now have, among other new items, a revive potion. Healing won't be enough to bring your troops back to life. "Just adds a little bit of depth to it," said DeYoung.
• The real-time reaction for defense has been made more obvious (e.g. "Block!" now appears when you need to push block), but nothing analogous for attacking has been added.

More after the break.

We were given one hour with Fallout 3 at this year's PAX, and we don't mean some pared down, nerfed, demo-ized level; this was the full version. Not only that, but the Bethesda folks showed it to us in the tricked out Fallout 3 Airstream Trailer, complete with a nuclear family peering in.

Lead designer Emil Pagliarulo started us out roughly an hour into the game, when you exit the vault for the very first time. We missed the whole "growing up" phase in order to rush right into the action. We didn't mind. but what of our first 18 or so years? Maybe you start out on the cellular level, and fight your way out in a glorious Spore/Fallout hybrid. Your guess is as good as ours.

Of the 100 or so cosplayers we saw (and snapped pictures of) at PAX 2008, we've whittled down the gallery to our favorite 15 costumes. Now we want to know who you thought was the best cosplayer:

While adventuring to PAX 2008, the team at Big Download recorded three special edition episodes. While the audio quality in the first was laughably bad, the episode is a hilarious look into the minds of tired Warhammer Online developers, Paul Barnett, Jeff Hickman and Josh Drescher. Give it a listen, if you can! In the second special edition, GameDaily's Robin Yang joined the team to discuss everyone's favorite titles at the show. In the final installment of the special series, former 1UP editorial director and co-founder of WhatTheyPlay.com, John Davison, went into some detail on the sex and violence in games debate. Check out the episodes if you get a chance -- we assure you the first audio hiccup was corrected in episodes two and three.

The last panel at PAX 2008 was the highly anticipated discussion on Sex and Violence in Videogames between former Nintendo executive Perrin Kaplin, Grand Theft Childhood co-author Dr. Cheryl K. Olson and What They Like Inc., president John Davison. Moderated by Newsweek tech writer N'Gai Croal, the trio attempted to dissect the mainstream media misnomer that "videogames are toys" with both informative and hilarious results.

The show is over and the numbers are in. Said Penny Arcade business guru Robert Khoo to BigDownload, this year's PAX recorded 58,500 people in three days, placing it near the echelon of "Old E3." Previous guesstimations put the attendance at 45,000 to 50,000, which still would have eclipsed the PAX 2007 population of 37,000.

So, what's to be done for PAX 2009? More expansion, of course, to ease overcrowding. "At 2 or 3 of the main theatre events 3-4% of the line wasn't able to make it," said Khoo, "but we hear those 3-4% loud and clear. We have a few ideas to manage that problem for 2009 including wristbands for popular events or just a straight-up hard count of people in line. The worst thing is if people line up for something and end up not getting in." The next PAX will take place again in late August, with the first PAX East Coast opening its Bostonian doors in late March 2010.

The 2008 edition of PAX's Family Feud could have easily followed the "Sex and Violence in Video Games" panel, because it too had a healthy dose of sex and violence. Really, PAX Family Feud (or should we say Family Freud?) could best be described with three adjectives: entertaining; intense; and overly sexual. As attendees clapped to the Feud's theme song music, both teams (sans Joystiq readers, for shame!) answered questions ranging from, "Name a power-up used by Mario," (yay for fire flower!) to "What's your favorite Penny Arcade character?" Fruit "lover" got our vote.

Everything was quite tame, albeit a bit verbally violent as the show's host received constant heckling from the audience due to his sometimes ... questionable hosting abilities. But then things turned towards sex, sex, sex when Feud players were asked, "What do you do when the electricity goes out at home?" We thought it to be an innocent enough question, but then we remembered that PAX attendees answered the questions. As a result, things got interesting.

To demonstrate LittleBigPlanet's level creation tools in a way that we haven't seen or written about ad nauseum, the gang at the PAX 2008 Sony booth helped us model the Joystiq logo and vomit stickers all over it. The entire video initially clocked in at just over 10 minutes, so in the interest of time we've sped up the creation part.

Here's the full LittleBigJoystiq logo -- click for a (slightly) higher-resolution version:

While waiting for the (much-delayed) final Omegathon to start last night, over a dozen Vault-boy puppets (of Fallout 3 fame) congregated to show off their grooving and shaking skills to a crowd of bemused onlookers. It's really what made the cheesy music infinitely more anti-meh. Check out their moves in the video above, as well as in our Omegathon gallery.

Vs Excite Bike! We think it's a fitting end to this year's Penny Arcade Expo. We can now present you the final Omegathon 2008 lineup:

• Round 1: Peggle
  
• Round 2: Boom Blox
• Round 3: Geometry Wars
• Round 4: Rock Band (Our guess is Rock Band 2)
  
• Round 5: Jenga (let me show you my moves!)
  
• Final Round: Vs Excite Bike
  

We'll have more on the final round once it's over, so stay tuned.

Feeling that we didn't do it enough justice the first time, we've updated the Pink Godzilla booth tour gallery from this year's PAX. Click on the golden NES for more.