GregHowley.com

Pax East Anticipation, Part 1

March 16, 2012 -

It's three weeks until PAX East. Three weeks from today, I'll be there in Boston, surrounded by tens of thousands of other nerds.

I cannot wait.

PAXLast year was my first year at PAX East, and I absolutely loved it. In the tradition of Bruce Willis's Die Hard movies, I've decided to call this one Pax East 2: PAX Easter. Last year I discovered Castle Panic, saw some amazing cosplay, and tried out the 3DS before it went on sale. I thought I'd take this time to share some of the awesome things I'm looking forward to this year.

Jordan Mecher is giving this year's keynote. After Wil Wheaton's keynote 2 years ago, it seems hard for anyone else to stand up, but Jane McGonigal did a great job last year. Jordan Mecher is the guy who created Prince of Persia and Karateka back in the eighties, by the way.

Friday night at 9pm, Jerry Holkins is showing what they've got for the third video game in the Penny Arcade Adventures: On the Rainslick Precipice of Darkness series, which I've been looking forward to for some time. I loved the first two.

Saturday Afternoon at 1:30, there's a panel in which Mike Mearls is going to be talking about 5th Edition D&D. I'm looking forward to that one too.

There's also the Omegathon, in which thirty-two randomly-selected attendees are chosen to compete in random games for big prizes. They start Friday night playing the old arcade X-Men game, and finish Sunday evening with something unannounced.

There's bound to be plenty more, and I certainly plan to spend a lot of time on the game floor over the weekend. My plan at this point is to write up one of these anticipation articles each week leading up to the event. We'll see how that goes - I've got a newborn, and time is hard to come by right now.