New York Day One Saturday 1/11/14
I took an overnight flight into New York it left at about 11pm and arrived 7am at JFK airport although due to the time difference west coast to east coast it was actually 4am by my body clock. It was a fairly nice flight a bit bumpy in parts I flew Jet blue who I’d never been with before and it was a fairly goods experience. I’d paid for some extra leg room so wasn’t too cramped it also let me get first go at the overhead bins and so had my bag right there rather than potentially the other end of the aircraft. I did my best to get some sleep but it’s difficult on a plane I dozed a bit but didn’t get any proper rest so I was a bit worn out when I arrived.
The airport was pretty busy
I’d booked a car to take me to the place we were staying which was in the edge of New Jersey just across the Lincoln tunnel. I had to call them to arrange pickup which was fairly straightforward then a few minutes later a black Toyota Camry screeched up to the pick up point and I was off.
The bloke drove like a maniac but I guess that’s to be expected of a New Yorker the car was nice and clean and comfy. At first I didn’t see any of the famous skyline but then we went passed the worlds fair site with the flying saucers from men in black. Some more weaving in and out of traffic later we pulled onto a bridge and the famous skyline appeared. We then drove across Manhattan lots of stop go then honking of the horn and on we went. Eventually we got to the Lincoln tunnel and across to New Jersey and Union City where the little airbnb place my parents had found.
They had arrived the previous night so were there waiting I paid the driver and then went in. The place was a long thin single story with bedrooms at each end a small living room, with a tropical fish tank, and kitchen/dining room in the middle a small bathroom down the back. Cozy but pretty nice I had a cup of tea and some toast then went to bed.
I slept for a bit then woke up around lunch time and had some soup and sandwich and an apple. Fortified we went out to work out the bus ride into Manhattan.
We picked up the bus a street or so over and it was a pretty quick ride into the Port authority Bus Terminal. We jumped off and found a rather confusing array of stops several stories of gates. We sorted out some more tickets so we could come and go. We exited the bus terminal and then headed across to another bit of it to pick up these week passes to various attractions my parents had sorted out.
Once we got that we headed out for a wander. It was a pretty aweful day raining cold grey with a fairly high wind. At street level it wasn’t too bad we walked over to times square looking up at all the massive buildings and dodging people dressed in micky mouse and iron man costumes trying to get money for taking pictures.
Time square was pretty chaotic lots of people lots of glowing neon signs advertising all sorts of stuff. We had a quick look then decided to go and visit central park which was a few blocks down.
We walked down to central park it was looking very autumnal with the leaves turning on the trees. It was also covered in flags and barriers as tomorrow is the New York marathon. It’s a very iconic location. Walking through the streets was like walking through a series of movie sets. We looked at the finish line then began heading back home. We walked up to the port authority and were just in time to catch the bus back once we had discovered where the bus went from. They had some useful touch screen units that had the timetables and also maps to the gate.
It was starting to clear up now and the sun was peaking through just as it was getting dark. As the bus went up the hill towards Union City you got a lovely view of the skyline with the lights coming on.
We walked back to the rental place and looked at getting some pizza delivered.
Post PAX - Tuesday 2/9/2014
I woke up a little later than I had done the past few days made some coffee and promptly fell asleep again. I still felt pretty tired so I went back to bed for a bit.
Later I got up properly and headed out. It was a pretty grey day not raining and quite windy. I headed down to the front and wandered along the shore taking in the cityscape.
After a wander where thankfully no one accosted me and the tried through force of will to make me donate money by bank transfer to a charitable organization (byrnie will remember that one) I visited the Aquarium. It’s a small one but pretty good lots of fish a small touch area. A friendly octopus some harbor seals and some northern fur seals. Two types of otter Sea and river (the river otter were taking a nap when I was there). It was a fun little aquarium with lots of wave simulators and such.
When I came out the sun had broken through the clouds so I decided to ride the Great wheel which is a big Ferris wheel ala London eye sort of thing. As soon as I got on it the sun went in which was a shame but the view was nice anyway. I took some pictures and then headed down. The exit went past a restaurant so I took advantage of it.
I had a margarita, some prawn cocktail, cup of clam chowder, and then blacked salmon stuffed with crab which was very nice.
After that I climbed the hills back to the hotel. I did some reading and played a little Prison Architect and generally relaxed. For dinner I had a very nice pizza.
Tomorrow I fly home it’s been a nice little break and I look forward to next years PAX hopefully I’ll manage to get tickets again though it’s getting harder and harder tickets sell out faster every year.
PAX 2014 Day Four - Monday 1/9/2014
Final day started grey but cleared up and was quite sunny by the end. Felt pretty tired this morning I guess I’m getting PAX fatigue but since this is the last day that’s ok I just need to push on and enjoy the final day.
First up there was the PA Q&A which was fairly empty they didn’t even bother with a line just waved us right in. Some interesting questions my favorite was what would the white and red questions be for Robert Khoo. White – what comes after PA Red – how many times has he thought of leaving. The red questions were an odd mix hard but also sometimes just random.
After that I hit the show floor for a bit it was noticably quieter than other days I guess a lot of people skipped the last day as it isn’t full length often not many good panels. Still I tried to get a look in on some of the games.
First up went to Doublefine’s area and had a go of Massive Challis. It was pretty good fun there was a round of combat then a quick taste of the world map and the sorts of things you do there. It played very xcom ish with the moved and actions and a single walk or double run options. One thing I saw that interested me some of the monster attacks took some number of years of life away from your heroes. Since the game needs fresh heroes by retiring old heroes to man keeps and breed and train new fighters. If they get prematurely aged then they might be no good and have to be retired early. The combat was fun and strategic the world map showed promise. All in all looking good another kickstarter well played double fine. They also gave me a badge.
I wandered past the Alienware booth they were showing their new x51 which had three GTX’s in it and was vaguely triangle shaped with the points sanded down. While I was there I saw they had their version of the steam box “doesn’t run steam os doesn’t have the steam controller” it was playing the new version of Gauntlet so rather than wait ages I grabbed a go on that machine that had no one near it. It was pretty fun I had a slight problem in that it was two player only and my second players kept wandering off leaving the first character stuck to a radius around the now idle Valkyrie. Still the brief go I got on the elf character was pretty fun I suspect with all four playing at once it would be pretty great. No badge.
After that I wandered some more saw this shooter thing called dreadnaught which had huge spaceships fighting each other. There was also a rts called grey goo that looked interesting but no badges.
Then I got a go on the new Saints Row game “Gat out of Hell”. After the crazy matrix like Saints row 4 with super powers and other madness I wondered where they could possibly go next with the series and the answer was obviously to hell. I don’t know the story but the small section I played you were Johnny Gat or Mckenzi from the previous game and you were in hellish version of what could be steelport from the previous games. You had some flying and super running abilities like SR4 and you could drive the hell themed vehicles. It had all new weapons on of which was a lazy boy like armchair with miniguns and rockets. It was pretty fun to play and they gave me a badge.
After that I played Escape from Dead Island a spin off of the dead island series but 3rd person action with cell shaded graphics. They seem to have dumbed down dead island for this (if that’s possible) the custom weaponry seemed absent and there was a lot of the main character hallucinating and talking to some woman who was a ghost or invisible it didn’t make a lot of sense out of context. It was ok I suppose not something I will be looking out for they did give me a badge though.
After that I wandered looked at a few more queues. Oculus - capped come back in an hour, Alien isolation – capped come back in 30 minutes, Microsoft – super long, PS4 - nothing that interesting except order 1886 which was round the block, Borderlands – capped, Assassins Creed – closed.
I passed a man riding a mechanical dragon that seemed to be advertising a game called strife and saw an open computer so grabbed a quick go of that. Seemed to be diablo esq 3rd person action it was fairly fun I played the little tutorial and then wandered on. No badges that I saw.
Final game I tired was the new Phoenix Wright game there was a lot of tapping and talking and not much in the way of anything game like so I got bored and left it. Again no badge.
I made one final pass for anything I wanted to spend some time on but anything I really wanted to try was either round the block, or capped, or both. So I decided to head back and grab some lunch.
I grabbed a sandwich from a very tired looking sandwich maker at subway he told me things had been crazy busy all weekend but the owner was very happy. Since I’d been basically living off subway thus far at pax I was not overly surprised it’s a quick relatively good meal to be grabbed on the run and it’s right next to a lot of the pax discounted hotels including mine.
I headed back ate my sandwich and then had a nap. Later I headed down for the final round of the Omegathon (PAX’s tournament of tournaments). I queued and almost as soon as I got there people were heading in. I ended up on the first floor balcony right at the back about as far away as possible while still being in the theater. It was still a pretty good view they had screens for the important stuff.
The final round of the Omegathon is always something special it’s kept secret and schrouded in mystery till that moment and the two finalists have no idea what horrors they will face for the grand prize. In a past year they deployed the claw a machine designed to disappoint children of all ages with it’s terrible machinations. I’ve seen dance offs and drive offs and this time the final round was to do with little white balls and great feats of athleticism … it was of course PACMAN!
In a grueling two rounds of score attack the competitors fought it out. There were thrills, spills, and bills or at least quarters. The winner a man named Doc won a trip for himself to the tokyo game show. The loser a previous omeganaut returned to redeem himself left in shame and vowed to win another day.
And then because they had expected to go to three round Mike and Jerry gave it a go. Jerry won.
After that Jamie the coordinator for childsplay came on and first thanked the cookie patrol who gather money for childsplay by selling cookies to the queues of hungry PAXites. They had raised a staggering 20k dollars which is amazing. After that there were two ex marines who to honor a dead comrade who was a keen gamer cycled from PAX east in Boston to PAX Prime in Seattle some 4000 miles. They raised 15k dollars and visiting several of the childsplay sponsored hospitals en route. They also fought crime.
On that note it was the end of PAX we thanked the enforcers we thanked Mike and Jerry we thanked our fellow PAX participants.
It’s been another great PAX I’ve had a great time and enjoyed the many sights and sounds of the show. The panels were awesome I got to see several new things and I wore myself out trudging up and down the many very steep hills of Seattle.
Knowing how much PAX takes out of me I have another full day out here to unwind a bit see some of Seattle and just generally relax before it’s back to the grind.
