We were as puzzled as anyone as to why Penny Arcade Expo attendees were being given lanyards advertising the currently in limbo Ghostbusters: The Game. Who would go to all the trouble of getting so many promotional items made up for a game that has no publisher? People from the past, that’s who. According to Penny Arcade’s Robert Khoo, speaking to Variety, Sierra had signed up to sponsor the lanyards way back in January, delivered the product in June, only to find out weeks before the show that the game was no longer a going concern as far as far as ActiBlizzard was concerned.
With little time left to get new lanyards together, the PAX folks just ran with it, thus creating the sad little Ghostbusters promotional items. There’s a bright side at least. As Variety’s Ben Fritz points out, whoever winds up publishing the game just got a boatload of free advertising courtesy of Sierra.
I was about ten minutes into the Saints Row 2 demo on the Penny Arcade show floor last week when it hit me: The game didn’t feel like a GTA rip-off.
It was still free-roaming and featured detailed 3D avatars. It still had plenty of running and gunning. But the vibe, the feel of the game didn’t have the same GTA-ness to it that, to many, marked the first Saints Row a Grand Theft Auto clone.
I actually mentioned this to the Saints Row folks on hand and they agreed with me. Even the marketing for the game has been geared toward differentiating the free-roaming shooter from GTA.
But it’s hard to put your finger on exactly how the games are different when playing Saints Row 2. It sort of feels that GTA and Saints Row were both heading down the same road and at some point GTA veered off in one direction and Saints Row headed off in another.
Another Penny Arcade Expo come and gone and I find myself on my couch trying to remember the games I saw, the things I did and the people I talked over the last three days. I can sort out the panels from the events and the events from the experience – but beneath all of that is the most important part of PAX – the part that you want to hear about: the games.
Hit the jump for hazy, disjointed hands-on impressions for Infinite Undisovery, Animal Crossing: City Folk, Tales of Symphonia: Dawn of the New World, Damnation, Rise of the Argonauts, Lord of the Rings: Conquest, and Mirror’s Edge.
Tristan and I were walking past the Nintendo booth yesterday at PAX when we noticed that they had demo stations for Wario Land Shake It set up.
Twisted Pixel’s upcoming Xbox Live Arcade action game The Maw was on hand at the Penny Arcade Expo for a little hands on time.
In the closing minutes of Penny Arcade Expo 2008, some publishers and developers went to extreme measures to clear our their swag inventory and goodies. But none of them matched Bungie’s zeal. The Halo developers went through what looked to be eight large boxes of Halo-themed games, toys and gear. The Bungie folks just tore open the boxes and started throwing stuff everywhere, heedless of heads, flat screens and the ceiling. They had the mammoth crowd totally within their power. Let’s hope that they never use that power for good.
Remember that amazing Fallout 3 Airstream that I just won’t shut up about? The one that was parked dead-centre in the middle of Bethesda’s Fallout 3 booth?
Raving Rabbids TV Party is, apparently, crack for kids.
The Brother’s in Arms: Hell’s Highway booth at Penny Arcade Expo this year was turned into a bootcamp barbershop. If you got your head shaved and had “Hell” spraypainted on the back of your skull, Ubisoft would send you a free copy of the game.
A free haircut and video game apparently seemed like a sweet deal to a lot of people, even if it did turn them into walking billboards. There was a line. A long, long line. For this.
I’ve got a fever and the only cure is more Pac-Man! If you’re at PAX and you love Pac-Man, you may want to swing by Namco Networks’ booth #141. Throughout the day there will be tournaments where players compete for the best score in Pac-Man. The top 4 scores of the day move onto the daily final challenge where the winner will win a nice prize pack that includes a brand new phone! If you’re not ready for a challenge, you can just check out the other mobile games at the booth, such as Pac-Man, Galaga, and Pac-Man Arcade Golf. Full release after the jump.
