PAX Prime 2014 show floor
Finally, PAX Prime is upon us!
The streets are crowded with costumed attendees and the non-costumed all milling towards the Seattle Convention Center and the various venues for the day's panels.
We arrived early yesterday and now we're set to bring you all the hands ons and gaming news your hearts desire.
So far, Alienware has announced its latest flagship gaming PC - a revival of the Area-51.
It's a giant, well, alien-looking, triangular machine that's meant to be the ultimate PC from Alienware in terms of functionality and performance.
Story time social commentary
We also sat in on a surprisingly emotional story time with Mikey Neuman at the Benaroya Hall. The turbulent and controversial news surrounding women in gaming, and what constitutes a "real" gamer or "real" game led Neuman to tell an anecdote detailing a personal and clearly traumatic experience he had with bullying and friendship when he was in the fifth grade.
Pausing more than once towards the end of his tale, Neuman choked up and expressed that he learned "people who are supposed to protect you won't."
On a lighter note, he explained a bit about his life at Gearbox and finding his voice for Scooter, a character from the Borderlands game.
The charismatic Neuman ended strongly telling the room to spread joy - that saying "do you even movie" sounds just as ridiculous as "do you even game."
We wholeheartedly agree, sir.
PAX Prime 2014: what to expect
Check out what we wanted to see before the show started below.
With the hype of E3 behind us, we can now concentrate on the Comic-Con of video games: PAX Prime 2014.
We already had a blast at PAX East and now we're gearing up for the four-day gaming convention in Seattle that runs from August 29 to September 1. It was once a smaller show but it seems to grow in popularity every year; in fact, tickets for PAX Prime sold out in a matter of two hours.
Last year saw the buzz of the next-gen consoles everywhere but what will this year hold? Perhaps it's time for the PC-console Steam Machines to show up and really woo the crowd by letting us play on 'em some more. Alienware's Alpha play-time wasn't enough during E3.
PAX Prime is also all about the awesome panels, and you can be sure there will be a ton to look forward to this year. Will the controversy surrounding Assassin's Creed Unity and its lack of female representation show up? Will we get to hear more about all those next-gen games that have been delayed? What sort of indie games will pop up and wow us this year?
Keep up with us as we update this page with everything we know and everything we want to see at PAX Prime 2014.
1. Killer PAX Panels
Leading the annual story time session this year is Mikey Neumann, Chief Creative Champion of Gearbox Software. Last year we heard from Peter Molyneux about his experience creating Godus after leaving an indie studio and a large studio to once again head another indie studio.
We'll hear about a similar tale, or origin story, from Neumann who along with being a writer, podcaster and all around jack-of-all trades, worked on Borderlands 2 and its DLC's.
Another notable panel includes "Women Surviving and Thriving in Games Media" where games journalists like Polygon Editor Megan Farokhmanesh, Nerdist host Jessica Chobot and others will detail their struggles and successes in the industry.
There seems to be a good mix of panels on bullying, gaming with a disability, gaming music and even one from Destructoid called "Video Games Are Stupid: The Inherent Silliness of the Medium."
2. Some more Steam Machines!
The last we heard from Alienware at E3 was to expect more during PAX. So here we are, with the gaming event almost upon us, ready and excited to see more Alpha.
We went to a pre-Gamescom event where the company showed off the Alienware exclusive UI, but didn't get to play with it just yet.
It wasn't entirely finished during our hands on either but it managed to remain an interesting box to look out for when it releases later this year.
Here's hoping we see a more finished version of the Alpha, and perhaps more Steam Machines to see how they're stacking up against Alienware, and even the Nvidia Shield Tablet - which can also stream Steam.
3. PC gaming (of course)
PAX is all about PC gaming, so along with PC specific panels, you can definitely expect a bunch of PC peripherals to come out of the show.
Last year, SteelSeries was on the floor with the SteelSeries H Wireless headsets made for the PS4. We're expecting to see a bunch more headsets with console compatibility this year too.
During PAX East, we went hands on with the MSI Ghost Pro laptop and were pretty impressed with this thin, beautiful beast of a machine.
Since that was pretty recent, we may not see anything from MSI but it's possible another powerful gaming laptop will rear its head and make us drool for 3K and 4K gaming.
4. Virtual reality IRL
You wouldn't think VR and PCs would go together so well, but what else has the juice to make these fancy virtual reality headsets work? Not the consoles (yet).
So that means we'll definitely be seeing the Oculus Rift again, in full SDK 2 glory showing off the same games from E3 - and maybe a few new ones?
There's a chance Sony's Project Morpheus will pop up too, and you can bet on seeing various other VR wonders all over the show floor hoping to make it big in the growing industry.
5. Indie games galore
Of course, we can't forget about the lifeblood of PAX - the indie game. There will be plenty of indie games all over the convention center.
In fact, you can even check out the PAX 10 already to see what ten games have been chosen as the best of 2014.
http://ift.tt/1sWjHXs
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