This weekend, I went to PAX 2008, and for those of you who don't know, that's the Penny Arcade Expo.

It's a huge exposition of video, card, and tabletop games abound. This year, it was rumored that there would be approximately 50,000 visitors, and from what I saw, yeah, that's true. So many people, from everywhere throughout the world, from Florida to China to Thailand, just amazing.

Everyone who loves games all came to Seattle to rejoice in the gigantic community of gamers.

Many people consider PAX now to be the new E3 - because this is open to the public, and it's purpose is to serve gamers: let them experience the new games that are to be released in the future, talk about the new games, and thrill people with amazing preview videos to send shivers down their back in anticipation!

I really wish it was longer than 3 days IMO. Seriously, there really is too much to do at PAX. I didn't get to go to any of the seminars, didn't have a whole lot of time to watch the movies, and I didn't get a chance to do any of the tournaments. What really sucked is that I found out they were doing a Super Smash Bros. Brawl tournament on Friday, and sign up started at 2pm - at which time I was still working! Sad face.

Being a Nintendo purist (that means I have never willingly touched a non-Nintendo console in my life), I basically centered around the Nintendo booth - but there were a lot of other companies that also had Nintendo DS and Wii games to play. I'm going to be writing a lot about these games, and especially about one of the most exciting titles to be released for the Wii, The Conduit.

The New Games I Played
Wario Land - Shake It! (Wii)
Animal Crossing: City Folk (Wii)
Wii Music (Wii)
Kirby Super Star Ultra (DS)
Rayman Raving Rabbids TV Party (Wii)
Lock's Quest (DS)
Mystery Chronicles - MillionHeir (DS)
deBlob (Wii)
Chrono Trigger DS (DS)
The Conduit (Wii)

Wario Land - Shake It! (Wii)
Ah, how I love 2D graphics. Wonderful animations and controls as well.
It took me a little bit to figure out how to throw creatures (there wasn't a person around the station at the time); I mention this because the new Nintendo Power doesn't say anything about having to hold the 1 Button down before you tilt the remote to aim an object and then release the 1 Button to fire it.
Definitely crazy creatures, animations - heck, Wario got crushed yet he took no damage; he just wiggled out from underneath the block and then recovered! I was wondering if that occurred because they turned off the damage, but I then walked into an exploding block and it then proceeded to take a few hearts away. Boy, I'm smart. :)

Animal Crossing: City Folk (Wii)
Really awesome! One thing I noticed with this demo was that there isn't any motion-based controls.
When I went to go fishing, I simply pressed the Down button on the remote to deploy the hook and place it into water. No arm throwing, no yanking of the arm back to get the fish when it snagged the line.
What's really awesome is that you'll be able to upload all of your items from the DS version (Animal Crossing: Wild World) into the Wii version. That makes it even better so I can now show everyone I have the Triforce from the DS version!

Wii Music (Wii)
The demo of Wii Music I played was teaching me how to play drums.
The drum set had 2 sets of cymbals, 2 foot-based drums, and 3 top-based drums.
The Wii Remote is your right drumstick, and the Nunchuk is the left drumstick.
By pressing the analog stick to the left, right, or down, you will hit a different drum or cymbal. The same applies to the Remote - press Left, Down, or Right on the Control Pad.
I also played out the lesson mode, which walked me through timing of the drums and cymbals.
You have a personal coach to the side, and it lets you know if you're not doing it right.

Kirby Super Star Ultra (DS)
Just another Kirby platformer; I didn't get a whole lot of time to play this title, so I just played through a few levels in one of the adventures. Same sucking, absorbing and hammer smacking.

Rayman Raving Rabbids TV Party (Wii)
When I played this demo, they placed 4 people at a time up on stage and we played out a dancing game. This involved us moving the Nunchuk and Wii Remote to various positions throughout the song.
The guide indicating what to do was shown on screen, as well as a gauge to indicate if you performed the motion correctly or not. To me, it seemed like it was a little too sensitive - some poses didn't seem to think I moved correctly, when in reality, I did exactly like someone else did it.
I was going to get to test out the "butt-sledding" game as demoed at the UbiSoft convention, but I didn't have enough time - they had to go and demo a Naruto game at that moment. Sad face.

Lock's Quest (DS)
Now this was an interesting title. I was able to play for a little bit on the DS that was connected at the booth, but I later found out I could download it onto my own DS - and boy was the demo big! I got to play for the whole first "week" (which I'm guessing is similar to a level). Each "day" involved me battling creatures called Clockwork, and then after the battle was complete, the other half of the "day" involved me building defenses, such as walls and turrets to help prevent the Clockwork from closing in on me or my friends or even my town. For fighting, all I was doing was tapping on an enemy to hit it successively. But after the first time, I then learned of an advance tactic, where when you engage an enemy it battle, a collection of numbers pops up, such as 3-1-2. Tap those numbers in order, and you do a much stronger attack. If you succeed with the combination, you'll get another combination, this time of 4 digits. The process continues on and on; I only got to go up to 5 numbers before the enemy was destroyed, however. I believe Nintendo Power says your attacks can go up to as many as 8.
This game gets released next week, September 10th.

Mystery Chronicles - MillionHeir (DS)
When I played this game, I found it very tricky to find certain items while I was investigating - they really blended in; for example, I had to find a sled; I found out it was part of a door!
Thankfully they give you hints - I wouldn't have found the sled or the spatula (which was on the stairs) without them.

deBlob (Wii)
What an amazing game! It's just awesome to go around and paint stuff. Let me explain: your land has been completely removed of color. You and your friends also have your colors removed - you're basically grey. If I recall correctly, they are called "Greydians". You are a blob. Yes, just a blob. But you have the ability to smash little creatures filled with paint that can turn you different colors.
You paint buildings by moving around and simply touching them/running into them, and then moving all around the building. Sometimes there are multiple floors to paint, so you must jump up and touch them in order to paint them

That was definitely a good part of the game - you only need to touch one wall of a building before it gets filled with color - the color basically spreads out throughout the entire building once you touch it.

For coloring - well that's pretty cool. You can paint multiple buildings different colors - or you can mix and match! You'll get bonus points for using multiple colors on separate sections of town! Not only that, but you can pick up items that will add funky designs to your colors when you paint!

To rescue your fellow Greydians, just simply paint a building, and they're rescued, meaning they will come out of the building they were in. To score bonus points, as well as a time extension, just roll over them while you're a specific color.

Oh yeah, that's right. You are given a certain amount of time to paint a level. When I played the game, though, it was a significantly long amount of time.
But if you wanted certain items, you would have to accomplish challenges, and the time limit on those challenges could be from 30 seconds to 90 seconds (but this didn't take away from the main level's time limit).

Chrono Trigger DS (DS)
Amazing! I completely forgot how awesome this game was back in the old days! It was an interesting setup with the controls, seeing as how you had to touch a certain section of the touchpad to move in that direction. So if you wanted to move left, you touched the left section of the touch pad. The further away from the center you touched, the faster you would run. The representative of Square Enix then told me afterwards that the controls are all completely customizable all the way down to turning it into a pure SNES experience by disabling the touch screen, and having the entire game all present in the top screen.

The Conduit (Wii)
See below. :)

I have so much to talk about The Conduit for the Wii, I just had to put it in a separate blog entry. This game is basically tied with Mad World for the Most Anticipated Wii Game of 2009. The game is made by a company called High Voltage. It is a FPS, or a First Person Shooter. The planned Release date is March 2009. It has an ESRB Rating of T for Teen - Violence, Some Blood. The demo was set to Easy, but it also had a few challenges to it, such as aliens continuing to spawn without end. It was a great demo; I was able to play for about 10-15 minutes. In case you're wondering, yes, that is the official Wii cover for The Conduit.

The demo that I played was a "pre-Alpha" version of the game, meaning it had a lot of programming done, but still a few bugs. Well, when I played that demo - I sure didn't see any significant bugs! Smooth motion, great responsiveness to my remote's position, great sensitivity to my motion with the Nunchuk and Wii Remote.

After playing the demo on Saturday, I talked with High Voltage's Chief Creative Officer, Eric Nofsinger about the game, trying to glean as much information about it as I possibly could. I also went back Sunday to ask even more questions, as well as show my friends how awesome this game was going to be.

The game is chock full of conspiracy theories - they created a 140 page document on conspiracy theories and used it for the game's storyline.

Each main character in the game has a name identical to the last names of an U.S. President; for example, the main character you play is named Agent Ford.

Agent Ford is an ex-Secret Service agent, and he soon notices that people are acting strange. He is recruited by a group called The Trust, and they explain to him that Earth has come under attack by aliens called the Drudge. His mission is to go and find out why this attack occurred in the first place.

Although I did not see it in the demo, in each of the levels, there is some aspect of puzzle solving, starting with simple locking/unlocking puzzles and increasing in difficulty throughout. The puzzles can also involve the environment, such as shooting down a telephone pole to create a bridge to cross a gap.
Later on, you obtain a device called the "All-Seeing Eye," which is used to solve puzzles, such as allowing you to see invisible and hidden objects, including invisible doors or parasites attached to humans.

Although there are still 6 months left to go before the planned release (March 2009), pre-production of The Conduit 2 has already begun.

High Voltage has already decided on a publisher - the documents are being finalized.
The publisher will be officially announced this month. I couldn't get anything more revealed; the NDA prevented that. Sad face.

Here's the Breakdown
Wii Remote motion: Aim Weapon
Wii Remote shake (just move your arm forward): Melee Attack
Nunchuk motion: Throw a Grenade
Analog Stick: Move
A Button: Jump
B Button: Fire
Z Button: Strafe

Controls: When I played the game, I stuck with the default controls; I didn't see any problems with it. But while I was watching other players play it, they opened up the settings menu to customize thir own choices. The sensitivity customization is done in-game; you move your character around and keep adjusting as much as you like until you're pleased with it.

MotionPlus: MotionPlus will be in the final version; it wasn't available when I played it.

Grenades: When you throw a grenade, the ballistics are determined by your throwing speed and force used when moving the Nunchuk.

Environment: The game does allow you to use the environment to do damage, but it was not present in the demo that I played. There are no assistant non-player characters to help you out.
If you are damaged, you are able to regenerate health automatically if you take no damage for at least 5 seconds. The regeneration is limited; you'll only be able to regenerate one health bar out of the 3 you are given - until you find a recovery item, and then the process can begin again.

Game Breakdown
9 main missions
If you choose not to do any "plot hunting", it will take approximately 8 to 10 hours to complete.
17 main weapons
3 Grenade weapons - Frag, Flash, and Radiation

The battlefields that you will play on include the Library of Congress, the Jefferson Memorial, the Pentagon, and even the White House!

All the battlefields you can play on are a part of the story and are also available to play in multiplayer mode.

Side Quests ("Plot Hunting")
The game will contain many unlockable rewards, such as special weapons, easter eggs, and special modes. It also furthers the game's plot.

Difficulty
On easier levels, you see certain patterns that the Drudge will follow. Set it on a harder difficulty, and the AI becomes much more intelligent, and will begin mirroring a human player's tactics.

Graphics
Yeah, these are amazing graphics! You'll really have to focus on one part of the screen for a long time if you want to detect some sort of noticeable 480p graphic. But from a normal distance away, it really does look like a 720p resolution. Eric told me that the smooth animation is always their number one priority - they must always keep it at 30fps without glitches or slowing down.

Multiplayer
The single player portion of the game is basically complete; all their focus is now on multiplayer play.
They aren't sure about using Friend Codes; they want an exception to it, and are currently in talks with Nintendo about it.

They're mostly focusing on Wi-Fi Multiplayer instead of same-console multiplayer.
They do have same-console multiplayer; however, the 2nd player will simply be another pointer on the screen while the 1st player moves around.
4-player same-console is being planned for Conduit 2.

For Wi-Fi play, the plan is to have at least 16 players playing on the same map.

LAN play in is in the works; High Voltage is currently in talks with Nintendo about getting it approved.
But that's just the beginning - they are also testing out multiple system hookup!

WiiSpeak can also be used while playing multiplayer.

Downloadable Content
There are discussions on possible downloadable content; I suggested the idea of saving the downloadable content to the SD Card and playing it directly off of the SD card. He thought it was a great idea, and will begin researching it to see if will happen. If you are a gamer, and this seems familiar, this is the same process that Guitar Hero: World Tour will be using on the Wii for its downloadable content when it is released.

Without further ado, here's the preview, provided to me from High Voltage!