Edit: We have photos of day one! Head over to our Facebook and take a look. Also Saturday has been written up and it’s all about indie games.
It’s been a long day and we’re only a third of the way done for PAX Australia 2015.
Before tucking into bed I figured you’d be keen for a run down of what we saw today (and will see some more of when the video editing is done). I’ll give a brief mention of the games we got to play and the people we spoke to.
The Expo Hall
Once again the festivities take place at the MCEC and a second year in a row they’ve knocked it out of the park. Thanks in no small part to the PAX Enforcers, we were able to find our way around and traffic moved rather well at all times.
If you went last year you may remember the queue room, it’s had a small bit taken out of it by the ESL Arena, but the expansion of the Exhibition area is a welcome change as more booths means more to see.
You should consider checking out our PAX Australia Survival Guide. However you’re probably wanting to know about the games though right? Read On…
Tom Clancy’s The Division
The first game I got to in the Ubisoft booth was Tom Clancy’s The Division. Last year was just a presentation of some footage. There’s none of that this time, Hands on with Xbox One controllers, two other guys (Hi Fossil and Terry) were guided into the war zone.
Moving as a squad and speaking over headset comms we took out a band of ruffians pretty easily and were feeling good. In the next area we came across the ‘Cleaners’ (flame thrower dudes) and had to get to an extraction point.
Shooting at a target running across my field of view I aparently “Went Rogue” and we were told that we’d started shooting at the other squad of players who were standing about a metre away from us.
The only downside was they wouldn’t let us take any footage, film or photo so there’s not much to show here I’m afraid.
How it Plays
The (Press A to) snap to cover and third person shooting feels pretty good. This is also very much a team game. Running out of health gives you a few seconds to hobble closer to a teammate as they attempt to revive you. Failing this you’ll respawn further out of the combat zone with a longer penalty if you’re rogue.
I had access to grenades, though I feel I couldn’t throw them that far and some kind of medkit, however I couldn’t work out if it was a self-heal or something I could use on allies.
I’ve been following this game since its announcement at E3 and the update that they’ll look to making a PC version. If I can get just 2 or 3 mates to play this with, I think we’ll have a great time shooting around the city and looking for loot.
Chatting with Wargaming.net
Our first main stop of the day was with the home of World of Tanks and World of Warships. You can check out last years interview with Max Chuvalov and the World of Warships if you’re keen.
The main announcement from these guys though was Master of Orion.
Master of Orion
There will be a bigger write up of this soon I promise.
Fans of the original should get somewhat excited that Wargaming have bought the IP from Atari and are looking to update it while still keeping to the original.
“We’re bringing this game back to life” Says Randall King, Executive Producer, after he shows us a taste of what the game will be like. Though again, we weren’t allowed to take pictures of a game in such an Alpha state.
Essentially it feels like Civilization in Space yet more so than Beyond Earth. 8 Races, 75 Tech Groups (Tree) with multiple Techs per group. Planets can have different classes and will support certain structures better.
So you’ll be taking over planets instead of tiles and there’s even NPC (City State) planets that ask you to do quests and such.
World of Warships
Had a brief chat with Max Chuvalov again and brought up the issue of Australian servers for World of Warships. You’ll have to wait for the interview for this one as we were allowed to film it (yay!).
Drinking Quest
Had a good chat with Jason “Anarchy” the Canadian creator of Drinking Quest. He has flown down to promote his new Trilogy Edition which combines all three Drinking Quest games.
Most of the cards are references to pop culture in a similar way to Munchkin. You’ll have to wait for the video of the interview as he explains it better than I can in this brief.
Suddenly Drunk
From the man behind Beta Bar we’ve got another tabletop drinking game that’s a bit different. Suddenly Drunk is more of a module to put on top of other regular games to involve drinking and extra rules.
I’m a bit scared to find out what is in the Sexy expansion and Gross expansion though. I don’t think my body is ready.
Newegg
We sat down with James ‘Jim’ Merk of Newegg to hear about what’s in store for Australia going forward. They’ve opened up a headquarters in Melbourne and a warehouse is soon to follow.
This means there’s going to be some cheaper options for Aussies as local shipping from Australian based distributors is now a thing.
PAX Australia Day One Swag
There’s a mix of stuff in there, I bought some Penny Arcade Pins and a giant D20, Bethesda were handing out Fallout masks and there is an inflatable sword from Thermaltake.
I don’t have the room for all of this so expect us to be giving a lot of it away on the Non-Fiction Gaming Twitter and Facebook accounts.
Overall For Day One of PAX?
As I was busy most of the day running to one interview or another, I didn’t get a chance to stop and play many games. But the hall is overflowing with them. Fallout 4 has a presentation behind vault doors and Star Wars Battlefront are heavily on display as well.
I did also get a chance to play the ‘Fighter Squadron’ game mode in Star Wars Battlefront. I’m happy to say we crushed that rebel scum.
Looking forward to tomorrow, if there’s anything you’d like me to take a look at and report back on. Let me know in the comments below or hit me up on Twitter.
Check out the highlights from Day Two of PAX Australia 2015.
