Triple Peeps Productions

Was going to write this yesterday but had to sleep in the worst way.

PAX is the first convention of its kind I’ve been too. And I’m not sure if I’d return. I’m rather antisocial, and Friday afternoon, the expo kickoff brought with it two things in excess that I can always do without: people and noise. In the evening it died down a bit and was at least manageable.

I didn’t wait in line to play anything but I did see alot of games. I have no digital camera, just some temp disposable ones with pics that aren’t particularly high quality, so I hope text will suffice.

For any Halo 3 heads, Bungie was showing off a new Halo 3 map… and that’s it. It’s very purple, very Covenant in design and architecture. It’s fairly big. I’ve certain it wouldn’t do for an 8 on 8 team game, but it could certainly comfortably do 6 vs. 6, or just a 12 person Slayer. That’s all Bungie was showing, and their booth operators wouldn’t acknowledge me for like five minutes, so I moved on. Somewhat disappointed. Maybe I’ll try to play the level tomorrow.

Namco’s booth was a showcase of an upcoming Naruto and Afro Samurai title. Both looked good but I didn’t bother really examining easier. They were also showing Tales of Vesperia but I have the limited edition of that game (it better be there, Supafly), so why bother. You know what wasn’t at the Namco booth? Tales of Symphonia 2. You know what was at the Nintendo showcase? Tales of Symphonia 2. Good job, Namco. Way to hype your own titles. Anywho, there was a large crowd in and around Nintendo’s showcase so I didn’t stick around long. What I did see was the new main hero (who kinda plays like a mix of Reid and The Apprentice from Force Unleashed/Soul Calibur 4), and new main girl (she seems like a physical fighter who uses a Colette-style weapon, but I need to confirm), Raine, and Genis. The latter two’s models are like DIRECTLY RIPPED from the last game. I need to look into it further. I saw two fights. In the second, the main dude apparently got ambushed and had to fight on his own for like 15 seconds before the other members appeared. There are also skits in English (I didn’t hear any sound so I can’t confirm if they’re voiced or not), and the main girl apparently has a thing for the main dude.

Lock’s Quest is a DS title I downloaded a demo for from a booth. I played the combat demo, where the main dude (Lock?) must, in battle, use money to build fortifications to defend a base. After the build phase (which operates under a not apparent time limit), the battle phase starts, and Lock moves around in real time. You can build turrets to repel enemies (who also move about in real time), and you can make Lock engage them hand-to-hand, where he auto-attacks (like an MMO or FF12). During auto-attacking you can tap a very simple sequence to do more damage (the game is entirely stylus and D-Pad driven btw). You can also spend money to repair things in real time, which has a slightly different sequence to repair faster. It seems like simple fun. The graphics are simplistic but the sprites animate well. I may pick it up on release.

Snippets:

• I saw an Iron Chef America game for the Wii with giant head versions of Morimoto, Battali, the Chairman, and the show’s host whose name I can normally remember but escapes me for some reason. It looks meh.
• X-Blades is this Korean or Russian game with a very anime-looking teenage girl in ridiculously revealing clothing (like worse than Soul Calibur 4 revealing) who thinks she’s from Heavenly Sword. It looks nice and looks like it could be fun, but watching drooling nerds playing it made me turn away.
• I got the FATTEST PEN IN THE WORLD. Its diameter is like an inch.
• The Blizzard booth ran out of free “pets” for WoW. The dude there told me they’d have more tomorrow (today). Going there first thing.
• Warhammer Online looks and plays like WoW tailored exclusively for PvP. I want to see more of it today.
• Champions Online is a new superhero MMO that plays like PSO. It uses a very similar scheme on an XB360 controller: you can map actions to face buttons AND to R+face buttons. It’s more real time than say WoW, but not entirely real time. Think PSO again. Looks fun.

I’ve got to head out soon. I’ll post more impressions tonight and/or tomorrow.

This one was brought to our attention by long time forum member Lord Fear. Check it out:

If you have an XB360, do yourself a favor: make a Japanese Silver account (the internet will help you there), and download the Tales of Vesperia demo.

This demo is entirely in English for some reason. English text, voices, menus, etc. The English voices are all VERY well done (the same voices from other ported Tales games, but with Symphonia-level direction in the little time the demo gives us to sample it). It plays like an upgraded Tales of the Abyss, and the characters are all so far very cool.

There’s the main dude (Yuri) who fights with a sword and is a mix of Luke, Regal, and Megaman X character Zero, there’s a rapier+shield girl who despite kinda-sorta looking like Collette acts much less Cinderella-ish and has some cool attacks/spells, a caster chick who has the single most awesome spell ever (summoning a giant sword that rotates around her while she walks around), and–get this–a wolf that fights with a sword and uses many Tales-esque attacks. You heard that right.

The peeps and I (this demo is multiplayer, BTW) are very impressed so far, despite being horribly crushed by the boss.

Check it out here! It has some story and character details, and lets you actually sample how the game plays! It’s pretty cool and worth a look.