PAX Prime 2013 – A Weekend of Celebrating Gamer Culture (With Dabs)

That’s all folks! Summer 2013 has finally come to an end. George Costanza had his summer and this was the Summer of Diablo. Positive vibes and lots of dabs have opened some truly impressive doors for me this season. If I had my choice to close out the season anywhere on Labor Day Weekend, I don’t know that I could have chosen a place gnarlier than PAX Prime 2013.

 

The Penny Arcade eXpo (PAX) is a series of gaming festivals held in Seattle, Boston and Melbourne, AU. PAX was created by the authors of the Penny Arcade Web Comic, because they wanted to attend a show that gave equal attention to console gamers, PC gamers, card gamers and board gamers.

Created in 2004, PAX has been hailed as THE celebration of gamer culture. Defining characteristics of the festival include an opening keynote speech from an industry insider, game-culture inspired concerts, panels on game topics, exhibitor booths from independent and major game developers and publishers, a super LAN party, tabletop game tournaments, and video game FREE-PLAY areas. (Wiki)

300,000 square feet of playable PC, Xbox One and PS4 games that aren’t out yet, legit S.W.A.G. to be had everywhere, better merchandise, pro-gamer tournaments, films, lectures and thousands of people dressed up like already inappropriately dressed characters- awesome. I couldn’t have been there more than 30 minutes before I declared it one of greatest places I’ve ever been stoned. Fucking A, it wasn’t too shabby sober either.

We’ll start with the important part, it was a pretty consistent formula as far as medicating went over the three days. Huge wax dabs at home and a Cloud V in pocket for retention were more than sufficient for the proceedings. I would actually go so far as to say I didn’t even want to be too stoned. There really was so much to see and appreciate around every corner. The venue itself is its own trip. On at least two separate occasions, I caught myself fantasizing about being alone in the mammoth, empty convention center. So many ginormous spaces deceptively cozied up by a labyrinth of booths and corridors, this convention center definitely rates high on the trippy scale.

I could take dabs and talk PAX Prime 2013 all day but don’t worry, I won’t. However, for those down, I did wanna briefly share some of the sights/sounds I found especially enticing:

• Gran Turismo 6– This franchise continues to impress. Check out the pods with full force feedback; this will be a PS4 title to watch.
• Battlefield 4– The line was long as shit all weekend so I never played. However, I observed plenty, and it was all tits. FPS fans should look forward to this one.
• Dive Kick– This game was so awesomely random I couldn’t stop getting in line. So picture Street Fighter, except you only have two huge buttons. Left one jumps, right one dive kicks at an angle, first hit wins and it’s best of 5. It’s that simple but so not simple, quite complex actually. This was game was crack.
• Occulus Rift VR-HD got HAWKEN- This was AMAZING to finally experience visually. I won’t spoil any more as I intend to cover the experience in-depth.
• Watch Dogs– Expect this PS4 title to really turn heads; this one looks to be a game changer. You reside in a city where everything is online and you can hack it all. Turn signals, water works, trains, planes and even automobiles. Here’s the kicker: in this future Chicago, every other player can hack the system too. If you happen to be running from the COPS (from the comfort of your home), your buddy can change traffic signals and self-destruct a water main to cock block your ass- FROM HIS SMARTPHONE. This kind of bad ass multi-platform gaming seems to the new standard.
• Ground Kontrol – Last but not least, my personal favorite, the free-play retro arcade courtesy of in Portland. So they just went ahead and brought all the cool games, set ‘em on “free” and put out a sign that said “Open Late” BONG! I can’t give enough love to the Pac NWest arcade gaming movement. Dabbed out my face and all smiles HAAA DOO KEENNN was cry. This is where I started, couldn’t stay away from and also ended my virgin PAX adventure.

Hope your summer was as high and fly as mine.  #lightersup

(btw forgive the photos… worst fast pic environment ever :/)