PAX East - Top 10 List

PAX East 2014 has come and gone, and I thought it would be great to reflect on some of the things I enjoyed while at the convention. There were many vendors in the main expo, and there was a whole lot to see and do. While I certainly didn’t experience everything to the fullest, I was able to experience or observe most of the things I planned on checking out. Anyways, here are the top 10 things I enjoyed most at PAX East this year. Please keep in mind that this is just my own personal top 10 list of things that I experienced at PAX that I enjoyed or that left a great impression on me, personally. These are my opinions, and I would expect them to vary from your own.

#10 – Infinite Crisis

I am not really into MOBA style games, but I enjoyed watching an Infinite Crisis tournament. I understand the appeal to MOBA games. They take a tremendous amount of teamwork and communication, and at least with Infinite Crisis being set in the DC Universe, it was pretty simple for someone without any knowledge of the game know who the characters were up on the screen.



#9 – Gigabyte Brix Pro

The Brix Pro absolutely surprised me. I played a race on Grid 2 at 1920x1080 resolution, and while I could tell that some of the detail settings were dialed down, it was impressive how much performance came out of a device that you can hold in the palm of your hand.

GIGABYTE - Desktop PC - Mini-PC Barebone - GB-BXi7-4770R (rev. 1.0)

#8 – Logitech G502 Proteus Core Gaming Mouse

This is the replacement for the legendary Logitech G500 mouse, and it certainly lived up to the G500 reputation. It has a customizable weighting system to help both the weight and the balance of the mouse. The only thing I disliked was the LED lights and accents on the mouse are light blue, but that is just me being picky with the cosmetics.

G502 Proteus Core Gaming Mouse - FPS Mouse - Logitech

#7 – Nosgoth

Players of the previous Legacy of Kain series of adventure games may be disappointed by Nosgoth, people unfamiliar with the series may enjoy this hack and slash style third person shooter between humans and vampires.



#6 – Planetary Annihilation

This early access game is currently available on Steam. While the graphics may appear antiquated at first, once you start zooming in and out of the planets and moons to the global view, you suddenly realize the scale of this RTS game, and it is like no other RTS I have ever seen.



#5 – Distance

I almost missed this game, but it happened to catch my eye while I was passing by. Distance is a futuristic racing game which immediately reminds you of P.O.D. (Planet of Death) or Wipeout in terms of the styling, but had some very unique gameplay mechanisms, including the ability for the car to extend some wings and glide for a brief period, as well as jump wall to wall, changing your driving surface.



#4 – Portal (NVIDIA Shield)

Though this was already mentioned in another article, I have to re-emphasize the importance of this release. The NVIDIA Shield is a great device with a lot of power (NVIDIA Tegra 4), a great controller, and lots of awesome extras, such as NVIDIA’s GameStream and GRID, but it lacked a library of big named titles that would run fully optimized and native to the Shield device. NVIDIA and Valve working together on the Android version of Portal is a huge step in the right direction for the Shield to really find it’s footing in the portable gaming device world.



#3 – Wolfenstein: The New Order

I am a huge Wolfenstein fan, so I have been waiting on this one for a couple of years now. While what I saw at PAX was nothing really new to me, it was a fresh reminder of the upcoming May 20 release date.



#2 – Grey Goo

This RTS game is actually being developed by the creators of the original Command and Conquer games. It had a very “retro” interface and look from the top-down view and command bar. While I didn’t get to play it, I watched some people go through some multiplayer levels, and this one looks like it is going to be on the top of my list.





#1 – EVOLVE

From the creators of Left for Dead, EVOLVE is a multiplayer shooter where four players taking the role of hunters are facing off against one player taking the role of a large monster. Teamwork is key to this game, as this monster is not easy to take down unless the hunters are working together. The game left a huge first impression on me and is currently at the top of my lists for the most highly anticipated games coming out this year. It is scheduled to come out this fall, so we will have to be patient and wait for them to polish off any bugs for a spectacular release.





Honorable mentions go to Zombie Dice as we killed a bit of time playing this simple, yet fun dice game, Goat Simulator, which I already own yet love how simple and humorous the game is, and to Robot Roller Derby Disco Dodgeball, because imagine a game where you are controlling robots, on a dance floor, rolling around, and playing dodgeball. Need I say more?