Just so you know, I finally got around to getting a new cell phone, so I’m reachable on the go again.

Also, if you want email me, it’s best to use the joe schneible.net address, since I don’t check the yahoo account as much anymore.

I put some photos from Andrew's 1st Birthday party in the photo album.

“I'm not so sure about this Joe guy…”

The Adirondacks seem to think so…

more in the September photo album.

I think the first game I played at PAX was Dragon Blade for the Wii. I got frustrated with the controls and left while the representative wasn't watching.

On Friday I also played Castle Crashers which from a gameplay perspective reminded me of the old TMNT games. I think CC is going to have online co-op, which would be cool… if I had a 360.

On Saturday, I got to the show early and got in line (the wrong line) to play Haze. They were giving out some sort of 'energy mints' in a case with a mirror inside. I'm not sure if you were supposed to eat them, or crush them up and snort them. Regardless, if you watch the PAX Show Floor Overview clip from Episode 14 of Gameone, (I presume) you'll see the results of taking them as the screenwriter from the game goes a little bit crazy talking about it. I believe I was standing just off camera while this was being filmed.

From there I think I went to play de Blob for the Wii. I saw videos of this game from E3, and it looked interesting, but I wondered if they could make a full game out of it. I would say that concern isn't completely gone, but I think the game has potential.

I got a chance to play Eye of Judgment which is the CCG for the PS3. It's a neat idea, and not a bad game, but there's really no reason that you need both the cards and the PS3.

I didn't get to play Assassin's Creed, as it was only shown as a demo in the main theater. I think there's a lot of people looking to this game to define 'next-gen' gaming. Ubisoft Montreal has basically taken Prince of Persia: Sands of Time (PoP:SoT) and made it more realistic. Certainly the game makers seem to be saying and doing all the right things, but sometimes you still end up with a boring game. I'd say I'm cautiously optimistic.

On Sunday I hit up the Nintendo booth. I got a chance to play The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass which is looking very good. The controls are done with the stylus which work very well, except when you end up covering up the screen with your hand. That didn't happen too often during the demo, so I think it's going to be alright.

The big disappointment of PAX was that I didn't get to play Super Mario Galaxy, because Nintendo didn't bother to show it. At all.

I skipped Metroid Prime 3: Corruption because the line was long and it came out a few days after PAX.

I did however take the time to play Fire Emblem for the Wii. It's a tactical RPG. As far as I can tell it doesn't use any motion controls, and the graphics aren't any better than a gamecube title, but it was fun. I might get it after a price drop.

The line for the full on Rock Band setup was even longer than Metroid, so I went to the head-to-head guitar setup to play it. I did alright, but the guy I played against trashed me.

from Kiko's Flikr Pool

What's funny about this picture is not that I'm in it (because I'm not), but the guy I played against is the one with the guitar on the left. I have to wonder if he just kept getting in line when he was done.

Mass Effect was another game that wasn't playable. I sat through the developer walk-through and the game does look good. Afterwards an image popped into my head of a spaceship and I tried to remember what movie I had seen it in. Then I realized that it was from Mass Effect. The game does pull off the cinematic feel pretty well.

At some point I got roped into playing a board game about drinking and gambling. I was taking over for someone and was not in good shape. I was very quickly down to my last coin. Due to some crafty playing of cards and one dubiously legal maneuver I knocked another guy out of the game and put myself in a good position. Then the exhibit hall closed.

Grrr… just lost some of my post to the php gods…

Anyway I'm blanking on any other games I got to play. There were a lot contests going on during the weekend. One involved getting a pin from nVidia and then finding the person with the matching pin. There were people everywhere with signs showing their numbers. Someone even went so far as to create an online database. I just thought it was a waste of time. Though that wasn't as pointless as the win your weight in Ramen contest:

from Kiko's Flikr Pool

What the hell would I do with that much Ramen? I don't think anyone won because on Sunday you couldn't go anywhere without being offered noodles.

I didn't go to most of the Omegathon rounds, as they tended to be during something else I wanted to see, but Round 4 was in the main theater and not much else was going on at that time, so I went. I wasn't that excited for it because the game they were going to play was Karaoke Revolution. But when the curtains rolled back, it was obvious that plans had changed, as Gabe and Tycho were on guitars, Robert was on drums and Kara was singing Bon Jovi's 'Wanted Dead or Alive' in what could have only been a game of Rock Band.

from GSpeezy's Flikr Site

I also went to the Final Round. Round 6 has always been reserved for classic games like pong, tetris and combat, so it wasn't a surprise when Gabe and Tycho announced that they were having trouble with the equipment. But, you could sort of tell something was up. You can see the intro to the game here, just scroll down. During the intro it became obvious that the last two omeganauts would not only be playing a version of Halo, but the currently unreleased Halo 3 (brand new maps, with weapons not seen in the game before).

from GSpeezy's Flikr Site

I don't know if I could sit through an entire video gaming competition, but watching two guys duke it out in Halo 3 with a trip to the Tokyo Game Show up for grabs, while standing in a crowd of thousands of gamers is pretty exciting.