PAXPrime2013: Day 1 in Review

This weekend, I have the pleasure to be at PAXPrime in Seattle, WA. Acting as Press for RaidWarning.com, I've seen some pretty nifty things so far this weekend, and it is only going to get better:

- Our big ticket item was a presentation on Dungeons given by Stephen Frost, one of the big-wigs at Carbine and the voice you've heard in all the Wildstar Dev Speaks. The video repeated a lot of information about the Ruins of Kel Voreth and Stormtalon Dungeons, but also mentioned The Datascape, one of the game's raids. To say it peaked my interest would be putting it mildly. I'm really excited for Wildstar, particularly after playing a little bit during the Press Hour Friday morning, and finally being able to say it handles well. You can find the article detailing this presentation here.

- Next up was the 2k Booth, where I got to see the new content for both XCOM: Enemy Within and the new Borderlands 2 DLC. The addition of Mech troops and Genetical Enhancements to XCOM is cool, but does feel like it is gettign away from the "Hey, we're just a bunch of soldiers trying to survive". The Borderlands 2 Headhunters stuff was great fun. A team of 3 other media guys and myself took on a Halloween themed boss that will be available in October (appropriately), successfully downing him in 4:46 (not enough to beat the 1st place team in the time trial - they downed him in something like 3:19)

- We had an interview with a team from GW2, including Colin Johanson, but I'm under embargo until 3pm on Saturday...so I'll come back to this. There's a big Anniversary Bash for GW2 this afternoon, and they are making an additional announcement there. Should be interesting.

-Finally, I got a chance to playing Dying Light, the Zombie-Co-op-Parkour game that's coming out in 2014. The demo was a little hand-holdy, which only irked me because of how open the game was, but I still really enjoyed it. The parkour mechanics are really tight, particularly for Alpha, and its cool to be able to suddenly see 4 or 5 paths spring up as you're running through the abandoned city. My favorite moment however was, when running through the city at night, fleeing a horde of zombies, i was scrambling to remember which button turned on my flashlight. Seeing my plight, the developer reached over to turn it on. However, I had remembered and was also turning it on at that same moment. The result was me running through a hallway, switching on my light to see 3 or 4 zombies, then the developer turning my flashlight off, as if to say "No lights for you." You can find my full First Impression of Dying Light here.

Day 2 of PAXPrime brings with it The Elder Scorlls Online, more Guild Wars 2, and the AppJunkies Panel I have the pleasure to be a panelist on.