PAX PRIME Seattle

PAX Prime. What is it? Well the Wikipedia definition of PAX (Penny Arcade Expo) is as follows (reworded by me). "PAX is a semi-annual gamer convention that is ususally held in Seattle and Boston. The creation of this event was by two individuals by the names of Jerry Holkins and Mike Krahulik who are authors of the Penny Arcade webcomic. They created PAX because they wanted to attend an event that gives gamer attentions to console games, computer games, and tabletop games." Definition for non-gamers, Gamer/Nerd Fest.

On Friday August 26, 
2011, at 4:30pm we set out to Seattle gamer festival. The event ran from Friday August 26 to Sunday August 28. When we arrived to Seattle, we checked into our hotel (The W hotel), unpacked our belongings got dressed and went out to dinner at Purple, which by the way was a fantastic restaurant. After dinner, it was already around 10pm but we still went to the convention hall to see what was going on. For the next 3 hours we spent the night getting toured around from one of our friends of the main places in PAX to go check out. The main exhibits were closed when we got there but our friend showed us the different areas where "Free play" was taking place. "Free play" is for gamers to play their tabletop, computer, video games in designated areas and usually lasted until 2am. We got toured around to see people playing board games, card games like Magic cards, role play games like Dungeons and Dragons, video games and computer games. 


A very interesting thing for us to see was a hall filled with  giant flat screens and people sitting around playing XBOX, PS3 and Wii. What you had to do to get your hands on one of these consoles to play your favorite games was to register at the front desk and drop off your photo ID and off you go with various new console games. There was even a hall designated for retro games like super mario brothers on old Nintendo system!. There were line ups everywhere for "Free play" There was a big hall filled with over 200 computers where you can line up and play almost any computer game you want (starcraft, Warcraft, counter strike and many others). Our intro tour lasted about 2 hours and then we got tired and went back to our hotel to get some rest for a long, long, long day Saturday.


Saturday August 27, 2011 we woke up at 7:30am to get some breakfast and head down back to the Seattle convention center. We started our day at the main exhibits where we got loads of free stuff. T-shirts, recycling bags with video game logos, lots of lanyards, spiderman disposable camera, mini-fans, glow sticks, pins, blow up swords, and even LED flashing glasses.


 There were definitely a lot of booths with new video games to be released. Gears of war 3, Assassins Creed, Batman: Arkam city, Starhawk, Fire Fall, Battlefield 3 and many more. The line ups to try out the new games were just totally insane. Some ranged from 15 minutes all the way to a 4 or even 5 hour wait. Gamers are so intense. 

Turtle and I didn't spend much time waiting in line we were more interested in seeing the different booths and getting free swag! We did however line up for almost 1 hour to play Starhawk, which by the way was semi worth it. We got free shirts but turtle sucked so bad and did not help his team at all. Around lunch time we quickly grabbed some food and  stuffed ourselves full with Thai food.All I wanted to do after was sleep. But of course that was not an option, we went back to the exhibition for more gamers' fest. 

The afternoon went by, we had bags and bags full of free stuff. We made our way back to our hotel to drop off our stuff, quick showers and headed to the Cheesecake Factory for dinner. Our night did not end there. We went back after dinner for "Free Play". Turtle and his friend rented XBOX console and played "Marvel vs Capcom" then went to the retro section and rented Mario Bros. What a long night. We ended the night at the computer hall and played 30 minutes of computer games and went back to our hotel for another long day Sunday.
Sunday August 28, 2011 was a short day because we had to make our way back to Vancouver before nightfall. We got up a little bit later that morning and went and lined up outside another building for Halo-fest.


It was worth the wait because the both of us got limited edition Halo Fest Mega Bloks UNSC Warthog. Only 5000 of these were made and were exclusive at the PAX event only. Halo fest gave out a lot of free stuff. Free bags, free halo figurines and mega bloks halo builds. Turtle wanted to line up for something but they were all gone. He did however used up 2 hours of our time building this awesome looking fighter jet using  halo themed mega bloks. 
We spent the remaining time getting more free stuff and even did a scavenger hunt with our friends.

Overall the trip was very interesting and fun. Lots of different things to see and do. Of course, free stuff. My car was packed with not only our bags but free stuff from the event. I am sure turtle will go back next year, but maybe without bunny.