PaxWest 2023 – Day 2 Impressions and Awards 2023

What's up and welcome to the single player experience. The only podcast that has a power level over 9, 000. In a recent episode of the single player experience podcast, I talked about the best games that I played on my first day at PAX and I gave my day one awards. We talked about indies like 30XX, Chicken Police, and Los Idolos. We also talked about the AAA games that I played like Tekken 8

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Prince of Persia,

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Persona 5 Tactica,

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Super Mario Brothers Wonder.

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And, Grand Blue Fantasy Relink.

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Now, before we close that episode, I gave my Day 1 MVP award. In this episode, I'm gonna do the same thing with the games that I played on Day 2. And, I'm gonna tell you about one of my experiences that I had at PAX. So, without further ado, let's get to it. so, the first award of the day is my most unique game award. This is pretty self explanatory, it's going to the most unique game that I saw during day one of PAX West. So, the winner of this award has to go to one of the most unique games that I've ever seen in my entire life, and that's Chicken Police Into the Hive.

Now, before I talk about the Day 2 games, I want to tell you about something that I experienced, a little story that happened while I was playing Tekken 8. It all started with me playing a couple of rounds against the computer. The convention hall was a bit empty this early in the AM, so it was only a few of us at different stations. Anyways, playing the game was a bit of a learning curve for me, or should I say a reintroduction because I hadn't played Tekken in a very long time. The last time I can remember playing Tekken was around the days Nelly dropped Rai with me and back when Toonami had must see TV after school with Dragon Ball, Dragon Ball Z, and of course Yu Yu Hakusho. Anyways, it took me a couple rounds but I felt like I was starting to get the hang of the controls and how to do the most basic combos. Shortly afterwards, a guy walks up to the station and asks if I wanted to run one. I was a bit nervous to play against someone considering that I'm basically a scrub at the game, but my ego wouldn't let me back down. I looked around and saw that a crowd of people were starting to show up to check out the game. The GME did not want to look bad in front of these people, who probably were clearly in their own world, minding their own business, but that's not the narrative that was in my head though. So, the guy and I played around, and wouldn't you know it, He was more trash than I was. So, I beat him down quickly. Then, another guy comes up to me and says, I got next. Again, I was worried because I couldn't look like a coward in front of all these people in line to play the game. Keep in mind though, keep this in mind everybody, they probably weren't paying any attention to me. These are all things that were going on in my head, just narratives I made up. So the second guy was a tougher fight, but I narrowly beat him. Instead of leaving just like the first guy did though, he looked at me, dead ass in my eyes, and said, I got somebody for you, right, right here. The second guy goes to his friends in line and points me out. I came front with you, now I'm really low key nervous for real. Growing up when somebody said, I got somebody or something for you, it usually was an indicator that they were coming back with something or someone that was gonna beat yo ass. One of his friends that was wearing a DX shirt, who happened to be next in line, came up to me, skipping several empty stations in the process by the way, and said, you ain't getting me like you got my friend over there. With that said, we picked our characters. I picked Law, and he picked Paul. We got into it. He absolutely mowed me down in the first round in seconds. Now, round 2 started. I barely managed to pull it out. Round 3. It was kind of a back and forth affair. All the way until he got me down to about 1 fourth of my health remaining. Then I panicked. I ain't gonna lie. I panicked and I spammed a move over and over again until I got that dub. Yes, I know, that's like the worst way to win in fighting games. But, I don't know, I ain't, I ain't a fighting game person, man. I ain't played Tekken in a long time. I don't play nothing but Smash Brothers, and that's occasionally. So, you know, I panicked, man. I panicked. But anyways, with all that panic, though, my confidence was now through the roof. I done beat several opponents. So, anyways, the latest victim looked at me and said, We got one more guy for you, and I bet you can't beat him. I looked at him, my channel in that inner 90s kid in me, and that inner voice in me that I like to call my great one voice, and I asked, What is the name of the guy you think can best me? He started saying, His name is Rick, and I cut him off midway through in my rocky voice and said,

It doesn't matter what your name is.

And then, for some reason, I blinked out and thought I was The Rock and gave a really rock like promo, and basically said this. What y'all don't realize is that y'all are essentially bowling pins. Y'all are getting stacked up just for me to come and lay the smackdown and knock each one of you down. First jabroni came before y'all got here. Got knocked down. The end. You and your posse came over here strutting like Shane O'Mac in the Mean Street Posse and one by one, y'all got knocked down. And now, you come before me saying that there's a challenger that you prophesize can go one on one with the great one. Sounds to me like you lost your mind, but let me humor you, point out this so called chosen one. And then the guy smiled really hard and pointed at a guy who was really lowkey, like a teched cosplay player. I think that he was dressed up as a character. Gian. I don't know. I ain't played ticket in a long time anyways. Oh dude, look like he was a pro at ticketing. If you cosplay as a character in a video game, I'm just automatically gonna assume you a pro at that video game. I, you know, maybe you trash, maybe you ain't. I'm automatically gonna assume that's, that's you, and I don't want that smoke. Anyways. So I saw a boy dressed as a Tekken character, and my overconfidence quickly melted away just as fast as it came. And I said, nah man, I'm good. I'm good. I don't really want the smoke. Next thing you know, the group and I were laughing, talking about my Rock Like promo. By the way, as you could tell by the DX shirt, they were all wrestling fans as well, and we were chopping it up about Tekken for a bit. I bring this story up because I thought you as the audience would enjoy it, and to say that if you ever have an opportunity to attend PAX or another convention like it, then you should definitely check it out. You see some cool stuff, meet some people, and hopefully have a good time. I always seem to do all the above.

Okay, so, story time out of the way, let's get to our Day 2 Impressions and Awards. The first game I want to talk about is the recipient of my Most Unique Game Award, and that is Ebenezer and the Invisible World. It's a game by Orbit Studios. Okay, so here's my impression after going hands on with the game. Ebenezer in the Invisible World is a cool video game with a unique concept. The game is colorful, it's action filled, it's a metroidvania that has really tight platforming elements. The game and the combat is surprisingly layered and fun. There is plenty of weapons that you can unlock, the platforming is precise with a little bit of a challenging bite to it, the environment has some ghost and Halloween elements, and of course, many Christmas themes. Amnesia and the Invisible World seems like a cool addition to the sparse library of Christmas video games. I only got to play about a half hour of the game, but it was enough to make me want to play more and look forward to this game coming out this holiday season. Now let's pivot and talk about some other cool games that I checked out at PAX West Day 2. The first one that I wanted to talk about is First Dwarf, and here is their description of the game. First Dwarf is an immersive action RPG with base building elements, which will test your survival and exploration skills in a fantasy open world, sprawling on islands floating in the sky. I liked, I liked the swagger of like, the team behind it because like, the project lead came up to me during our press interview and he was just like, Hey, before you even play this game, know that we were doing the Islands in the Sky before Tears of the Kingdom, and he laughed it off, he was just like, you know, it was one of those things to where we kind of laughed about it a little bit, but I like that, I like the moxie on the guy. Anyways, let's talk about the game though. Here's my impressions after the demo. First Dwarf is a cool mixture of a lot of different genres. It has some city building elements to it. It has some narrative beats. It has some combat. You go around mining materials, constructing buildings for different purposes, and destroying enemy nests. I'll be real with you, combat was probably the weakest point in the game for me personally. Instead of just spamming the attack button, you have to attack within a very specific timed window. Kind of like the rhythm based thing in Hi Fi Rush except like the window is more like a Small bar as opposed to you trying to hit on beat but very similar kind of timing mechanic there overall though Despite the fact that the combat may be one for me personally I walked away thinking that I could drain a lot of hours playing first dwarf especially with the construction and the building mechanics in this game Next, I want to talk about Atari. Yes, that's right, the company from back in the day, Atari. And I'm not just gonna talk about a specific game they're doing. This is more of a roundup. I want to give a special shoutout to Atari because I spoke with some of the leads from the company and their new direction not only impressed me, but made me hopeful about Atari's comeback into the mainstream popularity of video games. So, they are putting out new versions of their classic console, the Atari 2600 Plus. Here are some of the features of the new console. The Atari 2,600 plus is an updated version of the classic Atari 2,600. It has been enhanced in the following ways. It plays both Atari's 20 607,800 game cartridges. It has H D M I output, which makes it easy to connect to probably all the TVs on the market today. It has wide screen mode. Enlarged cartridges, um, sockets which reduce the sticking of the games when you pull them in and out. It also has the Atari logo that lights up while it's being played. The system comes with the CX40 Plus Joystick, which has been lovingly recreated to the same specifications as the original, and it also has a 10 in 1 game cartridge featuring some of Atari's most famous games, like Adventure, Combat, Dodgem, Haunted House, Maze Craze, Missile Command, Real Sports, Volleyball, Surround, Video Pinball, and Yars Revenge. Atari is also giving some indie studios some of their IPs, some of their classic IPs to remake. I'm loving this new direction of the company. Absolutely loving it. They're giving some upstart like indie studios a fresh start and a chance to put their spank and spunk on classic games. They're also bringing in retro consoles that can play. These modern day interpretation of these games and some of the classic cartridges. I love that. I absolutely love it. It's the best of both worlds. And it's insanely nice to see this historical company making a comeback. Now I want to talk about the MVP of day two last, but not least the big daddy award, the MVP of the day, and that MVP award has to go to the most addictive game that I played. All day of PAX Day 2 and that's Zombie Rollers The Last Ship. This is a game that was made by Zing Studios, a studio hounded by Ding Yi. With their latest game, they came up with something that I've never seen before in a video game. Here's their description of this one. Take command of the last ship in a zombie field world and defend against endless waves of the undead. Build Terence. Lead your crew and upgrade your ship while gathering. Loot in this exciting tower. Defense on wheels. Zombie survival. Roguelike game, the fate of humanity. Rest in your hands. So that was their impre that was their description of this game. Now, let's focus on my impression of it. I want to say that I never thought I'd play a roguelike zombie game where you play as a tower defense on wheels. That is absolutely creative. I've seen zombie games left and right over the years and so many different interpretations. You've seen games like Dead Island. You've seen games, um, very similar to like The Last of Us. You've seen other games, all sorts of different games in the zombie genre. It's, it's kind of an oversaturated genre, if I'm being honest, but I've never seen a roguelike zombie game where you play as a tower defense on wheels. That's a really cool, interesting spin on this. After playing the game for an extended period of time, I can say definitively that I did not want to put the control down. I absolutely am salivating to experience more of this game. You go around rolling in a mech slash tank like, um, vehicle, and you take down as many zombies as you can before they take down your vehicle. You have assigned crew members that all have, like, their own roles within your, like, tower defense car, and they all play different parts. And they also have their own life, like, life bars, so you're trying to keep them alive as long as possible. possible as well as your whole vehicle in each run you're going to earn loot and with that loot you can use that for like updated weapons and getting your crew stronger so that you can go on longer and longer runs you know if you've listened to this podcast before i am a absolute sucker for a good roguelike game and this one has the makings of a must play absolutely must play entry into the roguelike genre So, those are some of the games that I played during PAX West Day 2, and I gotta say, I absolutely loved each, each and every one of these games, you should definitely go wishlist them, check them out, you know, see if they're for you, because like, I loved my time with each and every one of them, shoutout to all these creators and everything doing their thing at PAX West, they absolutely killed it, each one of them had passion, and brought something different to the table, loved it, absolutely loved it. Let me know what you think of each one of these games in the single player experience discord, or you can just tell me in the review of this episode. Anyways, I've been Sebastian, and let's kick it to the outro. Peace out, y'all. So that's a wrap for today's show. I wanna let you know about the single player experience Discord server. It's the perfect place for single player gamers to talk about the good single player games they've been playing lately, and to get video game recommendations. Think of it kind of like a book club for single player gamers. The link to join will be in the description. Once you're in, feel free to share your video game backlog list. Talk about the good games you've been playing, or give your feedback on the show if you have a game that you think should be recommended or that you think I should talk about. Let me know in the single Player Experience Discord server. I'll see you there. Before we go, I just want to thank you so much for listening to today's episode. Stay safe, stay gamming, and I hope to catch you in the next one. Peace.