PAX 2019 has come and went
Whats up everyone! My name is JT, but you might know me as PNWJrock as that’s the name I use on social media, and I stream under PNWJRawk over on Twitch. I’ve decided (was asked) to join the Spoiler Country family to add some flavor for video games to the site, so what better way to kick that off than with a review of my first ever time going to PAX?
So John bought me a ticket for PAX as a birthday gift. I’ve been wanting to go for YEARS but I was just never able to make it with my work schedule, however as a birthday gift that makes it super cost effective!
When the day got closer I drove over to John‘s to stay the night (he’s also my uncle, and the greatest uncle in the world, clearly) so I could ride with him to Seattle for the show. He wasn’t home when I got there, he and Kaylie were out at the Washington State Fair seeing Weezer rock their socks off. So I just kicked it with my cousins, who you have probably heard on the podcast at some point, and waited for them to get home. When they got home they were all “OMG man, it’s JT! Hi bruh! Well, it’s 11:30pm and we are old, so we are going to bed! See you in the morning!”
On are way down we were talking about what it would be like because it was both our first time. Having only ever been to comic conventions, we kept saying the it could be like ECCC (Emerald City Comic Con) but man were we wrong! Comic conventions are all about booths with tables and things to buy, exclusives and more. This was not what we experiences at PAX. Though with the X meaning “expo” we should have known.
When we got to the show we walked through the main doors as we do every year for ECCC and saw a little gaming section (and by little, I mean 20 matching white Alienware computer rigs) and the PAX exclusive section were you could buy shirts, hats, bags, and more. It was the last day so some of the really cool stuff was sold out, but I still got a hat and shirt. I mean, you kind have to get something if only to prove you went. Though with eBay you can just buy it after the fact anyway, so who’s to say. Whatever, I like it.
After seeing the merch area we walked threw the doors and saw a shit ton of games and more. I don’t say that lightly. Directly in front of us was a MASSIVE booth dedicated to Final Fantasy XIV and the to the left was the Final Fantasy VII Remake booth. Now I don’t know if you know this about John, but he is a massive FFVII fan. He told me he played through it something like 20 times, and one time from start to finish in 4 days with my mom when he was a teenager! Sadly we didn’t get to play it, as it was a ticketed event and we did not get any tickets, but it looked cool as hell!
We started to walk around and we saw so many games that we were totally wrong about it being like ECCC since it was more an expo to experience new games that are coming out, try them out, get hands on demos, and less booths trying to sell you exclusives and tables selling you tickets. I mean that was certainly there, but this was 100% more of a “Check out all these new games and tech coming out” thing that a “convention you walk through to buy stuff” thing. I fall back to it has “expo” in the title and honestly, John and I felt a little dumb at the end of the day when we talked about it.
I’m a BIG Borderlands fan, and saw the Borderlands 3 booth and zoomed to that real quick cause I thought “Whoa! I can play it early here! That’s awesome!” Only to find out that it was a 3 hour wait to play the game. THREE HOURS! That’s insane. I mean it comes out in 20 days, I can just wait! It did look amazing though!
As were walking by the Borderlands booth I saw Castle Crashers a game that my buddy Alex got me into, we saw MTG (Magic the Gathering) booths with a ton of dice booths next to them. We went to the other building and saw that Mixer was there and Playstation and then Astro witch is a gaming headset community.
After seeing a lot of the booths I wanted to buy a couple things, cause why wouldn’t you? I picked a 2019 PAX Shirt and Hat, 2 Castle Crasher Statues for my desk, and a bunch of free stuff. Like a super cool Borderlands print pack for waiting in line and getting face paint.
PAX was amazing, it’s a totally different mind set than a comic convention, and really I should have known that going in. Lesson learned for next year! I hope there will be talk about the new HALO game next year because that is the game that got me into gaming, but that’s for another story.
Be sure to check out my twitch, where I stream all the cool stuff!
https://www.twitch.tv/pnwjrawk
Listen to John and I talk about PAX over on his other podcast, Haphazard Adventures!