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2013 Best Panel / Worst Panel
Since it's impossible to attend every panel, I'm curious what were your favorites. Also, any that disappointed?
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However, the Giant Bomb panel keeps getting better and better. This year's, while it didn't have a ton of...you know, GAMING content, was hilarious in so many ways. Probably the highlight of the show for me.
- Pitch a Game is always excellent. This year's winner was Snowman Cop, though I thought Catastrophe could've won but the girl went up for a third time to explain the gameplay some more and it brought down the initial hilarity of the game concept (you play a cat in a post-apocalyptic setting trying to produce as many heirs as possible to continue the bloodline)
- Kris and Scott were fantastic once again. They were both sober this time (Scott had a story explaining why he was sober) but that didn't stop them from discussing what would happen if they were both Freaky Friday'd, Kris's aversion to ghosts, and Scott wanting to bang Linda Carter and other women in their prime. Easily the best part though was them reading fanfictions that each of them wrote. Watch this whole goddamn panel, if only for Jeff Kalles's Mick Jagger impersonation
- I didn't have any expectations for AppJunkies but it ended up being pretty awesome. We were shown some pretty awful games that were fun to laugh at. Also, one of the guys (Patrick) looked like he was a cousin of Mike Krahulik so I spent some time creepily staring at him
Disappointments
- What's Your Gamer Type was ok, nothing great. It was interesting to learn about what type of gamer I was but I didn't really care for them playing the videos and then having the audience shouting out what type of gamers the people in the video were and why. Felt too much like school
- I actually liked Runaway Guys: Thrown Controllers but I hated the audience. When I first looked at the description of the panel when the schedule was released, I saw video game trivia and challenges and was sold. When I got to the line, I saw 90% teenage boys. When I sat down on the floor, this group of pre-teen girls came in squealing and squeeing. Once I got inside, I intentionally ended up near the door in case I had to make a quick escape but luckily it wasn't too bad. I did have to endure a high school boy consistently cuddle and kiss his girlfriend every two minutes though
- I was most disappointed with the overlapping of awesome panels. I had to miss Retrogame Roadshow, Double Fine Adventure, and some really cool sounding panels because they conflicted with the ones I ended up seeing. It always happen each year but it doesn't make me less frustrated
My least favorite was the "Expressing your gamer persona in your real life" panel. I guess my expectations were going to be more than it just being a giant ad for what the panel presenters do/make.
"OK, guys, I have twelve questions. But before I get to those, I'd like to tell you a touching story about my life, after which I will give you a pan of lasagna, and beg you for a bunch of favors." ...What?
I was a bit disappointed by the Improv Intiative ONLY because it could have benefited from more actors, other than that the four people were great.
And sadly I was disappointed in the Mike and Jerry Q&A part 2, with a lot of people simply plugging their website I found it rather annoying. That being said, the man who was asking the 'real questions' like last year was a champion.
And I'm sorry, but watching the rap-off was excellent, so even if I had to endure some bad questions, that made it worth it.
Q&As were pretty fun, though I agree it could do with a lot more actual questions and less 'here is my life story and also my website and also an inordinate amount of baked goods'.
Instead what we got was a Choose Vote Your Own Adventure story combined with some improv... which could've been fine, except for a few details. Like the fact that it's difficult to feel very scared when you're sitting in a well lit room with 70 other people, several of whom are calling out jokes at every opportunity. Or the weird card game mechanic going on at the front that was never really explained, which resulted in our collective character dying an hour into the panel not because of any of our input, but because two low cards were drawn in a row. Overall, the panel that I was most excited about pre-PAX felt like a flop.
IIRC, this panel was pretty terrible last year as well.
I'd give best panel to Gamers with Jobs, only because they were funny as shit. Jeff Green talking smack about EA and SimCity between mentioning he will probably be fired was a highlight. Worst? "Do JRPGs still matter?" There were a lot of points they kind of glossed over, blamed voice acting for being the downfall of RPGs while giving writers a pass... it was kind of terrible. Also, the developer who was there had his head so far up his own ass I'm surprised we could hear him.
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I also got to speak in person with Dean afterwards since they ran out of time for Q&A and that was very cool.
Let me begin by saying that this has been my favorite panel in past years. Each year I look forward to and line up early (was 2nd in line this year) just to get a good seat for this.
This year however I did not feel it had the quality of the previous and was a disappointing way to end my Saturday. Don't get me wrong there was some cool stuff there like the beta Mario 2, but with some of the people they chose to come up... what where they thinking?
The first problem is that this event always runs over. Too many people bring too many cool things to fit into one hour, yet after 3 or more years of doing this panel they have not extended it. Contributing to this even more so is the fact that they let these long winded people come up, show their stuff, and talk without any time limit. If they limited it to say 5 mins per person we could see many more cool items.
The second half of the problem is the selection. Talking in the queue line & looking around me in the audience I saw some people holding some pretty cool items that were not being called up. Instead Chris Kohler chose to call up one guy who a sealed greatest hits version of FF7 with a crack in the case... an item you can find plenty of on ebay or amazon any day of the week. He also called up a woman who had an un-boxed Earthbound for the SNES in well played condition which wasn't so bad on it's own but he chose to waste time asking her exactly how she got it which led to a painful, uninteresting, lengthy story of how she went with her dad to a store and bought it. In Chris' defense he did pick some cool items but many more in the audience were passed over in favor of lame ones.
Overall they let too many people with average items waste too much time, need to extend this show, and need to limit the time people can talk.
When the show was coming to an end I felt let down and I was not the only one who felt this way either. Comments from people around me when leaving were also negative. Curious what you others who saw the show felt. Especially those who went past years.
The Pitch Your Game panel was my favorite. It was very funny last year too, and will be definite stop in the future.
The future of sports games was pretty disappointing, but part of that was the very low-energy crowd of like 40 people. They also kinda got hijacked by responding to a guy interrupting with questions from the front row. It's strange how more poorly attended the Sunday panels are, even in the afternoon.
Storytime with Cliff was ok. I liked it, but I had to do it again, I might choose something else with that timeslot.
The final omegathon was definitely the biggest disappointment, because of the technical difficulties.
I think it would also make sense to limit people to one item (unless it's a set or something that belongs together), it got a little tedious watching them work through one dude's collection of games.
My favorite panel was the Harmonix panel. They had both interesting content and a good presentation style. Many of the other panels I saw only had one or the other.
Most disappointing was the Minecraft panel, which ended up being a lot of navel gazing and they frequently referenced things I wasn't familiar with without clarifying (and tended to mumble).
Sadly I missed the Cards Against Humanity panel because it was so late Saturday night that I was at the bar long before it started. :P Could someone that did go please tell me how it was?
Most Disappointed: Rooster Teeth. The panelists were awesome and the RWBY preview was sick, but the audience and questions completely destroyed it. The panel tried it's best, but the questions were full of "My life was terrible and you saved me, thank you so much. Let me count the ways I love you and tell you 2-5 stories of how you have inspired me, then be really freaky and ask for a naked life-size cutout of one of you followed by asking a question you already answered." It's a real shame because there was so much potential for it to be good, and the attendees ruined it. I actually left early because I couldn't take it anymore. I just want to reiterate that I don't blame Rooster Teeth for the disappointment; I blame the lack of tact by those that got up to "ask questions."
Gameshow night at PAX. It was 3 solid hours of laughs. Maybe I'm biased, I was a contestant for Jeopardy and competed with Major Nelson
Most Disappointed: Cards Against Humanity.
I expected this to be a no holds barred, card brainstorming session. It ended up being a whole lot of talking about selling the cards, what process they go through to create them, and 10 minutes of card ideas. I also might add, we had about 10 minutes of the co-host pitching card ideas, which I thought would have been better served to the crowd who filled the queue room a hour and a half before the panel started.
ehhh.. You didn't miss much. I went to 7 panels, and this one was the worst. And it should have been the best. Lots of talking, some videos. Pitching ideas for cards took up like 10 minutes, which should have been the whole panel IMO.
This seems to happen at a lot of the more popular events.
I think the best example was during Round 3 of the Omegathon before the Saturday Night Concerts. The theater was filled and everyone was having a good time, but there were a few people who would just consistently yell the same unfunny lines over and over again. I felt like it really ruined part of the event for me. I mean, the torturous Jenga was hilarious on its own; we don't need some kids yelling in our ears to enjoy it.
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Biggest disappointment: Blizzard. I skipped CrabCat and the Keynote to see, and that was a mistake. Announcement was "meh" - and it was all over their booth since they were demoing it AT PAXEast...so I could have walked through the expo at 10am and seen the announcement instead of waiting in line for the panel. Presentation was mostly one long video. A few Blizz/WoW jokes, but overall a poor presentation.
Best panel: Inside Gearbox Software. I have a whole new level of respect and adoration for the Gearbox team. They started working the audience with give aways and a magic show before it even started, gave the Borderlands Cosplayers some love, and then stepped up with an entertaining and information filled panel. Even without the give aways (delicious chocolate candies with codes for golden keys for everyone, hats tossed out to the crowd, and codes for downloading the new Vault Haunter for FREE), the big prize (everyone got colored cards, and orange cards ended up winning loot chests with bobble heads in them), the panel was hilarious.
Runner up: Make-A-Strip. I love MAS, Jerry and Mike do a great job. This years strip and creation ala the elimination round from StripSearch was hands down the best yet. But as all the previous posters here, the audiences Q&A was a black mark. I don't know why, but this years questions, and even the life-stories (which happen every year) were just bad, and felt extremely forced. And the guy with his cell phone and 8 hundred questions from his friends who weren't at PAX was just plain rude.
@Scopique Which music panel was that? I think I remember seeing a few in regards to music.
1) Roosterteeth - As always they deliver great content (Even if I am not a fan of RWBY all that much, but the first short was fantastic). But like always the Q&A portion only has 1 or 2 good questions. The others just being Q's that have been asked a million times before and can be found pretty much anywhere. I left half way through because of this.
2) The Future of Playing a Role in Videogame RPGs - Probably the best panel I went to, was really interesting and funny.
3) Tabletop gaming Terrain 101: Learn to make terrain for your tabletop adventures - This one was far to short but I enjoyed it. Got a lot of good beginner tips and really could have used a handout with a lot of the things that they mentioned, not only for what to do but also references for what they did.
4) Omegathon Final Round - The game was not exciting from a spectator POV. My friend and I left half way through. Couldn't see what was going on, all the action was mostly vocal. The iPads needed to be hooked up so the feeds could have been directly put through to the jumbo monitors. Even then it wouldn't have been great since a majority of the action is in the audio and actual touching/manipulating of the device.
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I can't say a worst one really. I went to quite a few panels, and none of them were terrible (at least not until they opened the floor for questions from the crowd).
The OCRemix panel was kind of a letdown, though I love their website. I think it was mostly geared toward folks that haven't heard of it. I would have liked to have heard more about the process of rearranging the tracks.
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Best panel: Giant Bomb. I usually choose the Friday night concerts over Giant Bomb since the panel just shows up on the website later, however I'm really glad I went this year, as it seems to have been one of those "better in person" situations. I did do mission impossible and see both Giant Bomb and Protomen on the same night. I don't think that's ever been doable at a PAX but I could be wrong.
Other than that, I agree with the comments on Cards Against Humanity not taking enough audience pitches, and am now glad I didn't go to Retro Game Roadshow, despite the good things I've heard about previous ones. Overall it seems like a lot of these panels need to be more than an hour. All the audience participation panels (game shows, Q&As, etc.) are way more than an hour can handle. Oh, and that best panel I listed? Almost 3 hours. Did a full panel and then answered every single person that queued up during Q&A.
This was the first year where I felt really disappointed by the keynote, Q&A and omegathon final. Honestly after each one of those all I could think was "really? I wasted my time waiting in the line for THAT?"
I was hoping Cliffy B would have something interesting to say but his talk really did not do anything for me and was honestly quite off-putting. Unless next year's speaker is someone that I know I already like and am interested in I'm going to skip it.
The Q&A always has its share of people who aren't actually asking questions, but I'm usually not bothered by that due to the high volume of actual moving, touching stories. This year just felt like person after person trying to be funny with a stupid skit, or just trying to say the most ridiculous/offensive/inappropriate thing they can think of. I don't see myself attending the Q&A at all next year.
Omegathon was very disappointing since it was my last point of contact with PAX. I'm not mad at PA about it because I know technical gremlins can get the best of any situation, but it was still a let down and it was too bad to end the weekend on a slightly sour note. My group ended up leaving before the whole thing finished because we just couldn't stand it. I will probably give it another try next year.
The best:
Disclaimer that I did not go to many panels besides the three mentioned above and the one I'm about to mention, but taking into the 4 years of PAX and panels that I've attended, the You Game Like A Girl: Tales of Trolls & White Knights really stands out from the crowd as hands down, probably the best panel I've gone to. Although PAX is my vacation and generally I like to just use it as time to be silly and have as much fun as I can humanly handle, I also appreciated having a more serious discussion about issues in gaming. It was incredibly well attended, I felt that the panelists were credible (a good mixture of industry women, a professional cosplayer, etc), and the format was well done.
Capcom- I barely made it in and wow was I glad. Announcing a remake of Ducktales sent the room onto cloud 9. Didn't expect that. The D&D game was fun along with the the Mega Man statues that are coming out soon. A Street Fighter t-shirt didn't hurt either. Capcom has taken a lot of heat over the past few years and rightfully so in some cases, but they did excellent at Pax this year, (even if there was only one Ducktales demo).
Who wants to be a Nintendoaire- Aside from the technical issues it was fun. I wish it was longer but there are other panels as well. I'm just glad I got to tryout in the fastest finger. (Thank you Mario hoodie)
Mass Effect- The big one on Saturday didn't do much for me but the ovation at the end was well deserved. I enjoyed the one on Sunday more. Same guys but they talked about pre-release bugs that were hilarious and the Q&A was cool. Plus it was a much smaller and intimate setting which helped. Now I have to play the series again...
Iffy's-
Retro Roadshow- It was cool but not well managed. They should've limited everyone to one item. They tried to get one guy off the stage but he pulled out another game anyway. And when that one kid just talked for 5 minutes before pulling out a cracked, greatest hits Final Fantasy VII and then tried selling it.... Yea that was annoying. I wish they had longer and limited people to 5 minutes. You can tell the store of how you got in a minute and listen to them talk about it for the remainder. I don't want to be a time nazi but that panel could've been a lot better, and I stilled liked it.
Dislikes-
Blizzard- I knew in the back of my head that I was going to be disappointed by their announcement but the big thing about E3 that I always wanted to attend was the conferences by the big companies so I wanted to attend this very badly. I had some weird idea that there was going to be a new franchise along the lines of Diablo or Starcraft but nope. It was a game of a genre that never really interested me based on a franchise that I haven't cared about in a long time. I should've trusted my instincts but oh well. I'm sure plenty of people were truly excited by it but not me.
Overall I wish I did more panels. As far as lines are concerned, besides the Blizzard panel I didn't line up more than a half hour and I made it alright (although Capcom was a close one).
My least favorite was definitely the Mass Effect Retrospective. I expected more, given that it was a main theater event. The only interesting part of the whole thing was the infographic, and you couldn't read half of the text on the screens anyway.