PAX Through the Eyes of a Newb

After E3 went down with the equivalent of a reality changing K.O. punch to the head, I found myself on uncertain ground for the first time in a long time. After six or seven E3's, I'd grown used to the hellish wasteland of the conference, massive crowds and overworked hours and all. The idea of something different, of change, made me uncomfortable, but none-the-less excited. I began looking for a replacement, heading to PAX on the last minute, press pass in hand, carrying a writing pen that could theoretically act as a defensive tool if needed. I had no idea what to expect, but never in my life did I expect what I found. Before this weekend, I'd never had to dodge a large blue ball while a thousand people, packed shoulder to shoulder, all screamed, "Hail the ball!"

But that's a story I'll get to in a second.

What I found was Dead Rising:

It was not E3. The halls of the Meydenbauer where PAX was held this year were filled shoulder to shoulder with people, far more packed than E3 ever was. Their building had become too small, and as the crowd gathered outside the main theater to see the keynote address all I could think about was Dead Rising. From the second story, the flood of people looked eerily zombie-like, a mass of human bodies all sort of milling about aimlessly. If things did go bad, I realized, my writing pen would never get the job done. There were no benches to pull from the ground to use as weapons, either, only giant bean bag chairs scattered all throughout the complex. They didn't have enough mass to make a good weapon, as someone proved moments later by throwing one off the third story onto the waiting crowd. It didn't kill anyone, thankfully, but there was lots of screaming.

I noticed something odd; PAX had one of the few crowds in the world that had more Nintendo DS's than cell phones. For better or worse, I found myself shoulder-to-shoulder in the very heart of the crowd. The energy was infectious, and there wasn't a video game publisher in sight yet. As one of the milling crowd, I began to feel more secure... at least, until the first person, a guy in a PAX tee-shirt, went to the ground holding his head. "The Ball" had arrived, and it began one of the most bizarre games of pinball I've ever seen. During an earlier event, the crowd had been encouraged to bounce around the equivalent of giant beach balls. One of them made it into the crowd, and suddenly 1000 people were trying to hit the ball from the bottom floor balcony to the third story balcony. If you weren't paying attention and it hit you in the head, it hurt. I imagine it's much how those little rodents feel, the ones in the game arcades that you hit on the head with the paddle when they pop out of the hole. Pretty soon people were chanting to the ball, and for the rest of the show, the ball was worshipped. For better or worse, PAX is certainly not E3.