Starcraft II was pretty sweet. The version they had on display seemed to be just Starcraft 1 running in the Starcraft II engine (there wasn’t that much different from Starcraft 1 yet).

I used Terran vs Zerg and pretty much used the same strategy and process that I would use in Starcraft 1, however a good chunk of the units were different. The animation looked great.

The game was definately early though. Eric and I agree the sensitivity for scrolling was set way too high to an annoyance, it was essentially Starcraft 1, and Greg said he ran into some glitches. Apparently Terrans are a little more powerful in this one, they were able to “Terran Rush” Greg in like 6 minutes.

I’m definitely sold on it though.

LEFT 4 DEAD

This game had a huge lineup (even longer than Starcraft II…) and it was a pretty big blast too. Me and the 4 people I went with played a short co-op session. I was expecting it to be closer to Resident Evil, but it was a lot faster paced. Zombies RUN at you, tons of them. I remember there was this one room where it was just kind of silent in a tight hallway and all of the sudden a crowd of zombies just came straight at us. I had an Uzi though and unloaded on them.

The highlight of the demo was when all 4 of us were in what we knew to be the safe room to end the level (I had seen a few demo plays before ours) when the unexpected happened: A tentacle thing came out of nowhere and pulled Greg’s character out of the room just like a horror movie. Dood, epic. Co-op is awesome.

Wii Music

Have to admit, this was pretty bad. They showed me a drum simulator with the wiimotes, but instead of aiming the wiimote at imaginary drumsets, you would press any combination of the buttons C, Z, A, and B to aim at the various drums and hit them. You would use the Wii Fit Board to use the footpedals. It felt very awkward and weak. The Nintendo guy said “You see? You can have the full drum experience without buying a giant peripheral.” Hmm…let’s see. Rock Band Drums: 70 bucks. Wii Fit Board: 100 bucks. Rock Band Drums: Work Great. Wii Fit Board: Painfully awkward to use. Clear winner here.

Chrono Trigger DS

The quality of this port blows me away. It has the Anime cutscenes from the PS1 version of the game (without any of the load time issues). The Square Enix guy told me the game had perfect sound emulation (I couldn’t hear it for myself on the show floor obviously). The dialogue looked like it was rewritten a little…but it looked better. The touch screen controls feel so natural. Also, the Square Enix guy told me there’ll likely be a pre-order bonus, and that there is a multiplayer mode, but it’s not co-op. (so…versus I’m guessing).

Lord of the Rings: Conquest

There isn’t really anything particularly interesting about this game. It’s a beat-em-up in middle earth. You vs 100s of Orcs. It didn’t feel different from other games of it’s kind. I guess it might be worth a rental.

Mortal Kombat VS DC

Isn’t much to say about this one. Just played a round of it, I was The Joker, Greg was Subzero. One thing weird that this game did was quicktime events…in a fighting game. It felt so out of place it was kind of rediculous. Definately not on the same level as Soul Calibur.

Rayman  Rabbids: TV Party

Didn’t play this one. Was able to see a bunch of people make idiots of themselves though. Observe.

Political Machine 2008

This was an election game (with this particular level) starring Obama..versus an evil Alien on the republican side. It looked like an original quirky game that has a lot of strategy to it, but unfortunately wasn’t very easy to pick up and play.

Puzzle Quest: Galactrix

This game had a comfortably short lineup for, and was pretty fun. I haven’t played the original Puzzle Quest yet, but according to Greg this was essentially the same except the new pieces fall from the points of a circle. It still has attacks and a bejeweled-like puzzle sequence, but with a sci-fi setting instead.

Dragon Age: Origins

This was kind of a weird case. There was a GIANT CASTLE on the show floor, but instead of having a playable demo, the Bioware guys invited you inside, where it was a big theater, and you watched them play the demo. It was pretty sweet, I’m not gonna lie, but a good chunk of the stuff they demoed was some conversation stuff, that we couldn’t hear over the noise, and then they showed some battle stuff, which looked really really fun. The signature Bioware good path/bad path stuff was in there. Cutscenes looked good too. The release is 2009 for PC..so that would probably be interesting.

OTHER GAMES, NOT PLAYED BUT SEEN:

Rock Band 2

Didn’t play it, but I did see it played live on stage alot and I have to say it looks virtually identical to Rock Band, the only way to tell the difference was if they paused it. I did get to play the new drumset though, and the footpedal was reinforced metal and was very nice, and the pads felt like a dream to drum on.

Guitar Hero: World Tour

Blatant rip-off of Rock Band with circles instead of rectangles.

Animal Crossing: City Folk

Actually didn’t bother to play the demo after I saw the guy in front of me play it..it looks way too similar to Animal Crossing. It was kind of gross, actually. I think there’s a city area, but the area I saw was a village that looked exactly like the other Animal Crossing. What’s even more gross is I’m probably gonna get it anyways, cause I’m like that.

Mirror’s Edge

We waited in line 17 minutes for this one just to be turned away cause the floor was closing. We tried to wait in line again, but we’d seen the demo played so many times that it would almost be an injustice to play it at that point. So we gave up and played some other games instead.

Fallout 3

Didn’t see this one, had an awesome booth though.

And..that’s it for the game impressions. I am gonna post a few galleries of various other PAX things though, stay tuned.