I recently had the opportunity to attend PAX East for the first time. The event was packed and a riot of colors, games and people.

To give you an idea of how crowded it was (besides these crazy pictures), I really wanted to play The Last of Us demo, but the line was already hours long at 10:20 AM… ten minutes before the show floor actually opened up! Luckily, the line for the DuckTales was much shorter.

PAX East had multiple sections, including a massive table top gaming area, a console and PC gaming area, the expo floor and an Indie game section. The indie games section was my favorite, filled with innovative and experimental games by developers creating games that they themselves actually wanted to play. Some of my favorites were Guacamelee, Transistor and Secret Ponchos.

Secret Ponchos: Indie Gold!

Secret Ponchos stole my heart as a quirky little spaghetti western top-down shooter with awesome music, lush art and a simple premise: this town ain’t big enough for the both of us. The game really gave me the feel of the old Westerns, as I hid behind a wagon and reloaded my gun, praying that the other outlaw was far enough away for my melee to recharge. I spoke with Eduardo Echeverria, the interface developer, who told me that the game will allow you to customize your character as you gain a reputation, essentially allowing you to create your own outlaw. He also revealed that they are developing a female character. Check her out on the far right and check out my preview article for more information on Secret Ponchos.

Saints Row 4: The Darling of PAX East

Of the big name games, Saints Row 4 promises to be the most outrageous, with a gun that allows you to dubstep people to death and the admission that there would have been a dragon you could ride if they’d had enough time to fit it into the game.

Players control the President of the United Saints (which you can import from your old game save) and must battle evil aliens in a computer generated world using only their super powers and wits. And guns. And monster trucks. Etc., etc., etc.

Check out my preview article for more information about the upcoming sequel to Saints Row the Third.

Panels, Parties and More

Besides the show floor and gaming areas there were also more panels than you could shake a stick at! Check :23 seconds in to see my lovely face at the TGS Podcast panel, for example. There were also parties like the one Twitch hosted and fun hangouts like the BioWare Base.

Despite the lack of many big name game releases, I still had a great time at PAX East and can’t wait to return to PAX Prime!