I awoke at 9:30 and checked out of my hotel room first thing. Happily, my kind hosts allowed me to keep my excess luggage there until my airport shuttle arrived to pick me up. So I once again grabbed my green messanger bag and headed off to the convention center. First stop: The Expo Hall, which had not yet opened. A line had formed at its hallowed doors, and we were quickly led into the hall. I took this opportunity to play two songs in Guitar Hero 4. I rocked to "The Joker" and "Livin' on a Prayer" with the lead and bass guitar parts, respectively. I asked the guy who played drums whether he liked them more than Rock Band's. He said yes, but that the drums in Guitar Hero 4 seemed more difficult.

I watched with horror as the next band attempted Muse's "Assassin," which makes "Knight of Cydonia" look like child's play. So that was fun. Then I played "Iron Chef America" for the Wii. You chop, stir, flip, grate, and add garnish using the Wii Remote. And here's the scary part: It's surprisingly fun and engaging. Next stop: Sega's booth, where there were lines for every game except Dinosaur King, a Pokemon game with...wait for it...scientifically accurate dinosaurs. Well, not so much accurate in that the tyrannosaurs are breathing fire, but in terms of gross anatomy. It was wonderful. My Triceratops totally beat my opponent's Kentrosaurus with some kind of a high-flying flip. The Sega exec assured me that many kinds of dinosaurs were represented in the final game, including Carnotaurus. This excited me. It's also worth mentioning that the battles take place in 3D, and it's damn good 3D.

Again, I tried without success to play THE CONDUIT, but I watched a few more people play. It borrows a little bit from Halo in that the main weapon is essentially an energy pistol, and you can only have two weapons at a time. Lots of people were chucking grenades, and I noticed that grenades have a real bounce to them, and rarely landed where intended. Maybe it was just a rush-job demo. Let's hope so, because as it stands, THE CONDUIT looks a little green around the gills.

Do people even say "green around the gills" anymore?

After eating pizza for lunch, I went and sat in on Family Feud: PAX Edition! It was very funny. 150 audience members were polled for the questions, and two teams had to guess what the most popular answers were. I only sat in on the last half-hour, but I thoroughly enjoyed it. What was the first video game console you played? Most popular answer: NES. Least popular answer: Sega Master System. Other answers included Commodore 64, SNES, and PS1. What do you do when the electricity goes out? Most popular answer: Play a handheld! Least popular answer: Pleasure yourself. Other answers included reading, drinking, and staring at the wall or crying. Very funny. Right after that was a 2nd Q&A session with Tycho and Gabe. It wasn't very long, but those are some funny guys! I asked when the PA figurines are coming out, and Gabe said they're looking for a sculptor, but we should expect them soon. They're also changing publishers from Dark Horse to Random House for the PA collection books. The next one should hit early '09.

Then it was time for the Spore screening! Spore looks awesome. The creator engine is f*cking insane, as many of you already know. The exec showed us a Yoda creature. It looked just like Yoda. You start out as a little one-eyed bacteria swimming around and eating plant or animal matter. You find a mate, make an egg, and then get to select a new adaptation for the baby. You then play as the baby, and this process continues for about fifteen to twenty minutes. What you eat and what adaptations you choose will have consequences in the Creature phase. For example, if you had spikes on your head in the bacteria phase, you will enter the Creature phase with the ability to headbutt enemies. The growth process is similar in the Creature phase, but you can now cause other species to go extinct.

After the Creature phase, you graduate to the Tribe phase, at which point my interest began to wane. Because you now manage an entire tribe of critters, you have to do a lot more micromanagement. Menus take on new importance. I can only imagine that the next two phases, Society and Space, involve even more micromanagement. It looks great for the ability to craft your own monster (I'd like to build some beasties from the book Expedition by Wayne Douglass Barlowe) but I don't want to hold society's hand. When you cross from adventure game to sim game, I say "meh." Still, you have to appreciate the sheer scope of Spore. It really is like nothing else that's come before.

After that, I took a break from the expo and headed out to Zanadu, a comic shop not too far from the convention center. I found some books for the flight home and a kickass statue of Brandy from my favorite comic, Liberty Meadows (cost a pretty penny, though). Then I walked Brandy back to the hotel because I didn't want to be dragging her everywhere I went. By the time I got back there, I was tired and cranky, so I picked up my baggage and poster and waited for the airport bus. It arrived quickly, and would you believe that I got a much earlier flight into town? I was so happy.

Overall, PAX was fun, and I'm glad I went, but unless they find a bigger venue next year, I don't think I'll be going back. You gotta go once, though, right? And hey, I met one of my readers, which is cool.