I have never been to a gathering that made me happier than PAX.  I had no idea how much I needed something like this until I was actually there.  This past weekend wasn’t about me seeing games so I could talk about them on a podcast and it wasn’t about me talking to developers.  What it was about is being around 60,000 people who share the same interests and who all have something to talk to one another about.  I made a ton of friends just waiting in line for panels and playing games on the show floor.  I have never been so happy to talk to strangers in my entire life (the stranger danger campaign scared me as a child).

I have a slew of pictures that will get posted over the next week once I recover from this evil plague I have.  For now just know that if you are on the fence about attending a PAX of any kind you should just do it.  Do it now.  Book your flight, train, hitching route, or family friend to drive you around.  Wil Wheaton probably summed this all up beset during his panel when he discussed how he really did feel at home at PAX.  This is what many of us want every day to be like but at least we can have our one or two weekends every year.

I’ll post more in the next few days about the games that I saw but know that little games like Shank and Deathspank should be on your radar.  You should also know that ODST and Left 4 Dead 2 are exactly what you are expecting them to be and if you aren’t playing Beatles Rock Band in between paragraphs of this post you are out of your damn mind.  Also, if you didn’t already know about it check out the card game Munchkins.  It was introduced to me at PAX and it’s awesome.   I can say with certainty though that these games are not the reason I came home from PAX so incredibly happy, it was instead all of the people I met and talked to over the course of the weekend.

I’m going to try and get my good friend Dan back on a short show this week to talk a bit about what we saw at the show (he was my man date for the weekend…..DIVORCE!).  Your regularly scheduled podcast will absolutely return next week and with it the reading and answering of all your wonderful listener mail.  Keep an eye on my twitter as well as the SOC twitter account for a way to win a PAX T-shirt or a Beatles T-shirt for your Xbox Live Avatar too!

The Nintendo 64 put out some stellar titles, including several in Metacritic’s all-time high for best games. BK and BK2 rank 92 and 90, respectively. Having never touched the games back when they were on that system, I have to say that they have really aged well. I’ve often heard reviewers and gamers calling Rare out for including so many shiny objects to collect, but I have to say that it really soothes the consumer whore in me for a game’s sole purpose to be hording baubles. The naysayers have used the term “collectathon,” and it’s no less apt here, but I don’t use it pejoratively.

The second game in the series includes something that I’ve never seen in a game before. When starting, the Bird and Bear team retain ALL of their moves earned during the first game. The sequel introduces lots of new moves to keep it fresh, all while keeping the controls simple enough to still be enjoyable. New things include new types of ammo (ice, fire, explosive, homing and remote-controlled), new footwear (wall-climbing, super-mega-ultra-hyper jumping), and transformations (washing-machine, armored car, two sizes of T-Rex, submarine) and still keeps up with all of the fourth-wall breaking jokes.

I haven’t yet finished the game, so I’ll hold off on scores or anything else (in case there is a totally bullshit end boss like in the first one), but if you ever enjoyed Mario 64, you owe it to yourself to try out a game that beats Mario at his own game.