Just a friendly reminder that the long-awaited Penny Arcade Adventures: On The Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness, Episode One is now available on Xbox Live Arcade. You need to drop everything you’re doing and pick it up now. I just wrapped up the demo and it’s phenomenal. The writing is spot on, the character creation let me easily make a PA-me, and the combat is solid. I haven’t play Final Fantasy 12 but from everything I’ve heard it’s something like that, but with more fruit fucking.

I mean for god’s sake, I can distract the fruit fuckers in combat with an orange …because they’ll start fucking it. Best. 1600 points. Ever.

Child’s Play Annual Charity Dinner Auction is a swanky fundraising gala held each year that benefits sick kids in children’s hospitals all around the world. This year’s festivities managed to raise an astounding $225,000. The first part of the evening includes hors d’oeuvres, wine, and a silent auction while the second half of the evening consists of a delicious sit down dinner paired with a live auction. This formal event is one of my favorite gaming activities to attend each year, primarily because it supports such a worthy cause but also because they have truly phenomenal items to bid on. Plus, you get to dress up which is always fun. (I believe I saw the 8-bit tie on at least three different people.) Continue Reading »

What’cha doing August 29th-31st? Want to hang out with tens of thousands of like-minded geeks? Then get thyself to Seattle to bask in the beauty that is the Penny Arcade Expo.

Their projected attendance for next year is quite ambitious! From the press release:

“There were 4,500 attendees in 2004, 9,500 in 2005, 19,300 in 2006, and 37,000 for 2007. Attendance for the 2008 event is expected to reach forty-seven million bajillion people.”

I didn’t get the chance to attend this past year, and that made me a sad pirate. I hope I can remedy this situation in 2008! Hopefully we’ll see you there!

Full press release after the jump… Continue Reading »

I’m quite sad I had to miss Penny Arcade Expo this year. I was really looking forward to going but enough problems came up (mostly financial) that made me put it off till next year. Which truly sucks, I would’ve had a blast.

Nintendo DS’s as a concert replacement for lighters? That’s all kinds of awesome. Nice work PAX goers, nice work.

With all of the busyness that has been FanExpo and X07 this week, you might think we’d forgotten all about PAX. Well fear not loyal readers, we’re always happy to serve up a heaping helping of the awesome.

This morning’s awesome comes to us courtesy of out new friends over at The Closet Geek Show. CGS’s Brent has posted up an mp3 of this years PAX keynote address, given by Kevin’s own boyhood mancrush Wesley Crusher Wil Wheaton. Wil spends the better part of an hour talking about what it was like to grow up during the golden age of gaming. If you grew up in the days of arcades and Colecovision like I did, it’s one hell of a fantastic trip down memory lane. Wheaton’s a good enough story teller that it’s made me instantly put his autobiography at the top of my Christmas wishlist, right above socks and underwear — because nobody can have enough socks and underwear.

Check out the keynote over at The Closet Geek Show. My favorite part? The fact that he named his Wii “Wii-ton.”

The Penny Arcade Expo is quickly becoming an open-to-the-public E3 replacement. For the 2007 show, not only are all the space for exhibits sold out, but they’ve tripled the number at the expo last year!

The exhibitor list is pretty much a who’s who of quality companies. All the big dogs (Nintendo, Microsoft and Sony) will be there as well as a huge presence from Ubisoft. Others include D3 publishing, Gamecock, Namco, Telltale, Rockstar, Sierra and more.

The E for All expo really has it’s work cut out for it if it’s going to even attempt to compete with the juggarnaut that is PAX. There’s still time to register before the August 24th-26th that the convention will be running. Full press release and exhibitor list… Continue Reading »