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Come Pokéwalk With Me… At PAX East 2010

Prof. Rowan: "Quick! What smells like pizza farts at all times?! PAX East 2010!!!"

OK so PAX East was a total bust! What the fuck, guys? What could’ve been a showcase of imported gaming goods and exclusive merchandise, ended up being a very bad Museum of Science exhibit. That’s a New England joke for ya! Alex said it best. It was for the “gaming community” and that’s pretty much why it was so goddamn lame… and smelly.

I love Magic the Gathering. I’m a complete weirdo for still playing, and loving, Pokémon at my age. But nothing compares to the pure nerd blood flowing in my veins when it comes to slinging cardboard in a damp basement with fellow Planeswalkers. For the life of me I couldn’t find any exclusive pre release cards for the new Rise of the Eldrazi set coming out. I saw an awesome photo booth featuring an excellent looking Eldrazi statue, but no cards. The illustrations booth was neat but nothing stood out. Fail.

Something else that pissed me off, and there was a lot, was all the tables selling MTG boxes, decks, what have you! All SRP and the stations were manned by idiots who didn’t know what they were talking about. Come on… no sales? So what if all the Scourge decks were 5 for 24 bucks! Fail again. Give use some sweet PAX cards with alternate art or something!

Now here’s what really infuriated me. Nintendo’s booth was dick. All they had was Pokémon and Cooking Mama on display. I may be wrong about Cooking Mama. How could Nintendo do this? I love Pokémon, but that’s it?! No new DS games to check out and demo?! What about Ivy the Kiwi?! No Mario or Zelda toys for me to buy?! NO POKEMON MERCH FOR ME TO COLLECT!!!!!! Rage city. I ran into two young lads strapped to the hip with Pokémon dolls. I immediately started grilling them for information. Nothing! They CAME with their OWN Pokémon dolls! God… why must you do this to me? All I wanted was a few Pokémon figurines and MAYBE a stuffed Pikachu.

Maybe we sound like really grumpy cock stains but let me sum up the events of our day. I couldn’t sleep all night because I was too busy making lists of things I wanted to look out for and buy. I was also very excited. Third grade field trip excited. The next morning I felt like shit and looked even worse than shit. I was paler than ever and I had a set of nice raccoon eyes going on. Awful. Paul drove to my house and picked me up around 8:50 a.m. so we could get a 9:16 train. The looks on our faces were priceless. Two childhood friends who spent most of their lives playing N64, Genesis, SNES, and Playstion games at sleepovers. Two young bucks who are such close friends that they didn’t mind watching each other play MGS or FFVII for hours on end. This was going to be the best nerd day of our lives.

We arrive at the awful train station in our hometown that’s located near a fucking river. The relentless wind blasts blowing off the water may have given me ball cancer. The freezing temperature should’ve been a sign of things to come. Freezing and talking about cosplay babes and fat nerds, our train finally arrives. Train smells like ten thousand horse holes.

Fast forward to arriving at PAX East.

As soon as Alex, Paul and myself enter the halls of Kingdom FatStink, I knew exactly where this day was going. Maybe it was the alley of stinky bean bags, also known as Walrus Beach, or maybe it was the awful retro gaming room where you had to wait in line and “swap” games, but this was just uber lame. So fucking wrong. It just looked like everything was throw together half assed. Nothing sparked my interest. Just a ton of stuff and videos I could’ve seen online. Mafia II? Wow… great. Red Dead Redemption? Huh? Saw this shit all online! Nothing really punched me in the gut and said “Pay attention this is awesome!!!” That was until I saw Alex and Paul play Steel Battalion. It was totally rad.

I took pictures while Alex and Paul commanded sweet looking mobile suits. The game looks awesome and I really wish PAX was more fun because if I was jazzed up enough I would’ve jumped into the mobile suit myself. Instead I had to listen to a painfully typical anime nerd-fuck belt out orders to everyone. He was a PAX Enforcer. Also know as a PAXhole. The Gunners were divided into two teams. Team Angry Typical Nerd and Team Jolly Typical Nerd. Team Jolly seemed to be having a blast whereas Team Angry became prisoners of said PAXhole. It was hard to endure his “noob” raging and wannabe Star Wars Rogue Squadron pilot behavior. Then something caught my eye.

Next to me was a docile looking dork beeping away at his Pokéwalker! Score. I brought mine too. Before I left my house I tossed in a Pikachu. Allow me to explain how this little device works.

The Pokéwalker is a way for kids to level up their favorite Pokémon while they are at school or on the go. As you know, schools have a strict policy about bringing handhelds to class. The Pokémwalker, pictured above, is a small device that you can clip onto your pocket or belt. The more you walk the more “watts” you get. Every 20 steps gives you one watt. Watts act as money. The more watts your get the more exclusive Pokémon and routes you can unlock in your Pokéwalker. It’s actually pretty neat.

Another cool aspect is the ability to connect to other Pokéwalkers. This is what I did with that docile nerd. We connected our Pokéwalkers, our Pokémon chatted, and I received a Burn Heal from his dopey Magikarp. Ace! You can get a Pokéwalker with any purchase of Pokémon HeartGold/SoulSilver.

After Paul and Alex finished their battle, we met up with some friends and finally grabbed some lunch at an Irish pub across the convention center. I was so burnt out by the whole experience I considered buying a glass of scotch. Instead we ordered the WORST fried chicken sandwiches on the planet and had to listen to a table full of Red Sox Nation assholes jabber on and on. The best part was going to Best Buy across the street to look at video games instead of PAX East. It was hilarious. More selection and less smells.

Back at PAX we made our final rounds. I found a section selling used video games. I grabbed a copy of Pokémon Diamond from Japan for 20 bucks. Good deal. The manual was ruffled but the box was in good condition and the game plays on my DSlite. It’s a nice novelty item. Other than that there was nothing else worth mentioning. I was hoping for more merch and only got used bullshit. It was extremely disappointing. The fun came after we left PAX and played Just Cause 2 at Alex’s house. It’s a game I thought would be sucky but it looks really, really fun. Hopefully we’ll see a TBB Review. If any of you were expecting us to wet ourselves over PAX East, sorry. It sucked and there’s no possible way for me to defend its suckyness. We all left feeling like we had the flu. In short? Go fuck yourself.

Ladies and Gentlemen I present Kenny G! Thanks for coming to PAX East 2010, everyone!

About Pokémon Trainer Kev

Kev doesn't have time for Ledybas, Skitties, or Wigglytuffs! Pokémon stands for POCKET-MONSTER and none of those jerks qualify. Garchomp and Aggron? Now we're on the same page! Kev remembers his days in Kanto when having an Alakazam meant you were a force to be reckoned with. He's traveled across the land searching far and wide destroying hapless travelers with his level 100 Venusaur and level 100 Empoleon. Energy ball commin' atcha'! Empoleon, use ICE BEAM!!! He's collected and exiled countless Pokémon; trading his worst to idiot children for their Mudkipz. He herd you leikd them. He's even captured every Legendary Pokémon without using master balls and has logged over 300 hours on Pokémon Platinum. Kev eagerly awaits his return to Johto where he will once again prove that he's the very best. The best there ever was!