PAX Aus is over again for another year. It simultaneously feels like it was an eternity and over in the blink of an eye, leaving you feeling a little empty inside. But it’s no fun to dwell on the fact that Australia’s biggest gaming convention is over for another year. So, instead, Rohan and I will be reminiscing about all the awesome things we got to experience at PAX Aus 2024!
Tom: I’ll be the first to admit that after the stressful experience of having a media pass for PAX Aus 2023, I was hesitant to do it again. I remembered the constant press emails and the anxiety-induced panic from writing so many articles (some of which came out a month or two after the convention). But I eventually decided to give it another go, and this was a much better experience.
Leading up to the show, I actually communicated properly about sharing the workload with my partner in crime, Rohan (shocker that communication skills are important with this type of thing), so I wasn’t as burnt out heading into the weekend. It also helped that I didn’t go crazy with articles, picking two games and some trading card games (TCGs) to write about, and that was it. Using the media hour effectively this year and getting most of the writing done during breaks from walking the show floor has made this PAX Aus way more manageable.
Enough of the work side of things; what did I enjoy about the convention? For starters, I loved getting the chance to play Sonic X Shadow Generations. It was the first thing I played during the media hour, and I loved every second. I also tried out Metaphor: ReFantazio at the SEGA booth, and it was an interesting experience. I definitely need to play longer than 20 minutes to grasp it fully, but I enjoyed what I played. I was still a bit disappointed that Assassin’s Creed Shadows was unable to make an appearance, but it wasn’t the end of the world.
On the tabletop side of things, I really enjoyed Lorcana. In the lead-up to PAX, nearly every press email mentioned Lorcana in some capacity, which made me feel obligated to check it out. So, on Saturday, my Sister, my Brother-in-law, one of our friends and I all sat down and tried it out. It was surprisingly easy to learn, and although I lost to my Brother-In-Law (barely, I might add), I still bought a couple of booster packs to start my own Lorcana collection.
Besides games, I spent a bit more time in panels this year. I went to the Penny Arcade Q & A panel like I do every year (if you are at any PAX Aus, you should too), and it was entertaining as always. They were celebrating the 20th birthday of PAX and held numerous giveaways during the panel. Everything from throwing shirts into the crowd (with a design that most definitely infringed on copyright), giving away a gaming mouse for embarrassing stories, and even winning a headset for the best pick-up line was great!
Other panels I went to included one all about being able to fix video game villains. The panel was set up like a courtroom, with the panelists defending villains and arguing that they could be fixed. This was hilarious and a major highlight for me (there were a lot of deadbeat dads on trial). The coolest panel, though, was the Triple Kill Heavy Metal Power Panel on a Friday night. It was a heavy metal show mixed with a presentation that was entertaining and informative. I might be biased because I’m related to the band’s bass player, but it was a great time (if only a little late with the midnight finish). They also raised over $2,000 for the Black Dog Institute, which you love to see.
All in all, I had a great time at PAX Aus 2024, and my previous fears of getting burnt out again are long gone. I’ll definitely be back next year to do it all again.
Rohan: Like Tom said above, I was a little skittish about returning to PAX Aus after last year. I didn’t have to handle as much of the press work as Tom last year, so I picked up a bit more of the slack this year, although now that we both knew what we were in for, it seemed a bit more manageable. I was happy that there wouldn’t be any video content this year, which Tom and I agreed to very early on so we could focus solely on the written content that’s up on the site now.
I was quite excited to check out all the indie games again this year and managed to get some more hands-on time with more games than I did last year. I even managed to check out a couple of returning games from last year that I didn’t manage to play the first time around. I managed to get to a couple of panels, with a memorable one being “But I Can Fix Him: Putting video game villains on trial. This panel was all about defending wanting to date/romance/bone(?) the most evil, charismatic villains during which I learnt a lot about myself, including a couple of interesting matters to discuss with my therapist at some point. Also, it turns out that if I’m hot and a good papa then I can get away with pretty much anything so… note that down I guess?
Overall, planning this year was a lot better on our end and using the media room during the show to write, edit and generally destress when it gets too much trying to move around the show floor when people are just standing around going absolutely nowhere when all I want to do is get some food without having to run an obstacle course dodging people and their massive props.
It was also great to see the Black Dog Institute having a booth at the convention and from all accounts on the last day of the convention, they had a great response over the weekend with the operators being surprised by the sheer number of people that came past to donate, buy merchandise or just finding out what Black Dog is all about which has to be a positive for mental health awareness and hopefully led some people to give pause for thought about their mental health.
So yeah, PAX was a lot of fun this year and I’m counting down the days until I can jet across the country again to play games.
And that’s all folks from PAX Aus 2024 from us at Couch Soup. Thanks for reading our coverage, and if you’ve liked what you’ve seen, consider becoming a member to stay up to date on all of our future convention coverage!
Did you go to PAX Aus? What did you think? Did you have a favourite game? Let us know in the comments where we can talk about all things PAX Aus 2024.
