​PAX Prime 2011 is well over a week old, and yet, we've still got a teensy bit of coverage that has yet to flood into the mainstream. At Activision's PAX preview session -- where steak and potatoes were graciously and generously served -- I got a chance to handle the upcoming kids title, Skylanders: Spyro's Adventures with a producer of the game. Yep, it's a spin-off of that venerable Spyro franchise. And yep, I had to set my beer down for it.More >>

​Virtua Fighter 5 was released in North America back in 2007. That was a really long time ago in this industry, especially for fighting games, which usually receive an update every two years or so.More >>

​Despite vocal support from certain members of Joystick Division, PAX East is no longer the PAX to beat, at least attendance-wise. PAX Prime has reclaimed that prize thanks to a larger, sweatier, and more undulating mass of game fans, shameless costume enthusiasts, and the mustachioed men that love (or at least leer creepily at) them.More >>

​At PAX 2010, FireFall had a modest booth in the center of the expo hall and generally positive buzz. The game was announced on the show floor and promised a free to play, open world experience similar to Borderlands. I covered it, and found that it showed a lot of promise.More >>

This man wasn't at PAX, but look at that fine thing!

​PAX is a community event. It's all about gamers of any age, race, and creed getting together and talking about how excited they are for the next year of bountiful ludic experiences. More >>

​I had a long discussion with a friend at PAX Prime 2011, over beers and calamari, concerning the games that really revolutionized and championed the popularization of Xbox Live Arcade. Shadow Complex was a definite first to come up. Trials HD was a quick second. The game was fuckin' hard and fabulously entertaining, and turned eyes toward the oft-neglected portion of the Xbox Live interface.More >>

This is the Gunzerker. He has guns and he 'zerks.

​Despite some rather glaring flaws in its structure, Gearbox's Borderlands was pretty great. It garnered a heavy cult following, had a vibrant visual style, and kind of expanded the dungeon-crawler/RPG genre into the world of first-person shooters. But those glaring wrinkles didn't smooth out because of popularity -- the cooperative interface and execution faltered in many places, while a quickly-plateauing narrative made the excitement grow thin in the waning hours of play. They marred what could've been a holistically fantastic experience.More >>

​Black Knight Sword was announced at Gamescom and it's one of those odd games that plays really well, but doesn't initially look like much. That's not to say "it's more than the sum of its parts", because it's a mostly routine sidescrolling action game, but there's a certain charm to it that I'm not sure how to feel about.More >>

​Battlefield 3's marketing campaign has put heavy, heavy emphasis on multiplayer. That's very obviously its main selling point, and the facet of its package that it is displaying to try and hunt down and capture Call of Duty fans. E3 had seven-hour lines for twenty minutes of play. It has been very prominent across the web.

But PAX brought us a new face of Battlefield 3 -- another portion of gameplay that has yet to be experienced. It's the co-op. The Battlefield 3 booth at PAX Prime 2011 was loaded with LCDs supporting two-player cooperative play. And I got to spend many, many minutes blazing through the map.

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​It seems like Guild Wars 2 has been in production for a surprisingly long time, and it appears that the game is using every available second to create an experience that's familiar, but also very different and unique. More >>