I probably will say this every year I attend, but this year’s PAX East was my favorite one yet. The showfloor was excellent, with an amazing selection of the latest titles from both big name developers and indie up and comers. The tabletop and freeplay areas were expanded upon, the panels were enjoyable and entertaining.

Throughout the weekend, and really every PAX East, there’s a feeling of respect and community that I’ve never felt at any other convention. I’ve never made more friends at any other expo or con as I have at PAX East, and year after year I manage to reunite with old friends while making new ones. All of us who attend owe a great debt to those who dedicate their time and energy to making PAX the best it can be year in and year out, including the Penny Arcade staff and the Enforcers, the most dedicated, helpful group of volunteers I’ve ever come across.

I always get a feeling of sadness when I pack my bags, wave goodbye to the BCEC, and leave Boston, and while the PAX experience on the East coast may be over, the memories, souvenirs, beta keys, freebies, new friends, and new favorite games are all things we can connect with and experience everyday. We really bring PAX home with us. And there’s always PAX Prime in the fall.

I hope that those of you attended the convention enjoyed yourself as much as I did. Check out some photos from my time at PAX East after the jump.

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Lawnmower Challenge, another selection for this year’s Boston Indie Showcase at PAX East, has done something interesting: it’s taken a chore that most consider a sweaty nuisance, and turned it into a mind-bending puzzle game.

In Lawnmower Challenge, your quest is simple: mow all the grass. However, these aren’t your average suburban lawns. There are locked gates that can only be unlocked with a key, unmowable sections that need planting, and gates that can only be opened from a certain direction. These all would be simple obstacles to overcome if you weren’t going for a perfect score, as your steps are counted and the fewer you take, the more stars you’ll earn.

Don’t let the simple controls and cute graphics fool you; it’ll take considerable planning to complete each level at three stars.

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Imagine being turned into a jumping bean by an evil wizard, and on top of all that having your girlfriend kidnapped. Worst day ever, right? That’s what our hero, Emilio, is faced with in Bean’s Quest, a bouncing 16-bit platformer included in the Boston Indie Showcase, which will be shown off this weekend at PAX East.

Using the touchscreen controls of your favorite iOS device, you control Emilio as he bounds, bounces, and boings his way through each level, collecting diamonds as well as his missing pet axolotls along the way. Emilio never stops jumping, so all you have to do is move him left or right, but simple controls don’t make this game a breeze.

The difficulty in Bean’s Quest lies not in completing each level, but completing each level under the required number of bounces to obtain a perfect rating. If you’re going for all the diamonds and axolotls as well, it gets even more difficult. I found myself repeating levels over and over to try to get a better score and collect all the goodies, and with 150 levels to traverse, replay level for Bean’s Quest is pretty high.

Bean’s Quest also features an original soundtrack, as well as Game Center integration.

The game is available for iPhone, iPad, and iPod Touch. It’s on sale right now, so jump on over to the iTunes Store and pick it up for $1.99, or check it out on the show floor this weekend at PAX.

PAX East is a week and a half away and if you’re going to the convention now’s really the time to start planning what panels you’ll be attending, which booths you absolutely have to check out, and which musical guests you’ll be rocking out to at the nightly concerts. Luckily, there’s a nifty app called Guidebook, and the guys at Penny Arcade have released an entire digital guide for PAX East, so you’ll be able to plan your entire weekend right on your mobile devices.

Download the app via the appropriate app store and once you’re in, search for the PAX East 2012 guide. It has everything you’ll need to successfully survive PAX East: the entire schedule of panels, concerts, and tournaments, map of the area including restaurants and bars to check out, a full list of all the musical guests, exhibitors, and shuttle schedules to the various hotels and venues. Within the app, you’ll be able to design your own schedule for the convention, add to your “to-do” list, and track the #PAX hashtag on Twitter.

There’s even a section detailing the Boston Indie showcase, a fantastic bunch of games that everyone, attending the convention or not, should check out, since they’re all mobile based.

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If you feel your current XBox console is starting to get a bit long in the tooth and are anxiously waiting for Microsoft to drop some new, shiny hardware goodness, you are going to have to wait a bit longer. Until next year, in fact.

That’s right, Microsoft has confirmed that the next next-gen console, rumored to be called the Xbox 720, will not even be announced or talked about at the 2012 Electronic Entertainment Expo, or “E3″ as we like to call it.

“While we appreciate all the interest in our long-range plans for the future, we can confirm that there will be no talk of new Xbox hardware at E3 or anytime soon,” the company said in a statement. “For us, 2012 is all about Xbox 360-and it’s the best year ever for Xbox 360. The console is coming off its biggest year ever-a year in which Xbox outsold all other consoles worldwide.”

Well, that’s nice for Microsoft. We’re glad they feel the XBox 360 is still a great gaming platform. In fact, it really is. It still manages to offer a lot to gaming developers and the games still look pretty darn good when played on it.

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This year’s Boston Indie Showcase, the impressive list of independent games featured at PAX East in April, is a bit different than in years past- because the games are all mobile based, we’ll all be able to play most of them before the show even happens. Pretty cool, right? Here’s the first of the Boston Indie Showcase that I’ve tried out for myself, a word game that goes beyond Scrabble and Boggle.

SpellTower is like Words with Friends meets word searches, and will appeal to anyone who loves any kind of word puzzles. It’s a pretty simple concept: create words using the letters you’re given. In Tower Mode, you’ll only get 100 letters, but as much time as possible to rack up as many points as you can. In Puzzle Mode, a row is added for each word you make. Rush Mode is timed, meaning the quicker you create words, the longer you’ll survive. Words can be created diagonally, backwards, and even overlap, so you can really get creative in how you form words and clear the board.

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Sony released its newest console, the Playstation Vita, into the wild today. I got my hands on the console about a week ago, and after some quality time with the system I’m ready to deliver a verdict. Whether you’re thinking about picking up the device today or sometime down the road, read on to hear all about the Vita and what this tiny portable can deliver.

Design

Physically, the device doesn’t look very different from the PSP, but it is much improved. Rounded corners and edges make the Vita fit comfortably in your hands, and the smooth, flat touchscreen on the back is comfortable to rest your hands on. The Vita has the standard controls we’re used to from Sony: left and right triggers, D-pad, circle x triangle and square buttons, and volume buttons on the top of the device.

The big addition is the two, very nice left and right analog sticks that are a huge improvement over the PSP. Another welcome addition is the inclusion of a power button, instead of the power switch on the side of the PSP that I would constantly accidentally hit and turn off the device at pivotal moments in games. The Wi-Fi switch has been removed in favor of an option to turn wireless on or off in the menu.

Sony has done away with UMD discs, in favor of very small, proprietary game cartridges.So far, it seems that purchasing the games via the Playstation Store is the better option, considering there’s a 10% discount for buying digital and by downloading the games you don’t risk losing the incredibly tiny catridges you would get by purchasing a physical copy. Storage is yet again proprietary, and we can’t say we’re surprised about that.

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Angry Birds may be a simple game, but with over 12 million downloads on the App Store alone, it’s the biggest name in mobile gaming. Which is why I’m really excited to learn that the newest version of the high-flying poultry puzzle game will be in space.

That’s right, Angry Birds Space. SPACE. I LOVE space.

The game’s developer, Rovio, has posted a website for the game, with an image of a slingshot on the moon and the words “One small fling for a bird, one quantum leap for birdkind” underneath.

Thinking about it, Angry Birds is a game about physics and gravity. Knocking down different pieces of the environment is key to finishing levels and obtaining high scores. So introducing zero-gravity into a game based around gravity is going to put an entirely new spin on it, and I think it’s a great way to take this already fantastic game to new heights (literally).

Angry Birds Space launches March 22nd. While you wait, you can check out Rovio’s website where you can download a new wallpaper and watch the teaser trailer after the jump.

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Sony’s newest handheld, the Playstation Vita, doesn’t launch officially in the US until February 22nd, but if you’re one of the antsy few like myself who just needed to get your hands on  just a bit earlier than its official US Launch date, the “First Edition” bundle was available for sale yesterday if you preordered. Before I write up my full review on the Vita, I wanted to share my initial reactions to the system, especially for those of you who are still on the fence about picking it up next week.

First things first- the Vita is beautiful, both asthetically and physically. I love the way this device looks, and I LOVE the way it feels in my hands. The 5 Inch OLED screen obviously makes the Vita easy on the eyes, and games look great. I’ve never found myself questioning how much better this looks than the PSP- it’s astounding how much power they’ve packed into this thing, without making it very heavy or cumbersome.

If you’re a veteran of the PSP, or any Sony system really, the Vita is easy enough to pick up and play. They’vre rearranged some buttons, which I really appreciate, as the volume and start buttons on the PSP were too low for me to reach comfortably before. The biggest change has been the addition of a second analog stick. I cannot stress how much better these analog sticks are than the PSP’s, which I had break on me multiple times on multiple PSPs.

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With Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 , hitting this week the anticipation is almost palpabile. People across the internet are clamoring for just about any information available to the game. We know we at The Flickcast are anxiously looking forward to tonight at midnight to get our hands on it. But, until then, we are going to share this behind the scenes video from our friends at Activision that explains both the Facebook and Elite integration in to the game.

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 will tie directly in to player’s Facebook friends list. This is the first triple A title to allow for this level of social networking communication that will allow players to look directly at their friends list from the game browser and hop in to games using their Facebook friends. This is going to be a great resource as not a lot of people post their gamer tag to Facebook but almost certainly everyone on Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 multiplayer is going to link their game to their Facebook so they can partied up that much easier with all their friends.

We also get to take a look further into the three pillars of Elite with Connect, Compete and Improve. One of the most drastic improvements looks to be the 100 person clan structure which has been added to the game. Clans can take on Clan Operations and level up the entire clan as a whole. Competition looks to heat up as well with the inclusion of both real and digital prizes in Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3.

Keep your eyes peeled for any last minute news before Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3′s midnight release tonight and check out the full behind the scenes video below.

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What can a series do after destroying Washington DC? Attacking New York City, Paris and London might be a good way to kick things off. Russian Ultranationalist Vladimir Makarov is at it again with his master plan in full effect. After sending the world to the brink of chaos two years ago in Modern Warfare 2, Makarov is back as he kicks off the third world war. Captain John “Soap” MacTavish and SAS Captain John Price must come together again to stop him in Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3.

To say Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 is the most anticipated game of all time may sound like hyperbole but after what happened with Call of Duty: Black Ops, the game that people expected would sell less than Modern Warfare 2, the level of hype behind this title is unreal.

After its predecessor set worldwide entertainment sales figures, the rest of the video game world has its sights set on Call of Duty’s spot at the top. Even its closest competitor, Battlefield 3 has directly stated its intentions with a tag line to their advertising campaign trying to knock Call of Duty down a peg.

Take a peek below at the trailer for what could be again the biggest entertainment launch in history on November 8th for the XBox 360, PlayStation 3, Nintendo Wii, Nintendo DS and PC.

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Sure, the Avatar Marketplace isn’t really meant for the hardcore gamers out there, or those who would remember a movie as far back as 1987, but this marketing plan is definitely one for kids of all ages.

Starting tomorrow, August 25th, you can suit up as your favorite Detroit city android policeman RoboCop as a full collection of RoboCop-themed attire makes its way to the Avatar Marketplace.

Go as simple (and bad ass) as dressing up in the full RoboCop suit and upholding your own version of “the law” against your XBox Live friends. Or you can go a little simpler, by just donning the helmet, or wearing a retro OCP t-shirt. How about an obscure “I’D BUY THAT FOR A DOLLAR” shirt or even a pet ED-209?

There’s just about something for every fan of the original RoboCop series in there.

Check out the official trailer for the collection after the jump, and be sure to grab these for a few simple Microsoft Points starting tomorrow, August 25th.

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