Mr.Farmville

AJ Glasser walks you through the line and around the expo floor of the second annual PAX East show in Boston, Massachusetts. Take notes, swag hunters.

This is my second PAX East and I'm two for two on being Patient Zero of the PAX plague. Thanks for the germs, 2011 Game Developers Conference.

After hacking my way through the media badge line at the North Entrance of the Boston Convention and Exhibition Center, I staked out a place in the queue line (learned my lesson about avoiding keynotes from Warren Spector's PAX Prime). Sadly, I was on the wrong side of a big white wall divvying the "fun" side of the room from the "un-fun" side. I could hear cheering and laughing, so I assume the fun side got more of the augmented reality games and really funny multimedia presentations crafted by PAX organizers to entertain the queue last year.

Once the "doors" opened at 10am (excruciating -- we could see the tps of banners on the other side of the massive ballroom hall), my cohort and I took off for a loop of the show floor. Of course, in the time it took for our side of the line to actually enter the expo floor, the fun side already camped out at all the major demos. Seriously, the lines for L.A. Noire and Portal 2 were already 50+ deep.

One hour in and it looks like the hottest spots* on the floor are the Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic booth/corner, the Guild Wars 2 demo at the Alienware booth, the get-your-picture-taken-with-a-mech exhibit at THQ's booth, and the L.A. Noire demo line. NCsoft tells us that Guild Wars 2 loses some of its demo kiosks after today, so make sure you get your game in early. Be advised that the Old Republic demo is 45 minutes long, so be prepared to spend a LONG time in that line.

At the two hour mark, I realized there wasn't much swag to collect. Savvy marketing types instead require more participation from PAX-goers for anything better than a button: Old Republic only gives out t-shirts if you make it through both line and demo; Shoot Many Robots only starts giving out t-shirts once demo players hit a cumulative kill quota for the day; and Ubisoft has neat Call of Juarez hats that you can only get by signing up to pre-order Call of Juarez: The Cartel from GameStop (first 200 to do so win a $20 gift card to GameStop). I don't mind much -- it's less junk for me to schlep back to San Francisco at the end of the show.

All these events and more are overshadowed by the massive earthquake in Japan this morning. People in line spend time talking about it, tweeting about it, and desperately trying to get in touch with friends or family that may be in regions effected by the quake or resulting tsunamis.

It's time for me to pack it in at the press room and head out for some demos. On my plate today: The Darkness 2 (now with 40 percent more hands-on), the Penny Arcade Interactive Storybook, Hunted: The Demon's Forge, and a BioShock panel I might not make it to on account of crazy-long lines.

Keep up with AJ on her Twitter and keep and keep up with our continuing PAX East coverage here.

*BioShock Infinite has separate floor space at North Entrance, so I don't count it and its mega-huge take-your-picture-with-this-statue attraction.

Source: Daily News from GamePro.com