I had the opportunity to try Gamecock’s Velvet Assassin in an appropriately dark, curtained back room at this year’s PAX 08. After all, the game’s tagline is, “Battles are won on the fronts but wars are won in the shadows.”

In Velvet Assassin the protagonist is Violette Summer, a British secret agent in World War II Europe, who begins the game in a hospital in a comatose state as “death dances upon the ruin of her life”.

The gameplay consists of flashbacks of former sabotage missions behind Nazi lines. Some of these missions are actually based on real-life events from World War II.

From the portion I played, you’ll spend a lot of time going through dark corridors armed with

I believe that I promised a follow-up about Dragon Age: Origins, a soon-to-be released game from EA and Bioware. I briefly mentioned in another article that the Bioware booth was devoted to Dragon Age: Origins, and it was completely enclosed. PAX attendees had to wait in line to enter into a miniature movie theater that was designed to look like a medieval dungeon, only with a large LCD screen.

Much of what I saw on the on-screen demo was…

As I write this, I am waiting in line for the keynote speaker, Ken Levine, who is not in the picture. This picture above shows what the line to the keynote looks like from my point of view. I would like to do my best to summarize what I have seen at PAX so far, in no particular order…

Cryptic Studios was in a party mood on Friday night (August 29, 2008) of PAX, hosting a big shindig at Seattle’s Public Library. Since Cryptic was celebrating the soon-to-be released Champions Online, there were superheroes present.

I learned a lot about the Champions Online game. At first I was wondering how it was different from City of Heroes, a game also designed by Cryptic. I discovered that Champions Online does some things that City does not…

For those of you who don’t know who Ken Levine is, he is the founder and creative director of 2K Boston, and the keynote speaker for the 2008 Penny Arcade Expo. His impressive resume consists of System Shock 2, the Freedom Force series, Tribes: Vengeance and, of course, Bioshock.

I was not certain what to expect when Ken Levine took the stage, but the last thing I was expecting was his autobiography. Not only that, he talked about his adolescence and how he “wanted to have sex with the Scarlet Witch”. (This is not an actual quote, as I am censoring how he actually phrased it.)

Levine went on to explain how his love for comic books, video games, and other science fiction made him feel like a nerd to the other kids. However, he eventually found his “Tribe” in a group who played Dungeons and Dragons. Unfortunately, as his friends grew up, they became more interested in women than dice, and his group broke apart…

As you might know, I am here at the Penny Arcade Expo here in Seattle. I am quite excited to see the lineup, and I have had a chance to preview a brand-new, unreleased game before the Expo has even begun. Independent gaming company Hidden Path invited me to a sneak peek at their newest game: Defense Grid: The Awakening.

What I played, I liked. Defense Grid: The Awakening is a game that is best described as “tower defense”. The basic premise is that you are at an abandoned base that is being invaded by hordes of aliens, and the only way to stop them is to raise up weapon towers to exterminate them.

Click through for more Defense Grid: The Awakening impressions…

Gamecock has also announced a list of the five games it will be displaying at Penny Arcade Expo (PAX) 2008, which runs from August 29-31, 2008. It has a pretty well rounded display set up, featuring games for the Xbox 360, DS, Wii and PC. So only Sony system owners will feel left out if they drop by Gamecock’s booth. (Don’t worry Sony fans! Gamecock is working on PS3 versions of some of the games displayed at PAX 2008.)

While Gamecock has an admirable game display set up, you won’t be able to actually play all of the titles – one (Velvet Assassin) will only shown in presentations by Replay Studios developers. Still, with four games to enjoy, you’ll want to stop by and play a demo or two.

The games appear at the event are as follows…

With the Penny Arcade Expo (PAX) 2008 starting today (August 29, 2008), its only natural that attending game companies displayed game lists are forming. One of the latest game lists is from Destineer, which has revealed the nine games it will be showing at the event. The bulk of Destineer’s showings are DS titles, but there also a few Xbox 360 and Wii games at the event.

All of Destineer’s displayed games will be playable, so you’ll want to stop by. The games appear at the event are as follows…

Besides gawking at the original BatCopter while at the Ohio State Fair (July 29 through August 9, 2008), I also ran through the Dell/Intel “Extreme Gaming Tour” booth. According to the schedule on the official Extreme Gaming Tour site, the booth has since traveled across country and will be at the Penny Arcade Expo in Seattle, WA, this weekend (August 29-31, 2008).

The “booth” is actually a fancy RV with a tent extended from the side with a bunch of Intel-powered Dells set up (check out the far shot in the Photo Gallery). There were about a dozen gaming rigs set up under the tent to…

Sega’s going to be showing up at the Penny Arcade Expo 2008 (PAX) that’s happening the last weekend in August, and they decided to prepare attendees by revealing its game lineup for the event. DS, PS2 and PS3 owners will be happy with the company’s offerings, as Bleach Dark Souls, Dinosaur King, Sonic Chronicles: The Dark Brotherhood, Valkyria Chronicles and Yakuza 2 will be on display.

So really, Sega’s going to use the event to show off some solid RPGs. Dinosaur King is a Pokemon-esque game for the DS, where you find fossils and create dinosaurs, and battle others who do the same. Sonic Chronicles is the DS Sonic the Hedgehog RPG from BioWare. Valkyria Chronicles is a PS3 strategic RPG with water-color style graphics that is receiving quite a bit of buzz. The other two titles being displayed, both sequels, are something special too, though…