The second official day of Penny Arcade Expo 2010 was arguably my favorite of the convention. While swag hunting took a bit of a dive, I managed to see a bunch of cool costumes. I also had the opportunity to attend both the Sega and Splatterhouse parties during the evening.

Two zombies waiting for the Halo: Reach panel

A cool Tokidoki backpack

Prinny, dood...ette!

The Rock Band stage on the second floor

Portal and Katamari cosplayers puzzling attendees

The MMORPG Lego Universe

I'll just say that I sucked at F1 2010

Lord of the Rings: Viggo Mortensen's Quest was fairly average for a Wii action game. Beside the tutorials, each level is presented as a story told by Sam Gamgee to some hobbit children. During training sequences, you play as a young hobbit. A second player can join in during these sequences as a little hobbit girl pretending to be Gandalf. My biggest complaint was the inability to skip CG cutscenes. That would have really sped up the demo line.

Residents of Rapture

Lord of the Rings: War in the North really surprised me, and I'd even say that it was the best non-playable demo that I saw at PAX. It's basically a three player version of loot-focused hack-and-slash titles like Champions of Norrath and Kingdom Under Fire: Circle of Doom. The story expands on the lore of Middle-earth, with grittier violence like in the books. Hopefully the next convention I attend will have a version that's playable by attendees.

A Black Mage was put into a trance while watching the War in the North presentation

I unfortunately never got a chance to try F3AR, which looked interesting when I glimpsed at it

My second game of Mortal Kombat ended with me performing a Fatality on Sub-Zero

I lost interest in Sonic's video games ever since Sonic Adventure. Sonic the Hedgehog 4 brought back fond memories of the Genesis days. I have no huge complaints after running through the first level. Actually, the targetting system that allows Sonic to home in on enemies was kind of unnecessary, but I don't see it as anything that would ruin the game.

EA pasted photos of the best Medal of Honor players on this wall

Sketch artists crank out illustrations underneat an Epic Mickey video presentation

Lilith couldn't Phasewalk past my camera lens

Instructors who taught attendees the rules of the collectible card game based on World of Warcraft

Sora's grown while waiting to star in Kingdom Hearts 3

A nice assortment of Super Mario Bros. cosplayers

Frank West woke up, put on his mask, and headed to PAX

A Daft Punk cosplayer

Peter Pan samples Deca Sports Freedom at Hudson's booth

A woman at D3 handing out free candy

This 8-bit Link was a female fan

Tuyen was drafted by Mega 64 in their quest to win the Super Scribblenauts DSi systems

Ryu (who is apparently a cosplayer named Ken) and Juri posing by Capcom's exhibit

Morgan Webb taking a break from filming at Bethesda

The hidden level of PAX was devoted to tabletop, miniature, and card-based gaming

Trying to start a career as a dragon slayer

One of Jabba's Twi'lek dancers

A Moogle girl

The Spy from Team Fortress 2

Who doesn't love bacon?

Roll kept Udon's booth nice and tidy

Lightning is about to strike

Psylocke of the X-Men

If you were one of the first 20 people to post a picture of Kit online, you'd win Blade Kitten

Another shot showing the progress on the Metroid drawing

The Intel prize patrol spotted me, and my redemption card won me a free pen

I liked Little Big Planet 2 better when it was called Mario... and when it was good

Zombie Smurfette

Kasumi finds solace at PAX after being kicked out of her village

The Machinima booth

A pixelated dude

Three Mad Catz employees pose for a photo

The Mafia 2 exhibit at 2K Games

Two characters promoting Wakfu

Lightning strikes twice

A large 3D TV at NVIDIA's booth

An orange Spartan

Ulala towered over most of the people at PAX

One of the characters at the Flying Frog Productions booth

And another

An Ace Attorney cosplay group

Ruto and Harley Quinn

Shogun 2: Total War decorations at Sega

Captain Falcon assumes his most famous pose

Meru from Legend of Dragoon

I missed out on a chance to join the Archon Classic tournament

Monday Night Combat statues were nice, but expensive

A group of Starcaft cosplayers

The musical acts from the nightly concerts meeting and greeting fans

The table ran by The Minibosses

A shot of the Bill Amend autograph session

A substitution was made in the Starcraft cosplay lineup

Lara Croft dual-wielding pistols

The Protoss known as Zeratul

A cool squid dress

Crimson Viper and Juri

Chun-Li and Rose soon arrived to join them

A BlazBlue cosplay group

Sybil Pandemik and her lover, Lincoln's head (Identified by Cary Woodham)

Gazillion made the crowd go wild when they were throwing out free mouse pads

A fellow with the Rat City Rollergirls strikes a provocative pose

A toned Tifa

People who always bet on Duke

All of these people bet on him, too

The exhibit for PSN title Kung-Fu Live

The display case of figures over at Fangamer

Half-human, half-Tauren

A cool guy in armor

A patriotic zombie hungers for brains

A public Mortal Kombat match

Ikkau from Bleach and his killer blades

The Power Gig staff rocks out on the stage

Fallen Earth's humble booth

Rock of the Dead now has competition in the form of Drumskulls

OpenChord.org

Neat animal stickers that were lying on their table

A few more Team Fortress 2 costumes

I enjoyed Archon back in the day when I played the NES version. Archon Classic is a great successor! It captures the fun of the original, but adds some nice new twists like special powers and an optional leveling system. The powers include a radial blast by the Golem and the Basilisk's ability to spawn miniature assistants, which made the reptile quite an annoying adversary. If only I had arrived at the booth sooner so I could have received one of the shirts...

Albert Wesker has reassumed control over Jill Valentine

A Duke Nukem Forever booth babe protects his swag

Alienware had their usual PAX setup

Isaac, as seen in Dead Space 2

Triton girls convincing fans to sign up for one of their offers

Nolan and Emerson decide to take one them up on their offer

Hakumen learns how to play cards

Saki and Aya from the Onechanbara series

Nolan trying out SOCOM 4 at Sony's lounge

One of Wakfu's artists draws a character sketch

I didn't try Front Mission Evolved, but was pleased to see it running at 60 FPS

Noooooo, get away...

Emerson relaxed and Nolan tried Hydrophobia when we waited for a raffle to begin

During that break in the action, I found another Headcrab victim

The Zalman/ZOTAC raffle had prizes like a power supply that's currently unavailable on the market

Square Enix raffled off several prize packages, toys, and shirts

Miranda from Mass Effect 2 hanging out with Arkham Asylum Harley Quinn

Once the expo hall closed on Saturday, I made my way to GameWorks to join the Sega party line

A Guild Wars 2 truck circled the perimeter

After waiting for two hours, we were welcomed to the next level

A large Valkyria Chronicles troop that came from Canada

Sega generously gave everyone at the party a two hour freeplay card

They also had lots of great food for free, including Caesar salad and several kinds of pasta

Delicious meatballs, potato skins, and spicy chicken made me break my convention diet

Party-goers relax in the restaurant section, including Ed Boon, who has his back turned

Prizes for the night's raffle were stored in this room

A look at the party from the upper level

I hated to leave GameWorks, but headed out to the Splatterhouse party since I'd won VIP access

After a 20 minute walk to Neumos, I spotted this Splatterhouse truck outside of the club

VIPs had access to these desserts shaped like bloody body parts

I'm gonna barf... those cookies are grossing me out

VIPs also had access to the only demo station at the event, which was busy throughout the night

A bad shot of the VIP balcony

My view of the rock show, which also had several go-go dancers for eye candy

The band performed in front of a screen showing clips of the original and modern Splatterhouse

One of the go-go dancers does her thing

Another sporting many tattoos

Another shot of the band

Go-go dancer #3

These shirts were available for party guests, so I made sure to snag a few for my friends

Dancers were switched out as the night went on

A male model playing the role of Rick

Shirts were also being tossed from the stage

Rick posed with the the game's logos and any fan brave enough to approach him

Since the Sega raffle was going to begin, I left before the next act started up their setlist

When I returned to GameWorks, the place was busier than before and most of the food was gone

The raffle crowd, where I didn't win the Bayonetta guns or the cool Sega sweatshirts

Desserts were readily available to anyone present

I got one last complimentary Pepsi at the busy bar before taking the light rail back to my house

My Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit photo op experience

The majority of Saturday's swag

I was disappointed by this small amount of shirts and made sure to increase my efforts on Sunday