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Video Game Release Dates 2024
Elden Ring strategy guide
Shacknews Direct: Introducing Bubbletron!
Destiny 2 Complete Strategy Guide

Evening Reading - September 2, 2022 (PAX West 2022 edition)

Highlights from PAX West, scenes from DragonCon, pancakes, and much more in this Friday edition of Evening Reading.
Ozzie Mejia
Ozzie Mejia
2

Greetings, everyone at PAX and anyone who wasn't able to make it this weekend! We've made it to a holiday weekend, but before we go out and enjoy the next three days, it's time for a new round of news, memes, and entertainment. This is the Friday edition of Evening Reading!

In case you missed it at Shacknews:

And, because it's the weekend, go find yourself something to play!

Around the gaming horn

The Gearbox presentation at PAX West had a more extended look at the gameplay from Homeworld 3 that was shown off at Gamescom.

The bad guys are out to play in this latest trailer for River City Girls 2. (Oh, also, the game is four players!)

JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: All-Star Battle R is ready to roll! If you want to play it without paying full price, I once again refer you to this week's Weekend PC Download Deals feature.

And now... Other Stuff From The Internet!!!

[Dramatic pause] Pancakes

If you're the type who's up all night playing video games, chances are that you're going to look at the clock, see that it's five in the morning, and realize that you probably want some pancakes. Fortunately, there's a new collaboration between Xbox and IHOP that you'll want to read about on Xbox Wire.

Members of IHOP’s International Bank of Pancakes rewards program will now have more choice and value in how they redeem rewards with game offers, including a 1-month Xbox Game Pass Ultimate trial, Forza Horizon 5 Premium Add-Ons Bundle, and full game download codes for Grounded.

IHOP is also rolling out limited-time Xbox-inspired meal combos, collectible syrup caddies and a restaurant pop-up event near Microsoft campus.

Xbox Menu Items:

  • Party Animals – Pancake Combo with 2 Cupcake Pancakes with pork sausage links, hash browns & 2 eggs over medium
  • Grounded – Big Brunch Steakburger with hickory-smoked bacon, fried egg, crispy potato pancake, American cheese and IHOP sauce. Served with a side of Buttermilk Pancakes
  • Forza Family Feast – Fuel your crew without having to hit pause with the exclusive Forza Family Feast. Enjoy 4 servings each of scrambled eggs and golden hash browns, 8 hickory-smoked bacon strips, 8 pork sausage links, and of course 8 world-famous buttermilk pancakes. Team up to take down this delicious feast today! Serves 4. Available for a limited time through IHOP ‘N Go only. Not available for dine-in.

Read more about the Xbox menu, the special pop-up in Seattle, and the new Xbox rewards available on the IHOP app. (If you don't have the IHOP app, I encourage you to get it. It's just three coins for a free short stack!)

Scenes from PAX West 2022

We start with the Splatoon lab on the floor.

The Yacht Club Games team is ready to roll, showing off Mina the Hollower and Shovel Knight Dig!

Beware the Mindflayer!

Potion Craft has quite the booth layout.

Crowds are lining up for a taste of Rawmen.

Just in case the local Target is sold out, I guess.

There have been a few arcade games spotted on the show floor, including a few rare ones, like this one!

And once the show's over, go grab some frogurt from Fran's truck.

Morgan's on the show floor and brought us some great photos! Check them out!

Scenes from DragonCon

DragonCon is also happening this weekend, so let's check out a few scenes from over in Atlanta.

Mega Ran and Austin Creed are in the house!

Author Brian Michael Bendis is catching some of the chaos up close.

The cosplayers are out in full force, including a few D&D groups.

The pirates are storming DragonCon, too!

Wookiees not allowed.

Sing-alongs are happening at DragonCon, as well.

And finally, beware these Guardians, because they'll fire their LAZORS if you get too close.

Nothing but the Hotfix

Now here's something we don't see everyday from the Hotfix. First off, we're looking at Tony Hawk's Project 8. We don't see a lot of Tony Hawk games featured on Games Done Quick. On top of that, this run ends with a world record! And there's a developer interview, to boot. This is definitely a fun run to check out, so give it a look.

GDQ's Hotfix shows air every week and you can catch them all at the Games Done Quick Twitch account.

Under the learning tree with Masahiro Sakurai

Masahiro Sakurai started a YouTube channel! Let's learn from his decades of experience together by looking at one of his latest videos. Tonight, let's look at Sakurai explaining the perils of lag.

No... not that kind of lag. Don't get too excited, Smash players.

This week in Shaqnews

Less than two months from NBA season and the return of Inside the NBA, here's Shaq taking some shots at Kevin Durant.

IT'S STILL REAL TO ME, DAMMIT!

As Fanbyte prepares to shutter its wrestling coverage, here's a wonderful guest column from one Maffew Gregg of Botchamania fame.

The overall aim for Botchamania has always been to laugh WITH the wrestlers rather than AT it, but I’ll gladly admit the line has been blurred Russo-style many times. Wrestling fans are like that old Jewish joke: “get three wrestling fans around a table and you’ll have fifteen opinions.” Every fan has their own idea of what wrestling means to them, who their favourite wrestler is and how your favourite stinks so shut up.

With social media’s instant gratification winding everyone up worse than a set of those chattering teeth you don’t see any more, it can be very easy to succumb to hate-watching, especially when you’re known as one of those people who points at something and yells “hey look at this malarkey.” People are very quick to show me something they consider to be the worst thing they’ve ever seen in wrestling and they barely register on my radar, but I guess every generation has to discover their own Shockmaster/Seven/Killer Kross event horizon.

With AEW and WWE fans making social media as fun to enjoy as The Locust’s last album, I make Botchamania as a way of staying calm and reminding myself that even with the pyro, blood and stadiums, this is just wrestling. When it’s done right it can be one of the most wonderfully enjoyable art-forms out there. And when it’s not? Eh, it’s just wrestling.

This is a very fascinating read and I would encourage everyone to check out Fanbyte and Maffew Gregg's own words.

Tonight in video game music

Triforce Quartet and Mariachi Entertainment System are about to perform at PAX West tonight. Let's take tonight to look back at Triforce Quartet's last PAX performance, which was a virtual set in 2020.

That's your Evening Reading to send you into this Labor Day weekend! Keep the spirit of the classic Evening Reading alive by jumping into the comments about whatever you see here or whatever randomness you'd like to discuss. Join the conversation and dive into the Shacknews Chatty comment thread below. I'll see you all next week!

Senior Editor
Senior Editor

Ozzie has been playing video games since picking up his first NES controller at age 5. He has been into games ever since, only briefly stepping away during his college years. But he was pulled back in after spending years in QA circles for both THQ and Activision, mostly spending time helping to push forward the Guitar Hero series at its peak. Ozzie has become a big fan of platformers, puzzle games, shooters, and RPGs, just to name a few genres, but he’s also a huge sucker for anything with a good, compelling narrative behind it. Because what are video games if you can't enjoy a good story with a fresh Cherry Coke?

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