It's the end of day 1 at PAX East and I'm in The Whiskey Priest bar with my girlfriend on the south end of Boston where we've been in line for almost an hour waiting to get upstairs to the balcony area where Danny O'Dwyer and Shaun McInnis are hanging out greeting GameSpot fans. I finish off my first beer and when I turn around to toss out my cup the person behind me asks "What's this line for?" and I reply "It's a GameSpot social event thing, some of the reviewers are hanging out upstairs.". He tells me he is waiting for some people to show up at the bar and decides to wait in line to pass the time and see what all the fuss is about. We introduce ourselves and strike up a conversation and I eventually ask why he came to PAX and he proceeds to tell me he is one of the developers of an indie game called Insurgency, his name is Andrew Spearin.

PAX is an odd beast and running into a developer on the exhibition floor never surprises me, but just hanging out in a bar with the person responsible for creating someones favorite game is humbling. I had passed by the Insurgency booth at least 3 times that day and never game it a second glance, but after hearing Andrew explain the game mechanics to me for only 5 minutes I was sold. He described the Rainbow Six influences and the map design to me so well that I was itching to play it on the exhibition floor the next day. We talked about our favorite games and multi-player map design and before I knew it another 30 minutes passed and Andrews friends show up, one of which happens to be the developer of the Red Orchestra mod, Jeremy Blum. We eventually all got upstairs to the balcony and had a few drinks with Danny and talked more about video games, our home towns, bagpipes, soccer, and other randomness until they shut it down.

It was a crazy night and one I won't forget any time soon, but that's PAX EAST. It's a place where developers are not only there to get their games in the hands of the public but it's also where the developers come to see what the fans think of their games outside of the play test area and forums. I stopped by the Insurgency booth the next day and gave the game a shot...and I loved every second of it. The persistent damage, the movement, the old school punishment found in games like Counter-Strike and Rainbow Six, all of it. The crazy thing is, If I would have never bumped into Andrew Spearin at The Whiskey Priest bar the night before, I would have never even known the game existed.