This year’s Penny Arcade Expo was probably the best ever. With over 30,000 attendees this year, the Seattle convention center was packed and overflowing with nerd musk.

Internet Overlord and Starship Ensign Wil Wheaton delivered the keynote speech, where he regaled the crowd with humorous stories of his youth spent gaming in arcades (remember those?).

The concerts were great with performers such as indie synthpop band Freezepop and nerdcore rapper MC Frontalot. And the Minibosses were there of course, playing about a bajillion Castlevania songs and for some extremely annoying reason, interspersing their songs with the Excitebike tune over and over and over. I Probably heard it 30 times.

On the gaming side of things, all the big names were there. Several unreleased games were available for play. Naturally, the Penny Arcade RPG was demoed, and I have to say it’s the funniest game I’ve seen in years. Along with the expertly crafted dialog, there was some very un-PC, humorous, gory hobo killing that cracked me up. The battles, however, look rather boring and traditional. Hopefully the Mario RPG-esqu elements with keep things feeling fresh.

My number one pick goes out to Culdcept Saga for the 360. The PS2 Culdcept was largely ignored thanks to zero marketing and one of the worst translations in gaming history. In Culdcept you make decks of creatures items and spells and battle it out Monopoly-style on a board. The new version offers full online support, tons of new cards, and I must say, the jump to 3D actually looks pretty spiffy. The cards still have gorgeous 2D art though and many old cards have had their art replaced. Not to mention, many old cards have been changed, mostly for better balance. But some changes are questionable. The Hurricane now gets +30 str in battle which seems absurd.

Okay, that’s enough reporting for the three of you out there who’ve actually played the first Culdcept. Let’s see, what else? Uh, Sabertooth (the UFS guys) were there and I soundly thrashed developer David Freeman with my Rose deck. They were giving out some preview cards from their Darkstalkers expansion, but the cards aren’t tourney legal so you didn’t miss much if you didn’t get any.

There was a bunch of other stuff too, but we’re reaching the end of what ol’ Mad Mage here cares about. I guess you should have gone to PAX yourself if you wanted to know more. So there!