Demo booths, console and PC tournaments, concerts, expert panels, celebrity appearances and tons and tons of fellow gamers: The Penny Arcade Expo East is quickly becoming the place to be for gamers and industry members alike. Besides providing hands-on demos of the biggest upcoming games, the convention was also an opportunity for the gaming community to network-be it for friends or for jobs-or to just geek out. Since its 1988 beginning as a webcomic in a Spokane, Wash. apartment, Penny Arcade has grown to not only include the wildly popular comic but its own video game series; a charity called Child's Play that donates games and toys to children's hospitals around the world; and Penny Arcade Expo, an annual convention in Seattle that attracts thousands of fans and game companies and is one of the largest gaming events in the country. In fact, PAX became so large that last year an offshoot convention was founded in Boston, titled PAX East.

Last year's gathering at the Hynes Convention Center was only supposed to be a test run, but following the comic's example, it outgrew its humble origins with 50,000 people attending the weekend-long event. This year the convention-held this past Friday, Saturday and Sunday-was moved to one of the largest convention centers in the Northeast, the Boston Convention and Expo Center. JustArts was able to attend PAX East on Saturday where fans, video-game makers, tabletop-game companies and musicians came together for what can only be described as one of gaming's biggest parties.

In fact, party might be a more apt name than simply calling it a convention. The creators of Penny Arcade, Mike Krahulik and Jerry Holkins, began PAX with the goal of creating a show that was, first and foremost, for the fans. This could be felt the minute you entered, as a sea of excited gamers greeted newcomers, many in costume, trying to figure out what to do first.

The main expo floor was the natural choice for many, where people sought out demos of upcoming video games or went to the tabletop area to play a game with their friends. The upper floors contained countless presentations on subjects that ranged from talks on gaming culture, how to get into the industry and even how to be a "Geek Parent." The upper levels also hosted concerts and game tournaments that reminded attendees that PAX is about fun more than anything else. The "fans first" mind-set was present in numerous little touches around the show, from stages where people could hold Rock Band jam sessions, to the hallway that was filled with beanbag chairs and reserved as a handheld gaming lounge.

That said, the gaming industry's presence could still be felt. The expo floor was packed with developers and publishers offering previews of their newest games. Big name releases like Portal 2, Gears of War 3, Star Wars: The Old Republic and Nintendo's upcoming 3DS system shared floor space with smaller outfits like The Behemoth and the local independent developers that occupied the Boston Indie Showcase area. The two most popular booths were probably for Portal 2 and the 3DS demo, both of which had lines that snaked around the displays, where fans would sometimes wait for more than an hour just to get a short look at future releases.

Here are our top three highlights from Saturday:

Nintendo 3DS: Essentially a Nintendo DS with camera and 3D capabilities, Nintendo's newest handheld console didn't quite impress me at its demo booth. Still, the next iteration of the bestselling console of all time has potential to truly change the way handheld games are played. In a similar vein to the iPhone 4, the 3DS boasts a camera facing toward the player and a camera facing out. After a few minutes of adjusting, the inward-facing camera captured my face and turned it into a funky-looking avatar for in-game use that I did not see demonstrated at the show. It wasn't clear how this real-life photo differs in use from a Mii, which you can now create and share with other 3DS users. When used in conjunction with the front-facing camera, the handheld device can essentially sense which direction you're holding it in, useful for games such as Pilotwings and Kid Icarus: Uprising, in which you control flight by tilting the system.

Alienware Exhibit: The PC gaming hardware company hosted an impressive caged area consisting of a game lounge, two game booths, two PC clusters and two sets of benches demonstrating its latest PC and peripheral products. The PC clusters and benches were used for mini-tournaments throughout the day for Portal 2, Team Fortress 2 and Call of Duty: Black Ops, complete with prizes for the winners and an energetic commentator. It was exciting to see a game like Team Fortress 2 played live-each team of eight stood in their respective clusters while high-definition TVs overhead highlighted top performances and the commentator announced the most notable plays ("A blue Scout is now taking point B-what will the Red team do?"). That's not to say the hundreds of other representing companies on the floor didn't also have amazing shows or giveaways at their stations: Nexon (demoing Vindictus and Dragon Next), Ubisoft (with its Microsoft Kinect title Child of Eden), Microsoft (with Gears of War 3) and the Boston Indie Showcase (featuring small-size game developers in the Boston area) all made an awesome appearance on the showfloow.

Various game demos and exhibits: Videos were shown for the highly anticipated L.A. Noire and Portal 2, both of which were housed under extravagant set pieces. A live demonstration of RAGE, an upcoming first-person shooter from id Software, wowed crowds with its action-packed vehicle combat sequences. Ska Studios demoed The Dishwasher: Vampire Smile (Xbox Live Arcade), a highly stylized and violent co-op beat 'em up. And finally, an entire section of the center was dedicated to tabletop gaming, offering players the opportunity to trade and compete in games such as Dungeons and Dragons and Magic: The Gathering.