PAX AUS confab brings gamers (and badass carrots) to Australia

PAX AUS kicked off in Melbourne, Australia, on Friday, bringing gaming fans from all over Australia and the world together to geek out on video and tabletop games. 

PAX is in its fifth year down under, and the event sold out its first two days at the Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Centre. 

Nintendo launched its latest Mario offering in Australia on day one of PAX AUS, with fans queueing up to get a crack at playing on the Switch. You can read our full review of Super Mario Odyssey here, but the TL;DR is it's a hell of a game. 

The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim is out on Switch. Let's celebrate that momentous occasion with this dubious styling choice at the Nintendo booth. 

Want your photo game to be on point? Ubisoft pulls out the ring light to make sure your Assassin's Creed: Origins selfie looks hot.  

PlayStation was promoting its latest game, Detroit: Become Human, with a Bladerunner-esque display of replicants in a perspex case. Spoiler: These were real humans, posing like robots. Damn, I hope they're wearing comfy shoes. 

Gamers get hands-on with Far Cry 5, which is set to launch in February 2018. 

PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds was big at PAX. The game was demoed on laptops around the show floor, with a crowd huddled at Nvidia's booth here to see who gets the chicken dinner.

HP's stage was all about its Omen gaming laptops, as well as Overwatch. Competitive Overwatch games raged throughout the entirety of PAX.

The title has gotten fans of the anime more excited than they've been in a while for a Dragon Ball Z game. A Dragon Ball FighterZ demo was a big hit on the show floor. 

PAX hosted a AU$16,000 Street Fighter V tournament throughout the weekend, eventually won by Kevin Nguyen.

Monster Hunter World was one of the most consistently busy booths on the floor -- with waiting times for a 15-minute session often exceeding 90 minutes.

Not just for Mario Kart anymore. 

There's a whole section dedicated to retro games at PAX, meaning you can play Goldeneye on N64 or pull out sweet moves on the Vectrex after hitting up the AAA booths. 

Retro gaming fans rock some classic pinball.

Shows like Computex in Taipei are more well-known for case modding, but PAX AUS had a few impressive offerings dotted among the booths, including this nod to the Joker and "Suicide Squad."

Who lives in a pineapple under the sea? SpongeBob Case Mod!

The company trotted out its gaming laptops and PCs, most of which look like, well, alien wares. 

Intel knows that processor microarchitecture isn't necessarily the sexiest thing to take a photo of, so it stuck this awesome case mod on its stand instead. 

If your case mod doesn't have a giant Kraken swallowing a ship, you're not even trying. 

Only the worthy can play.

As you can see, the latest Pure Farming simulator had a booth sellout. 

This is Ultimate Carrot from Japanese digital card game Shadowverse. I had to see him, and now you have to as well. Sleep tight.

PAX signage outside the convention hall. Totally on fleek.