E3 2005
Ground Zero: Pre-E3 Stupidity
It's about twelve hours until E3 actually begins, which is weird because I'm pretty sure I've been here about a week. I was at the Konami conference with Che and said with some amazement, "Man, I haven't seen you since Sunday." His response was a puzzled look and a vaguely mystified, "Dude... that was, like, a day ago."
I think there's some sort of horrible time-twisting field around the LA Convention Center that causes time to slow down. Maybe it's some sort of relativity effect caused by the gravity of so many gi-normous nerd-beasts slobbering to get their hands on the latest and greatest games. No offense to the gi-normous nerd-beasts. It's just that you distort the fabric of reality, and I find that annoying.
I wasn't able to update my blog after this morning for a wide variety of reasons. The first is that shortly after blogging I staggered into the bathroom and did a technicolor yawn. I swear I wasn't really hung over, but after sitting in the sweatbox that serves as our media room for 10 hours yesterday (it was, very literally, nearly 100 degrees inside there) without enough to drink I found myself severely dehydrated this morning.
(And I had such a nice dinner last night, too -- in honor of E3 and to pour a 40 on the metaphorical curb of the scrolling brawler now that Final Fight Streetwise is pounding the final nail in its coffin, I enjoyed a sushi dish called "Double Dragon Rolls." YEAH. Pity it had to go to waste.)
Anyway, once I recovered from that and slugged back some serious water to rehydrate myself (and by "water" I mean "triple-shot latte") I found my computer's A/C adapter had died. Which mean no more power. Which meant no more writing for the rest of the week unless I picked up a new power supply, which I did posthaste. Well, I tried to do it posthaste -- unfortunately it involved roads and, this being LA, there is no such thing as "haste" on the city's highways. This is the place that invented road rage, and for good reason.
After I got that settled, I had to finish a write-up or two and hustle over to the public library to see Konami's pre-E3 event. It was actually pretty entertaining, despite the fact that they hired a lame comedian, some questionable breakdancers and a quartet of costumed ninja turtles for the event. None of that mattered! Because Koji Igarashi dressed up in a fedora and wore a bullwhip on stage. I can't wait to interview the guy tomorrow morning. He's reportedly a really nice guy and a total straight-shooter when it comes to interviews, but he's also a complete fruit. He kept telling us, "We're very excited to have this huge new video for you," only to reveal clips about 3 seconds long. Literally. The clip that showed Trevor Belmont in Curse of Darkness, was a quick shot of Trevor whipping and Hector hopping over him as he cracked his Vampire Killer a second time. It was hilariously underwhelming, but admittedly sort of awesome for dorks who have been following the series since, oh, 17 years ago. (Cough.)
Even more hilarious was Kojima's MGS4 trailer -- you'll have to see it for yourself when it goes up on the site later. Kojima really knows how to make fun of himself (the little sparkly lights drifting past Raiden's beatific face were brilliant) and he's awfully canny about American culture. The teaser video involved director's chairs for the game staff, and there was a throwaway Alan Smithee joke that had me cheering. I'm also impressed by the subtitle of the MGS3 remix: MGS2 was "Substance," but MGS3 -- being a game about eking desperate survival from nature -- is "Subsistence." A brilliant English pun that half the native speakers apparently didn't get. Dumb honkies, Kojima just schooled you.
I'll babble more in a bit. I'm still trying to digest Revolution.
And of course... as soon as Game Boy Micro shows up in white, it's so totally mine.
E3 Day 1
Update 6:22 p.m.: Today was pretty much a freakish whirlwind of... freakishness. My Igarashi interview didn't go as well as I'd hoped -- I've never done Q&A with a Japanese developer before, and I didn't realize the translation process would be quite so cumbersome. There were some definitely language hiccups: I asked if we would ever see the characters from Lament of Innocence again, which the translator took to mean "Will we see them in Curse of Darkness?" (which takes place a century later or so, thus: Dumb question). Ultimately, I ran out of time and didn't get to ask my Metroid question. (I did ask about the PSP and about where the high-res 2D SotN platformer for consoles is. I'll have the answers in my Dawn of Sorrow preview later this evening.)
On the plus side, Michiru Yamane was there as well. It was actually a little awe-inspiring to look at such a pleasant, unassuming woman and realize that her brain was responsible for the amazing soundtrack from Symphony of the Night.
Worst revelation of the interview: When asked if any of Trevor Belmont's companions would be putting in an appearance, I was told that Sypha Belnades had married him and become a housewife. Talk about being out of step with contemporary gaming trends. Maybe he'll reconsider and we'll see a sequel called Castlevania: MILF of Tragedy. Or something.
Anyway. I had some hands-on with Dawn of Sorrow, which I'll cheerfully write up after the Ziff and Gametap parties. Tomorrow I'll do Curse of Darkness. It'll be fun for the whole family.
Later, I met up for some hands-on behind-the-scenes time with Namco, which was mainly notable for a live demo of the nearly-complete Japanese version of Katamari 2. The snowball level is great (no time limit, no size objective -- just roll snow until you're ready to create a snowman) and the game is going to have a whopping 24 levels. And to think they had me at hello.
Other Namco goodness: Sigma Star Saga is coming along really well (it plays like an RPG version of Guardian Legend and the graphics remind me of Secret of Mana in places); also, Rebelstar: Tactical Command is much nicer than last time I saw it. I'm surprisingly interested in Sniper Elite, a WWII sniper battle simulator with an unusual amount of detail paid to physics -- gravity, wind, heartrate, that sort of thing. For some reason I really dig the methodical first-person shooters and action games. Except Splinter Cell.
Weirdest revelation of the Namco thing: Soul Calibur III has a tactical strategy game mode.
The Namco reps were remarkably nice -- usually PR guys and gals are a little hard for me to get along with, since they frequently have an unspoken distaste for (or disinterest in) gaming in general. Namco's guys were mostly dedicated gamers who kept asking me about what I'd seen at the show, what I've been playing lately, who I'd interviewed so far. They agreed that Marathon was better than Halo and that the inclusion of Rolling Thunder in Namco's 50th Anniversary Collection for PS2 rates a raucous HELL YEAH. So that's cool.
I'm a little ambivalent about Namco's swag bag, though. It's customary for publishers to lavish goodies on journalists, but this was a bit much: It included two Sony Memory Sticks, some PSP image conversion software, a CCG, and one of those data globe things that you plug in and it displays info. Also a Gumby toy and a Hello Kitty button. I'm mindful of journalistic integrity and the like and I'd hate for anyone to think this stuff would sway my opinion of the company's products, so I gave most of its away. Besides, it's not like anyone's going to think I had to be bribed to be interested in Katamari 2, or the latest Namco classics collection, or a shooter/RPG from Wayforward. Where are you, Kyle Orland?
Afterwards, I took a brief tour of Sega's booth which was only really notable for the private screening of the next-gen software (presumably Xbox 360) they have in the works. I'm really not blown away by any of this stuff -- it's higher-resolution, yeah, but it's going to take some serious effort to make the backgrounds look like they're not ganked straight from Dreamcast or PS2. Igarashi kept harping on the issue of manpower, and I think that's the foremost concern on all developers' minds these days.
The one Sega next-gen game that really struck me as looking almost movie-quality was Chrome Hounds, a mech battle game from From Software that appeared almost filmic in visual quality. Some nice effects going on -- and I think it's significant that the game demo featured no human characters at all. It's going to be a while, I think, before developers manage to create human models that are really suited for the higher resolution of the...
HD ERA
(Note booming reverberation effect.)
They showed a conceptual real-time next-gen demo that included some Virtua Fighter characters, and man did they look lumpy. That's the next-gen revolution, baby! Now all your favorite characters will look twice as bumpy.
The rest of the day I mainly spent jockeying for food. I need to talk to someone about why ZD expects us to be out on the floor all day covering this event but doesn't provide lunch (and the cafeteria lines are an hour long, seriously).
Man cannot live on swag alone, Uncle Ziff. Especially not a Pro Duo Memory Chip. I've had bigger potato chips.
Tonight: A touch of parties and a ton of writing. Tomorrow: More hands-on and some Gizmondo thing. WOO
Update 10:37 a.m.: I done wrote me a New Super Mario Bros. preview. It's pretty much frickin' rad. The game, I mean. The preview is just pretty much frickin' up before anyone else's, because I'm that cool.
Update: 9:36 a.m.: The show is starting soon, but I've already been roaming the floor playin' stuff. Expect a New Super Mario Bros. preview this evening, and possibly an Animal Crossing DS preview as well. In the meantime, here's a We <3 Katamari hands-on. And now I'm off to drill Igarashi on the new Castlevanias. Che's guideline for our interviews this week is simple: "Ask people things that Gamespot would never consider." So I'mma askin' what his favorite Metroid is. 'Cause you know that man is a Samus fanboy.
If you're at the show, be sure not to come by the ZD booth and stare at us.
E3 Day 2
Update: 9:12 p.m.: I think I've hit the wall. I'm seriously wiped out and need some serious rest. I've only managed to put together one article today (although it is a bit of a doozy) -- the rest of the day was spent at appointments, meetings and the 1UP blogger meetup. Which was fun and far less creepy than I expected and I probably should have spent less time socializing and more time working, but eh. Thanks to everyone who stopped by... readers and paranoid cartoon writers alike. It was rad. Let's do it again next year... but next time, I'll try to get some sleep beforehand. (LOL @ IMPOSSIBILITY)
Time to get my first meal of the day!
Update 4:14 p.m.: My appointments for the week are complete! And I've done hands-on time with every game on my assignments list. And I even got Toby Gard to slag the Tomb Raider games he didn't help create:
1UP: So what do you think went wrong with Angel of Darkness? Gard: (sly sidelong glance) ...well, it was quite a lot, wasn't it?
My good deed for the day. Next up is the 1UP members party (15 minutes from now) where I'm going to meet you. If I seem surly, it's because I'm hungry and tired and headachy despite liberal applications of Advil.
Update 9:52 a.m.: I'm tired. You can tell I'm tired because I managed to douse the entire ZD war room in hot coffee first thing this morning. This has a few side effects:
- The room reeks of coffee - I wasted 20 precious minutes of prep time mopping up the spill - I haven't been caffeinated yet this morning
To make matters worse, I lurked in the Nintendo booth this morning hoping to be caught up in ground zero of the 9 a.m. Nerdling Rush. It's a huge throng of dorky bodies literally running across the show floor to be the first each day to get their hands on games before anyone else in the world, for maybe a few minutes. My dream was to be kneeling in the thick of it, like the running of the bulls (except paler). No luck -- they all rushed straight to one side to see the Zelda theatre and left me kneeling there all alone. Creeps.
Ah well. I did try out the GB Micro, which is pretty swell. It's actually bigger in my hands than I expected, and it could have stood to feature a bigger screen. All that blank space on the face plate could have been put into use for more screen real estate. Or maybe usable buttons. Maybe I'm just cranky because they made me use a Micro with Pokemon in it instead of something interesting. Or maybe I'm just cranky because I need sleep.
P.S. I cannot be held accountable for bizarre things seen on others' blogs.
P.P.S. I saw the Statesman guy, Jack whateverhisnameis, who serves as the proud daddy of City of Heroes. He was walking around in a black and red City of Villains cape. There's something awfully weird about standing at a urinal next to a middle aged man in a cape. Even if you know what it's about.
E3 Day 3
Update 6:20 p.m.: Freedom! Now for food. And Star Wars. I've still got a few previews left to do, but I'll worry about them when I get back... Wednesday. Sunday I'm heading out to Tahoe with the ultimate goal of spending a few days as far from the LA Convention Center as possible. Physically I won't be all that far away, but I'll be amidst trees and water and peaceful nature and art and it will be wonderful.
See you all next week with lots of dork pictures to post. Hope you've enjoyed 1UP's E3 coverage. Because if not then we must commit honorable hara-kiri for wasting our time :(
Update 1:21 p.m.: I finally had a chance to try my hand at GameTap (briefly), and wow. It's pretty much incredible. I won't be covering it for 1UP due to that whole "conflict of interest" thing, but I'm really looking forward to getting a chance to use the thing for myself. The hardware being emulated begins with ancient arcade titles (I wrote up Sea Wolf, if that tells you anything) and goes all the way up to Dreamcast (including Mr. Driller, Hydro Thunder, and quite a few others I've forgotten because I'm sleepy and confused). The interface is brilliant, the selection is great and there are some really nice extra features.
Of course, you can't believe anything I say, because I'm biased. But I'm all for the prospect of playing Gunstar Heroes on my Mac without worrying about the IDSA breathing down my neck.
Update 11:48 a.m.: I discovered that if you buy food before 11:30, the normally unimaginable concession lines are actually remarkably brief. The down side to this is that I actually ate a BBQ pork sandwich cooked here at the convention center rather than subsisting on pretzels and yogurt, so here's hoping I don't regret my early lunch sometime this afternoon in the pre-closing crunch.
I stopped at Namco's booth to put some old Genesis games left over from winning eBay lots on their-real life Katamari. I do hate to part with beloved video games. Somehow, though, I think I'll manage to survive without that copy of Family Feud. Majesco was next door, so I dropped by and tried Black & White Creatures for DS (writeup coming soon) and the DS revival of A Boy & His Blob, which looks... man. I hate to speak ill of a game so early in development, but it was awful. Why show off a game that's clearly not playable if you don't want people to go away with a bad impression?
Afterwards, I did a little wandering through Kentia. I was looking forward the Classic Gaming Expo "History of Gaming" exhibition, but alas -- it was almost exactly the same thing as last year. Down to the arcade units on display. I did rack up the high score on Donkey Kong 3, but I think that's just because everyone hates it and there was only one other person who liked the game enough to roll over the leaderboard. Oh well. I'll take my small victories where I can find them this week.
Mainly I just wanted to play Pengo, but there was this Japanese chick who would not stop playing the game. I decided to let her be. Didn't want to go starting an international incident or anything.
I had another one of those random incidents today where someone randomly stopped me after seeing my nametag and professed, "I'm a big fan!" I'm still uneasy with that sort of thing, and I'll probably have nightmares about it for the next week. Kevin from Reflex Gamer: I will hunt you down like a dog.
Update 8:21 a.m.: There's definitely a different feel about E3 on the final day; all the big announcements have come and gone, everyone's had hands-on time with the things they're most interested in (except your poor hard-working online editors who have been too busy looking at what they have to cover), and we're all more or less dead on our feet.
The one thing that hasn't changed is the throng of people sitting on the floor outside the South Hall, right in front of our booth. At 9 they'll rush in to be first in line to play Zelda.
Revelation for ya, guys: You've played Zelda games before. You can probably afford to wait a few more months to play this one -- it's certainly not worth sacrificing your self-respect by rushing like children to be first in line. I hate to tell you, but the Nintendo booth reps are totally making fun of you. And these are people who are paid to be excited about showing sweaty 40-year-old men the wonders of Nintendogs. That should tell you something.
As the show wears on, my synapses are rapidly breaking down, causing me to do foolish things. (No more coffee spills, though -- I've vowed not to drink anything that doesn't have a tight, screw-on lid while I'm here.) That Curse of Darkness preview was almost 1500 words, which is really about three times longer than an E3 show floor writeup should be. Blame the fact that the game was actually fun; I was dreading the preview... but once I actually got my hands on it the stupid thing turned out to be pretty enjoyable, if less visually arresting than Lament of Innocence.
My E3 wish list (the part about wanting a surprisingly good original game I'd never heard of) may have been satisfied by Scurge: Hive, a perfectly top-notch GBA adventure that seems to borrow pretty liberally from the classics. The trick is that it borrows well. It's like Alien Syndrome, Metroid, Boktai, Kabuki Quantum Fighter and Alien 3 all in one package. Not that most people who will read this necessarily remember Kabuki Quantum Fighter, but how many other games have had characters with long red hair that could be used as an offensive weapon/tool? Not a heck of a lot.
I have some writing to do today, but I'm going to spend a few hours in Kentia Hall enjoying the Classic Gaming Expo arcade. And hopefully I can wander over to the Staples Center for a chance to try out GameTap. I've been helping with this project since January and still haven't seen it in action, or met the people involved. Ah, the wonders of the Internet.
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