Wow! What a day! After an uneven day and a half, E3 finally hit its stride. Today was fantastic! I would have blogged earlier but I was so busy and having so much fun, I just didn't have the time. Great games, hands-on time with great games, two fun interviews and partying with a Liverpudlian was more than I expected but exactly what I was hoping for.
Late last night I found out that Take Two wasn't going to be showing anything new on "GTA 4". Since I'd already been to 2K and saw a number of Take Two's games there, I decided to get an extra hour of sleep so I'd be ready for my first appointment.
Aqua Teen Hunger Force - Got a quick look at this game which comes out for the fall only on the PS2. If you're a fan of the show, it might be worth a peek because of the humor and inside jokes. It still had a few bugs and the graphics weren't very sharp.
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Microsoft - After I left Midway I headed next store and went into the Microsoft suite (very first pic above) which was, well, sweet. First and third party games as well as titles from every console and for the PC were playable. Next to each monitor was a rep from each publisher to answer your questions. The one-on-one time with the game and the publishing rep was great. There were a ridiculous amount of games; "SceneIt" (new controller for it is pictured above) "Tiger Woods '08", "Guitar Hero III", "Gears of War" for the PC, "Enemy of Heroes", "Eternal Sonata", "Age of Conan", "Crysis", "Virtua Fighter 5" and "Medal of Honor: Airborne" just to name a few. I could have stayed there all day! Since my time was limited I only played four games, but what was there looked stunning..
Ace Combat 6 - Flight sims have traditionally been a mixed bag. They're either too easy or too detailed and dull. This game was easy to pick up and play but also has the ability to be as complicated as you like. It will support 16 online gamers and comes bundled with its own flight stick. It comes out in October.
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The Simpsons Game - Previous Simpsons games have been positively sucktastic but this title blew me away! The first thing I noticed were the graphics, which looked just like the cartoon. Then there was the game play - hilarious! The game story is a parody of video games and the show itself. There was a level where Marge used a bullhorn to annoy (being annoying is one of her special powers) other locals to band together and fight against "Grand Theft Scratchy" from being released. On another level called "Medal of Homer" which is set in WWII France, German exchange student Uter throws a rock at a French village and all of the townspeople immediately come out with white flags to surrender. Besides the "Medal of Honor" game reference I saw "Frogger", "Space Invaders" and "Castle Wolfenstein" references. The game, which is NOT related in any way to the movie, has more than 7000 lines of dialogue and comes out for the PS3, 360, Wii, DS and PSP in October.
Barker Hanger - While I would have loved to have moved into Microsoft's suite, I had a date that I didn't want to be late for. A date with "X-Play" co-host Morgan Webb. After hooking up with my G4 producer contact, I met up with Morgan and we talked on the G4 stage where they've been filming their E3 coverage all week. She was sweet, somewhat shy (which suprised me) and really knew her stuff about games. I recorded the interview on my digital tape recorder and was hoping to put it on the coloradojoe podcast but because there was so much background noise it would sound like crap. I'll transcribe the interview and put it on the blog next week.
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Best of the Hanger - One of the screwy things about this E3 is how redundant it is. Aside from seeing about a gazillion first person shooters, many of the games at the hanger were also at the gaming publishers hotel suites. Chances are if you've seen it at a hotel, you didn't need to go to the hanger. But since getting to all of the hotels is almost impossible, the hanger does give gamers a chance to see things they haven't seen yet. I missed the Nintendo press conference so checking out what they had to offer was my top priority. After looking around, it was easy to see that they had the most innovative games there. Wii games "Ghost Squad" and "Resident Evil: The Umbrella Chronicles" used the new Wii Zapper, pictured above. Its a device that connects both parts of the Wii nun-chuk and puts them together to make a gun. It worked great and reminded me of those old shooters I used to play in the arcade. The other creative game was "Wii Fit", which comes with a foot pad called the Balance Board that players stand on. It senses the shift in weight your body creates when you move. I watched a guy do yoga, hula hoop and ski jump with it.
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Disney - The last press conference of E3 was Disney. Since it was last and Disney typically handles games for kids, the audience was very thin and the conference room barely half full. It was pretty low key as Disney announced the games "The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian", "Turok" and DGamer, a world-wide online community for Disney gamers. Then things got interesting. There was a demo for a rythm game based on the movie "High School Musical" (yawn). Two volunteers were asked for from the audience to demonstrate the singing portion. Two people came out of the stands and sang a duet. It was made to look like these people were working E3 but they were plants. Right after they finished, a bunch of cheerleaders and guys in waaaay too tight basketball uniforms came out and a new, fast paced song started. There was dancing and singing and lights flashing. For a second I thought I was at a Disneyland show. The funniest part is when the entertainers came out into the audience looking for people to dance with. Expecting a bunch of video game writers to get up and dance to a tune from "High School Musical"? I don't think so. I haven't seen a room full of that many turned off guys since the Kathy Bates nude scene in "About Schmidt". It was unintentional comedy at its finest.
EA - After Disney I laughed all the way to another hotel to check out the EA suite. I had already seen a lot of their stuff at the press conference, the hanger and the Microsoft suite but I really wanted to see "Rock Band" up close. The EA set-up was quite nice with games on every possible device (consoles, handhelds, PC's and even cell phones). I took a peek at "The Simpsons Game" again and the very cool looking co-op shooter "Army of 2" before I saw a few demonstrations of "Rock Band". I didn't try it myself but the people from MTV who were playing it looked like they were having fun. With four different set pieces (mic, drums, bass, guitar) I was curious to see how it was going to be packaged and what the pricing was but that hasn't been determined yet.
The Topper - With things shutting down early tomorrow and everyone heading out of town, tonight was the last night to party. I had an invite to Microsoft's c3@e3 party from xbox.com's Trixie and I was planning to use it. It was held in the back pool/patio area outside at Microsoft's base hotel, the Viceroy. The setting was great and very xboxy. White padded chairs everywhere and the familiar glow of green lights near the small tented areas where people were playing "Call of Duty 4" and "Guitar Hero III". Even the pool and the small tables where people put their drinks (from the free bar) were backlit in green, very swanky. Microsoft and xbox.com were well represented. Besides Trixie and Major Nelson (who was running around doing interviews), Marketing VP Jeff Bell and Xbox 360's favorite tattoo object Peter Moore (pictured above as I close my eyes and wish he hands me a new 360 Elite) were hanging out. I talked with Mr. Moore for a little bit and he's a pretty cool guy. He's from Liverpool so we discussed family and, of course, Liverpool football. It was a perfect end to a great day.
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All that remains are tomorrow's four appointments. Three days is the perfect amount of time for E3 because just like everyone else, I'm getting pretty toasty.
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1 comment:
Awesome... sounds like E3 redeemed itself there. Still, it seems like there are some bugs to work out. So Adam is a good guy, huh? Cool. Did you get any playtime or see anything from Age of Conan? I look forward to the next blog!
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