Anybody Going to E3?

[Mr. Lothario]

     I'm heading out to E3 tomorrow (Wednesday) and Thursday, and I was wondering if any of y'all are going to be there. If so, we should meet up and do the Mac-gamer bonding thing. Hope to see you there. : )

[The Ghost of Bondo]

I figure one of these years I'll make it to E3, after all I've been working in the gaming media for 4 and a half years.

So far this year has been blah, I was expecting something more important to come out of the pre-show conferences.

[|MP|Nomad]

what is E3?

[kami]

Nomad it's a big gaming expo where they show all the latest and leetest games for most platforms.

[ACE Justin Sane]

where is E3? what city?

[The Ghost of Bondo]

Los Angeles

[PsYcO aSsAsSiN]

It is a private show, so you can only get in if you are with some company that has been invited to attend.

[Supernatural Pie]

My cousin works for Acclaim and is going to some school in texas where they're gonna teach him how to design levels.
he's designed levels for tony hawk 4, and has been a game tester.
Anyway, he's going to E3, and he'll probably bring back a bunch of pictures.

[(SEALs) one]

E3 will have lots of neat games and upcoming game previews such as The Sims2,MoH:RS(Rising Sun),BF1942:SWoWW2(Secret Weps of WW2)
Lotr, and I think a James Bond game.



-one

[Mr. Lothario]

     E³ stands for Electronic Entertainment Expo, America's largest video game trade show, and either the second or third largest in the world, AFAIK. It's held over four days in May every year, in Los Angeles. There are professional workshops on the first three days, but the main attraction and the raison d'etre for E³ is the exhibits on the last three days. The exhibits are where companies use flashy advertising, huge and elaborate booths, and scantily-clad booth babes in the hopes of eliciting glowing praise for their upcoming games in the gaming press; as well as getting buyers for distribution chains to order thousands of copies for their stores.

     People like me, neither a member of the media nor a buyer, are worthless as far as the companies are concerned. Regardless, it is a tremendously fun show to attend.

     My first day's highlights: Spy Hunter 2 is fun, although what I played of it smacks of a game with no replay value. Rent it.
     Gran Turismo 4 is bad ass. The graphics aren't tremendously improved over GT3, but the physics seem even better, and there are more cars than GT3's relatively tiny selection.
     F-Zero GX is fun as hell, which is no surprise.
     A strange game called Geist, coming to the GameCube, is highly interesting and quite fun. In it, you play a ghost (or possibly some sort of psychic spiritual projection, I wasn't exposed to any backstory) who possesses enemies to progress through the game. It's very entertaining to nearly get wasted in a bigass firefight, then abandon that host and grab one of the guys you were just fighting, and turn him on his former allies. I laughed.
     ESPionage for the PS2 had incredibly shoddy controls, which marred what could have been a very fun game.
     Halo on the PC was there. I didn't play it, but just seeing it running on the platform it was designed for warmed my heart.
     Bungie was running screenings of a live Halo 2 demonstration (played by one of the lead designers). All I have to say is, boo yah! The physics, AI, eye candy, sound, ambience, writing, voice acting, and sheer badassery of the Master Chief made me fall in love. That game is going to be big.
     Steel Battalion on the XBox is very interesting. The version that was on display was a new one equipped with XBox Live! support. Networking Steel Batallion may make the $200 price tag palatable to more buyers. It's a damn shame that it costs so much, because it is a very well-designed game with an AAA-quality controller.
     Microsoft's Crimson Skies: High Road to Vengeance was super-fun. Pretty, and the most intuitive XBox controls I've ever dealt with. It was the only XBox game I've ever played that I didn't have trouble controlling. Not to mention that I impressed the game's designer enough that he invited me to participate in a multiplayer tournament they're having tomorrow. : D

     And now, I must sleep in preparation for an early day of E³ing tomorrow. G'night.

[Supernatural Pie]

Microsoft's Crimson Skies: High Road to Vengeance was super-fun. Pretty, and the most intuitive XBox controls I've ever dealt with. It was the only XBox game I've ever played that I didn't have trouble controlling.

I was at my cousin's house last week playing that (he got a copy of it along with the full cockpit control setup). Truly kick ass. A bit odd at times, but the graphics and cockpit controller setup made up for it.

A lot like MechWarrior, but better.

[Mr. Lothario]

     Snipe, the designer mentioned some things to me (features still to be added, changes added just before he left for E³) that made me think that the game was still in development, albeit almost finished. I don't think that you and I are talking about the same game.

     I participated in that tournament that I mentioned. It was three eight-player rounds. The top four from the first round went on to play against the top four from the second round. Those eight made up the final round, in which the winner recieved an XBox and XBox Live! starter kit. The rounds were ten minutes, first to ten kills won. I played in the first round, and reached ten kills roughly seven minutes in (there's no timer that I saw), when the second-place guy was at 6. The second round went all ten minutes, with the top guy at 9 kills. I started off slow in the third and final round, and was at 1 point when the top guy had 4. I hurried my ass up, and the next time I checked the scores, I was at 8 and the second guy was at 6. Then, my luck turned sour. I died, respawned, and rushed towards the grand melee in the middle of the map. I rounded a wall and ran smack into every one of my opponents, all of whom were turned in my direction. I died roughly two seconds later. That happened three times, no matter which direction I entered the fracas from. On my fourth try, I finally avoided that fate, got a kill, then died. When I checked the score, it was tied, 9-9. I frantically looked for a wounded opponent to finish off, and found one. I turned onto his tail and started pounding him with bullets and firing missiles. One of my missiles was inbound, and another was just being fired, so I had certainly less than ten seconds until my tenth point, and probably less than five. Then the other guy got a kill. It sucked.

     I watched the Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater trailer. My reaction can be summed up thusly: OMFG. It's about time somebody pushed the PS2 to its limits. The game's visuals are just amazing. The game is a history of some of Snake's earlier missions, set in 1961-1963. As such, the environments shown in the trailer were jungle, complete with waving grass, lots of trees, logs to hide behind, rivers, etc. There was one scene in which dogs were chasing Snake, and the dogs were running through some tall weed-like grasses which were taller than the dogs were. The grasses were being pushed out of the way by the dogs' passage, just as they should be. It looked great. Oh, and blood: Snake is hiding between a couple of fallen logs. A soldier walks up on patrol or something, stops by the logs, looks around, then glances down and notices Snake. The guard is shocked. Cut to a shot of Snake holding a silenced pistol out of the shadow between the logs. He fires. The bullet catches the guard in the chest, and blood sprays out of his front and back as he is knocked back by the impact. In another scene, Snake is fighting a couple of soldiers and some dogs in a river. The dogs are charging, the water is splashing around them, the soldiers and Snake are causing eddies and wakes as they move, spent shell casing are splashing into the water, the whole nine yards. Snake kills the last guard and the camera watches the guard fall into the river and lie mostly submerged. Blood begins discoloring the water in a spreading stain downstream of the body. Just, wow. It looks like it's going to be a great, great game.

[Supernatural Pie]

Damn loth, you're right. It's not the same game.

Why do I remember the name being something like Crimson Skies...

Fuck. I'm gonna go crazy trying to figure out what it was now.

Ah well. Sleep it off snipey, it's 2:30 am. Sleep is your friend.