Tuesday, May 24, 2005
E3 has come and gone, it was one helluva ride again. Had fun for the most part. I hate to bore you to death but here is a day by day rundown of my vacation, so it might be a bit too lengthy for ya, but here goes.
Sunday, 5/15: Started my 4 hour drive down to Montevideo to meet up with my older sister, Sherrie and her husband Rob who were gonna give me a ride just a couple hours away from her place to MSP in the twin cities. Had a surprisingly fun time there, never really hanged out with them before on my own so I had no idea what to expect. But it was fun, drank a bunch of beer with Rob, and we had a little grillout and campfire too that night. Fun stuff.
Monday, 5/16: Left Sherrie's real early around 4am and got to MSP about 7am, plenty early to catch my 9am flight. Funny moment came at the gate where I was waiting to board and reading some gaming mags to kill time when another gamer approached me and said if he wanted to play some DS with me. I told him I didn't have one, but he said he had 3 of them (!?!), and we proceeded to play some multiplayer Zoo Keeper, Polarium, and WarioWare for a little while until our flight.
Got into LA about a lil before 2pm their time. I was going to E3 with three other site coworkers. Adam got in right around when I did, but he wanted to catch the Sony conference at 3pm when I figured it'd be too close for me to make it there on time so I didn't bother RSVP'ing for it. So I decided to go meet up with my sites main admin, John who flew in about an hour later. We then waited for the final staff member, Phil, who flew in about an hour and a half later. We then got shuttled to our hotel, where the cabbie told us was in a very bad neighborhood in the heart of LA (We were about a mile away from Staple and convention centers). Same thing happened in 2003, but I always played it safe and made sure I was always with someone on my walks to the convention center and back.
Saw some pics of the PS3 and read its specs. Specs and machine are both appealing, except what's the deal with the bulky boomerang controller? I thought Microsoft taught us there is no market in the console business for gigantic controllers. Let's hope it is compatible with the older Playstation controllers.
Anyways Adam got back and met up with us at the hotel a couple hours later. Somehow none of us could get passes for Microsoft's conference, even though John went the last three years. So instead we all went to Universal Studios later that night and checked out a Final Fantasy orchestra/concert. It was hosted by the guy who voiced Tidus from X. It was mainly an orchestra, but were later joined by a rock band "The Black Mages" for a couple songs. My favorite songs they performed were the chocobo theme, complete with video footage of how the Chocobo evolved in each FF installment. Also what was well done was the selection which happened to be the only one of the night with lyrics, and I think we all know which one that was. Yes, the memorable opera scene from VI. Very well done, can't believe that I remembered a lot of the lines myself too. Only letdown of the show was no rendition of the victory theme being performed. Got back to the hotel and stayed up a little late before crashing.
Tuesday, 5/17: Only John and Adam were able to get RSVP'd for the Nintendo conference. Phil and I were able to watch it live via stream off another site. Dunno what to think of that decoy of the Revolution I say, but the announcement of downloading all older Nintendo titles for the Revolution does intrigue me. Probably best part about their conference was their overwhelming support for all their current platforms. Especially the GBA and GCN considering them being so late in their lifecycles. That night all of us went to a party threw for the media called efocus. Pretty good stuff, free food and booze, and about a couple dozen little booths with games and such being for people to play. That went well as usual, then headed back to the hotel for an early crash to get ready for the E3 madness the next day.
Wendesday, 5/18: Started the E3 extravaganza by John and I having an appointment for a tour with the Eidos booth. New Tomb Raider and Hitman looked tight, Miss Croft finally looks like she'll be in a good game for the first time in forever. I had a tv interview with some Denmark tv station about the Hitman developers, guess they originated from Denmark and he wanted my thoughts on them. Had a couple other appointments that day too with John. Went to see a couple behind closed doors tours from Microsoft about the 360. Wasn't shown too much tho in the hour we hadwith them, did get to see Kameo in action tho, and how it evolved from the regular Xbox version. Then had an appointment with THQ and they demo'd a pair of 360 games for us. Saint's Row looks great, it is a GTA clone, but one with mighty potential. If I decided to get a 360, I would prolly pick up Saint's Row on launch. Pretty good first day overall on the floor. No parties going on that night, so we all just chilled at the hotel and worked on articles for the site.
Thursday, 5/19: Didn't have anymore appointments for the rest of E3 so all I did was check out games on the show floor and work on articles in the media center. Games I checked out I was impressed with was the 24 game and the new Katamari title, both for PS2. Was by Midway's booth for a bit and spent a bit of time with MK: Shaolin Monks which ended up a bit better than I expected. Blitz the League looks interesting with its storyline around football, but it still looks like it plays like the same old Blitz. After that I spent most of the day at Nintendo's and Sony's booth. Adam and I decided to do some handheld coverage for the site for the end of the day with him checking out a bunch of DS titles, and me trying a bunch of GBA games out for the last hour. During this hour an interesting thing happened...
I tried out a gba game from this company, orbital media, this game called scurge hive, and it was at nintendos huge booth when what i thought i was a regular nintendo exhibitor starts walking me through the game. Turns out this guy is an actual developer of the game and these guys told me they publish their own stuff too, anyways he walks me thru the game and it looks awesome, reminds me of Super Metroid with some in-depth platorming elements, guy tells me game has been in development for over two years and gives me a lot more details about the game. Then I tell him to hold up so i can jot some of these details down in my notepad for my preview and he says he'll hook me up with a press kit and they'd appreciate the preview because they have trouble marketing, I then tell him the game impressed me so much ill give the game its own separate preview. The guy gets a big smile and gives me that a racing game they released a couple months ago and asks if i can review it for him too, so huzzah for me! That night was pretty much the same as the night before, John was able to get into the Sony party they had that night but he only had one ticket so none of us could make it, so it was another night of article writing.
Friday, 5/20: I spent the first three hours of the show waiting in line with Adam and Phil to try out the latest Zelda for GCN. Thankfully it was worth the wait. They had four different parts of the game to try out and we all spent about an hour with the game. It plays a lot like Ocarina of time, got to do a boss battle which brought back many memories of the challenging boss battles from OoT. Last half of the day I was trying out more various games from the floor. Checked out 2K and EA sports booths a bit to get a good feel for the latest sports games. Right when the show ended I swung by the GameSpot booth and briefly talked to Alex Navarro, my favorite reviewer off that site. Awesome to meet him. Unfortunately there no post-e3 parties going on that night so I just spent it writing more articles and BS'ing with the rest of the staff as we voted for and discussed our pics for the best of E3 awards. Lots of arguing was involved.
Article is not posted yet, but highlight from it I can say is we all unanimously voted that Rockstar got our nod for biggest waste of space on the floor. They had two huge busses there, unfortunately they had no games to play or on display via video trailers. That includes the soon to be released San Andreas for PC, and Xbox. More importantly I wanted to see how GTA for PSP was doing but it was nowhere to be seen either. Damn you Rockstar, what happened.
Saturday, 5/21: Flew back to MSP. Met some interesting folks on my shuttle to LAX who had a lot of stuff to say about the lifestyle on the east and west coast. I guess they both agreed there are lots of hot ladies in Salt Lake City to be seen so I guess I'll be moving there soon. Got back into the cities around 4pm and Sherrie and Rob picked me up shortly thereafter. We went out to Friday's, it was my first time eating there and I remember speding about $20 on fancy alcoholic drinks there. Oh yeah, there steak and potatoes rock too. Got back to their place and we watched The Incredibles. Now I'm not much for animated movies, but man did that one impress me. I always underrate Pixar's flicks, but the good thing about their features is that even though it looks like they are aimed towards kids, they got plenty of content in there to keep the yound adults and older crowd hooked in too.
Went to bed and headed towards town the next morning about 11:30, got back around 4pm and immediately met up with Chris to watch the new Star Wars. Now I haven't seen the original trilogy, and only episode 2 of the prequels so I don't have much to compare it to, but I enjoyed Revenge of the Sith. There were some mighty good lightsaber battles in there, and I even enjoyed Vader's cheesy 'noooooooo' towards the end. Got back to my place and watched Major League 2 to much enjoyment. It still is one of my all time favorite sports movies.
Hey, I'm a bit past talking about where E3 ended so I guess I'll wrap up this entry. If you guys have any thoughts or questions about games you heard or wanted to know were at E3, ask away and I might have some info about them for you.
Sunday, 5/15: Started my 4 hour drive down to Montevideo to meet up with my older sister, Sherrie and her husband Rob who were gonna give me a ride just a couple hours away from her place to MSP in the twin cities. Had a surprisingly fun time there, never really hanged out with them before on my own so I had no idea what to expect. But it was fun, drank a bunch of beer with Rob, and we had a little grillout and campfire too that night. Fun stuff.
Monday, 5/16: Left Sherrie's real early around 4am and got to MSP about 7am, plenty early to catch my 9am flight. Funny moment came at the gate where I was waiting to board and reading some gaming mags to kill time when another gamer approached me and said if he wanted to play some DS with me. I told him I didn't have one, but he said he had 3 of them (!?!), and we proceeded to play some multiplayer Zoo Keeper, Polarium, and WarioWare for a little while until our flight.
Got into LA about a lil before 2pm their time. I was going to E3 with three other site coworkers. Adam got in right around when I did, but he wanted to catch the Sony conference at 3pm when I figured it'd be too close for me to make it there on time so I didn't bother RSVP'ing for it. So I decided to go meet up with my sites main admin, John who flew in about an hour later. We then waited for the final staff member, Phil, who flew in about an hour and a half later. We then got shuttled to our hotel, where the cabbie told us was in a very bad neighborhood in the heart of LA (We were about a mile away from Staple and convention centers). Same thing happened in 2003, but I always played it safe and made sure I was always with someone on my walks to the convention center and back.
Saw some pics of the PS3 and read its specs. Specs and machine are both appealing, except what's the deal with the bulky boomerang controller? I thought Microsoft taught us there is no market in the console business for gigantic controllers. Let's hope it is compatible with the older Playstation controllers.
Anyways Adam got back and met up with us at the hotel a couple hours later. Somehow none of us could get passes for Microsoft's conference, even though John went the last three years. So instead we all went to Universal Studios later that night and checked out a Final Fantasy orchestra/concert. It was hosted by the guy who voiced Tidus from X. It was mainly an orchestra, but were later joined by a rock band "The Black Mages" for a couple songs. My favorite songs they performed were the chocobo theme, complete with video footage of how the Chocobo evolved in each FF installment. Also what was well done was the selection which happened to be the only one of the night with lyrics, and I think we all know which one that was. Yes, the memorable opera scene from VI. Very well done, can't believe that I remembered a lot of the lines myself too. Only letdown of the show was no rendition of the victory theme being performed. Got back to the hotel and stayed up a little late before crashing.
Tuesday, 5/17: Only John and Adam were able to get RSVP'd for the Nintendo conference. Phil and I were able to watch it live via stream off another site. Dunno what to think of that decoy of the Revolution I say, but the announcement of downloading all older Nintendo titles for the Revolution does intrigue me. Probably best part about their conference was their overwhelming support for all their current platforms. Especially the GBA and GCN considering them being so late in their lifecycles. That night all of us went to a party threw for the media called efocus. Pretty good stuff, free food and booze, and about a couple dozen little booths with games and such being for people to play. That went well as usual, then headed back to the hotel for an early crash to get ready for the E3 madness the next day.
Wendesday, 5/18: Started the E3 extravaganza by John and I having an appointment for a tour with the Eidos booth. New Tomb Raider and Hitman looked tight, Miss Croft finally looks like she'll be in a good game for the first time in forever. I had a tv interview with some Denmark tv station about the Hitman developers, guess they originated from Denmark and he wanted my thoughts on them. Had a couple other appointments that day too with John. Went to see a couple behind closed doors tours from Microsoft about the 360. Wasn't shown too much tho in the hour we hadwith them, did get to see Kameo in action tho, and how it evolved from the regular Xbox version. Then had an appointment with THQ and they demo'd a pair of 360 games for us. Saint's Row looks great, it is a GTA clone, but one with mighty potential. If I decided to get a 360, I would prolly pick up Saint's Row on launch. Pretty good first day overall on the floor. No parties going on that night, so we all just chilled at the hotel and worked on articles for the site.
Thursday, 5/19: Didn't have anymore appointments for the rest of E3 so all I did was check out games on the show floor and work on articles in the media center. Games I checked out I was impressed with was the 24 game and the new Katamari title, both for PS2. Was by Midway's booth for a bit and spent a bit of time with MK: Shaolin Monks which ended up a bit better than I expected. Blitz the League looks interesting with its storyline around football, but it still looks like it plays like the same old Blitz. After that I spent most of the day at Nintendo's and Sony's booth. Adam and I decided to do some handheld coverage for the site for the end of the day with him checking out a bunch of DS titles, and me trying a bunch of GBA games out for the last hour. During this hour an interesting thing happened...
I tried out a gba game from this company, orbital media, this game called scurge hive, and it was at nintendos huge booth when what i thought i was a regular nintendo exhibitor starts walking me through the game. Turns out this guy is an actual developer of the game and these guys told me they publish their own stuff too, anyways he walks me thru the game and it looks awesome, reminds me of Super Metroid with some in-depth platorming elements, guy tells me game has been in development for over two years and gives me a lot more details about the game. Then I tell him to hold up so i can jot some of these details down in my notepad for my preview and he says he'll hook me up with a press kit and they'd appreciate the preview because they have trouble marketing, I then tell him the game impressed me so much ill give the game its own separate preview. The guy gets a big smile and gives me that a racing game they released a couple months ago and asks if i can review it for him too, so huzzah for me! That night was pretty much the same as the night before, John was able to get into the Sony party they had that night but he only had one ticket so none of us could make it, so it was another night of article writing.
Friday, 5/20: I spent the first three hours of the show waiting in line with Adam and Phil to try out the latest Zelda for GCN. Thankfully it was worth the wait. They had four different parts of the game to try out and we all spent about an hour with the game. It plays a lot like Ocarina of time, got to do a boss battle which brought back many memories of the challenging boss battles from OoT. Last half of the day I was trying out more various games from the floor. Checked out 2K and EA sports booths a bit to get a good feel for the latest sports games. Right when the show ended I swung by the GameSpot booth and briefly talked to Alex Navarro, my favorite reviewer off that site. Awesome to meet him. Unfortunately there no post-e3 parties going on that night so I just spent it writing more articles and BS'ing with the rest of the staff as we voted for and discussed our pics for the best of E3 awards. Lots of arguing was involved.
Article is not posted yet, but highlight from it I can say is we all unanimously voted that Rockstar got our nod for biggest waste of space on the floor. They had two huge busses there, unfortunately they had no games to play or on display via video trailers. That includes the soon to be released San Andreas for PC, and Xbox. More importantly I wanted to see how GTA for PSP was doing but it was nowhere to be seen either. Damn you Rockstar, what happened.
Saturday, 5/21: Flew back to MSP. Met some interesting folks on my shuttle to LAX who had a lot of stuff to say about the lifestyle on the east and west coast. I guess they both agreed there are lots of hot ladies in Salt Lake City to be seen so I guess I'll be moving there soon. Got back into the cities around 4pm and Sherrie and Rob picked me up shortly thereafter. We went out to Friday's, it was my first time eating there and I remember speding about $20 on fancy alcoholic drinks there. Oh yeah, there steak and potatoes rock too. Got back to their place and we watched The Incredibles. Now I'm not much for animated movies, but man did that one impress me. I always underrate Pixar's flicks, but the good thing about their features is that even though it looks like they are aimed towards kids, they got plenty of content in there to keep the yound adults and older crowd hooked in too.
Went to bed and headed towards town the next morning about 11:30, got back around 4pm and immediately met up with Chris to watch the new Star Wars. Now I haven't seen the original trilogy, and only episode 2 of the prequels so I don't have much to compare it to, but I enjoyed Revenge of the Sith. There were some mighty good lightsaber battles in there, and I even enjoyed Vader's cheesy 'noooooooo' towards the end. Got back to my place and watched Major League 2 to much enjoyment. It still is one of my all time favorite sports movies.
Hey, I'm a bit past talking about where E3 ended so I guess I'll wrap up this entry. If you guys have any thoughts or questions about games you heard or wanted to know were at E3, ask away and I might have some info about them for you.
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