This is the End, My Only Friend, the End. (Cue The Door's Sitar Music)

Well, it seems that our time at E3 has come to a glorious end. Even though there was less schwag this year, and thanks to the management - much less attendees this year; I still had an amazing time. The future of videogames looks bright and fun as hell.

I couldn't stop playing the PS2 game, Yakuza. This game is called Ryu Ga Gotoku in Japan, and has been very popular among import game lovers. Thankfully it is coming to the US, but with the Japanese dialog replaced with English....Grrrrrrr. In this game you are a Yakuza member that has just come out of jail, serving a sentence for a crime that was necessary to save his friend and the woman he loves. The fighting, gambling, and even hostess clubbing of Yakuza life are all included. This game was a lot more fun than any of the GTA games in my opinion. Sadly, this is the game that Shenmue was supposed to be!

I didn't take many pics today. To be honest, this is the only one worth sharing. These two cosplayers are actually sisters. My friend Danny had met the one dressed as Link at the San Diego Comic Con a year ago. At the time he had noticed that her shield and sword were made of real metal. She told him that her father had fabricated the weapons for her himself. We were all blown away by the costumes that they were wearing, and yes they made those themselves too. That is what I call one talented family!


Wii Have Become Geek Celebrities!
Okay, remember how I told you all about the hellish wait in line to enter Nintendo's encapsulated fortress of solitude (also known as their booth)? Well, while we were standing in line some industrious attendees decided to film the entire length of the line. It is stunning, because it makes you appreciate how long of a line it was. Seriously, it must have broken some E3 record. I have made a few screen grabs of us, and included the videos along with the times where we appear in the videos. After doing so I really feel like a jerk for ever complaining about how long we had to wait. Just look at those poor bastards behing us!

Here are the pics:
Pictured as found: Javier, Ivan's brother, Jay, Daniel, Dora, Mehrdad.
Not Pictured: Ivan, Kim, or The Gunman on the Grassy Knoll.


Dorks the original formula, Now with added Ivan and Kim! Same great taste, no extra calories. By the way, what the hell is Danny doing on his knees?! He looks like a midget next to Dora.

Here are the videos, and where you can find us in them:

The line for Wii at E3 2006: 42 seconds in.


E3 2006 The Nintendo Wii Line: 1:01 minutes in.


E3 2006- The Wii Line (feat. the Wii Dance): 1:29 minutes in.


E3 2006 Nintendo Wii Cue Line: 24 seconds in.


Thanks to YouTube and all the videographers for compiling and posting the above videos.
This next video is from www.thatvideosite.com. We are 14 seconds in.

Alright, that's all I have energy for. I desperately need to sleep. I'm just scared that I may dream of L.A. traffic or having to stand in line for a keychain. Either way, I hope you all enjoyed the blog and hope it helped you all understand this monster we like to call E3. Hopefully, I will get the opportunity to do it again for you in the future. Until then, take care. :)

Addendum: Jay noted that I forgot to add Joe Rogan as a "celebrity sighting" yesterday. This was mostly due to the fact that I only saw him for a second, when he walked out of a men's bathroom as I was walking in. The world may now rest easy.

Why Can't I Feel My Feet Anymore? Is This Tingling Normal??

Is this hell or purgatory? Neither! It's that cool, 3-D sidewalk artist, drawing on the floor of the LA Convention Center!



This is the Revolution that Wii Needed:
So we get to West Hall today and made a mad dash for the Nintendo booth....only to be greeted by a line a quarter of a mile long. Everyone in the line had something in common apart from the smug look on their faces. They all had exhibitor badges that had allowed them to enter West Hall earlier than everyone else. Therefore, getting in line before us. Thankfully the wait was only about an hour and a half until we got to penetrate Nintendo's fortress of Wii. For some reason Nintendo has encapsulated their show area to a large closed off circle. Some speculated that the reason for this segregation was due to the fact that Nintendo didn't want their system to be juxtaposed side-by-side with the other next gen systems that clearly have better graphics. But whatever their reason was, they can breathe a sigh of relief becuase Nintendo has made one amazingly fun system. I played everything from a tennis game to a horse-racing game, all of which utilized the Wii controller's motion-sensitive movement controls. It was surprisingly intuitive, even when being played for the first time. I even got to play the Virtual Console, which is the emulator function of the Wii that lets you download games from classic consoles for play on the Wii. The "classic" controller used for the Virtual Console looked like a revised version of the SNES controller. It will be sold separately as the Wii will ship with the Nunchuk style controller. I played Super Mario Bros (NES), Sonic the Hedgehog (Genesis), and Super Mario World (SNES). I must say that although the games played perfectly, we noticed that the graphics were a bit blocky around the edges. Indicating that the Wii was not using any filters to smoothen out the edges. Hopefully they will fix this as it would be a shame for the Wii to underperform in an area where emulators like MAME have already excelled. If anyone uses emulators on their computer or hacked XBOX, they know that one of the reasons they look so good is due to the filters that these emulators employ. Either way, this is a small gripe and is something that I am sure Nintendo will ameliorate in the near future. The next gen Mario, Zelda, and Metroid all looked great and felt much more different from their Gamecube counterparts.

I cannot stress this enough: Do NOT judge these games before playing them.

Okay, that's all for tonight. Tomorrow is the last day and I have to recharge myself one last time before the show.

Celebrity sighting: Kristin Holt of G4's Cheat! Addendum: Tony Hawk was there yesterday, I just forgot to add him. Oddly enough, so was that famous bulldog that can skateboard. He was there doing a promotion for Mountain Dew (the dog not Tony Hawk). No, I'm not kidding.

The Storm Begins

Blasts from the Past:
Today Kentia Hall was open at 9am, while the other halls were open at 11am. We usually go through Kentia Hall pretty quickly due to the fact that it is nothing more than small businesses and foriegn companies trying to make a few business contacts. Well we were pleasantly surprised to see that the middle of the hall had been turned into a museum of sorts, celebrating the early days of the videogame era. There were free coin-up machines allowing you to relive our delinquent pasts. However, the cherry on top was live music performed by 8-bit Weapon himself! 8BW specializes in making music using retro consoles like the Gameboy and C-64.







Back to the Future:
We went to the Square Enix booth first in South Hall and decided to go to the "movie," which has become an E3 standard, where Square debuts their new Final Fantasy titles. Afterwards we were of the unanimous opinion that Square has gone completely insane. They have 3 new games coming out that are all based on Final Fantasy 7. No, I'm not kidding. They showed what could only be called a "snippet" for Final Fantasy 12, which will be the nest new FF game to debut. However, they have 3 games based on the Final Fantasy 13 universe that will supposedly debut on PS3. They had another quick commercial for the Dragon Quest game for Nintendo's Wii, which showed someone using the controller to act out the on-screen sword swinging action. Sounds like fun right? Well too bad, because that was a snippet too. Instead we got full trailers for 3 games based on FF7, not too mention a long trailer for FF7: Advent Children, which has been in video stores for a few weeks already!?

This is Square's new motto: "Hey kids, remember that one Final Fantasy we made years ago that you all seemed to not hate? Well we are going to drown you with "sequels" to Final Fantasy 7 until you pray to God to end your misery."

It's so sad really. Not to mention that most FF titles nowadays are nothing more than a CGI orgy minus any plot or subtext. Oh well, at least we still have the Dragon Quest franchise.



Sony Hates Poor People:
Okay, maybe not hate, they just don't like them when they're breathing. But before we get to that, look at the mastodonic size of those PS3's! That is not a depth of field effect you're seeing in the picture. They really are that big compared to the people in the picture. Of all the games I could have photographed I chose Gran Turismo High Definition, because most if not all of you already know what a GT game is suppposed to look like. I must say that the game looked stunning and featured both cars and motorcycles (a la Tourist Trophy).




Before you ask- Yes, the Metal Gear Solid 4 trailer was present on their jumbotron projection screen, and yes it was gorgeous. It is longer than the one we have seen online, and features more plot exposition than the online one. But above all, RAIDEN KICKS ASS! OMG, you will never believe the ninja acrobatics he performs in that game. He demolishes a couple of Metal Gear Ray's using the high frequency Tengu blade that Solid Snake taught him to use in MGS2. There is also an homage to Empire Strikes Back in the manner that he dispatches the Rays.

Back to discussing the PS3. The awful truth about Sony's lying has now been confirmed by me. Check out the link above and look at my picture from behind the PS3. Make the judgement for yourself. Is this the "cheaper" PS3 or has Sony been caught red-handed. I suggest the latter, but only time will tell.




Technically, the only real PS3's are the networked stacks that you see in the pictures below. As of this writing, this is the truest form of the PS3. One of my friends is working on a PS3 game for a major company and he made that observation for me. Thanks Danny! ;)



All in all, the best comment about Sony was made by this gentleman's shirt.
"How do you go from 1st to 3rd? $499.99/$599.99." Couldn't have said it better myself!


The PSP was also in full swing. I must say that it is a very impressive system. I played a Sonic and a SOCOM game on it. Both were quite amazing for a handheld. But again, that high price sticker looms overhead. Sony also showed a new camera add-on for the PSP, along with a headset.



Wii, I'm Not Standing in Line for 2 Hours!!!
Sadly, the Nintendo booth's main focus was making you stand in line for several hours to get to play the Wii. I had no energy left in me for that, I'll do it tomorrow. Instead, I played the new Mario game for the DS, yes it was cool, but since it's already on store shelves you pretty musch new that. I saw this guy holding a Wii (Revolution) and I snapped a few pics to show you the system's small stature.



Let's Go Out on a Musical Note:
One last pic. This is Martin Leung, the videogame pianist. If you don't know him, you have never been to Youtube, Google Video, or ebaum's world.


Finally, the celebrity sighting roll-call: Gilbert Gottfried, Jenny McCarthy, and Sinbad (he's at EVERY single E3 and always looks like he just got out of the gym).

Okay, gotta sleep. Will be up in a few hours to repeat this painful process.