Epilogue to E3 2009 - We're Famous!....Almost...

(Scroll down to the second pic)
http://www.wired.com/gamelife/2009/06/gallery_e3_tuesday/6/

On the first day of E3, Jay and I decided to play a game of Lego Rock Band, in order to get a cool Lego lanyard. Jay played guitar, and I played bass. There was a blonde guy in a pony tail standing next to me who obviously wanted to sing, but something was holding him back. We already had picked up a drummer, and if we didn't find a singer, then it would be my duty to sing! Argh! I talked the guy next to me into singing for us. He hemmed and hawed, until he noticed that one of the songs available to us was Europe's, The Final Countdown! He stated that the only way he would sing was if we played that song. Little did he know that I was more than willing to comply with his wishes. We played the song perfectly (Jay and I had to play it on the Easy setting), but this guy was something else. He was belting out this song like the true power ballad that it is. Our playing was so good that it caught the attention of a reporter from Wired.com. After we were done, Jay and I were walking away, and the reporter caught up to us and did an impromptu interview on the spot. He told us that our picture would appear on Wired.com, in the near future. I checked Wired's site daily to no avail, until last night. Here it is in all its glory. Scroll down to the second picture. Sadly, they misspelled my first name. Even sadder is how they forgot Jay's name altogether! Oh well, at least his picture is immortalized forever. What a great ending to wondeful E3!

All Good Things Must Come to an End!

Look at all that schwag!!! Actually it's just the fine folks at the outdoor booth for Rabbids Go Home. They collected all the shwag that you didn't want (no paper products, and no perishables allowed) in that giant toilet, and gave you underwear in return. You could choose between boxers or thongs!

I decided to spend the last day playing all the games that I didn't get to play in previous days.

Out of all of those games, one game in particular really struck my fancy. That game is an action game called, Bayonetta. The aforementioned action is very fast-paced and fluid, quite reminiscent of the Devil May Cry series. The main character is a witch that wields two-firearms, a katana, and casts magic spells. Can you say, "tasty combo action?" This game is just too much fun! The artwork is gorgeous, the main character is simply one of the greatest female characters in videogames thus far, and the gameplay is very intuitive. Within minutes of starting to play, you will be chaining together jaw-dropping combos, to take out gigantic enemies that barely fit on the screen. Speaking of "screen," I'm sorry to say that I was only able to take a few screenshots, when a Sega employee kindly asked me not to. Sorry guys, I tried.

Be honest, when you look at the character Bayonetta long enough, doesn't she remind you a little bit of Sarah Palin?! It must be the cute glasses and the sly wink!
Bayonetta oozes sex appeal and ballet-like violence in a single breath. One of my favorite magic spells, is one in which the main character's hair comes to life in the form of a monster that towers over her. It is at this point that we notice, she is completely naked! Her hair is actually several miles long, and very strategically wrapped about he immodest parts. The hair monster then comes to life, and destroys the giant 4-story monster that acted as an end-level boss. It's a process that is truly difficult to explain, without it being seen in person.

My next foray was into the world of PC gaming. Alienware was there showing off their top of the line products. However, even at the Alienware booth, their own products were demoted by this amazing curved display from Ostendo. What a beauty!

As nice as the curved display was, it was old tech that had already been mentioned before in the media. However, what I came to lay my eyes upon next, was something that I couldn't even believe existed in 2009. I'm talking about the PCI video card by Fusion-io, called the ioXtreme. This video card carries 80GB on a single PCIe card, and bridges the gap between your RAM and disk drives. Remember that it's your slow disk drive, with it's moving parts, that is the bottle-neck in this process. The demonstrations for this device simply blew me away. Look at the pictures below:
You see all those tiled screens on that huge display? Each one of them is a video file (they were all popular movie trailers), and they are all being run simultaneously. Big deal, right? Well, they are all being run at the same time off of one video card! Let's take a closer look:
You see that video card in the plexiglass display case? Yes, it's doing all the crunching you see above! The premise is that with a videocard of this caliber, your CPU doesn't get drained, or even taxed in the slightest. Amazing isn't it? I certainly thought so.

Well, that's all for this year. Thank you for sharing your precious time and comments with me. It's been a great experience. Hopefully, I'll be able to go again next year, and bring you more info from inside the belly of the beast. Until then, all the best and take care!

Day 2 - I Can No Longer Feel My Feet.

Look, another Final Fantasy game, how original....yawn!

Today was an absolute whirlwind of activity. In fact, when I tried to think of several key points to blog about, my mind went blank! It's like having a vivid dream, but when you awake you find that you can't seem to remember anything from said dream.

Here are some bullet points:

• I met, got an autograph from, talked to, and shook Mickey Rourke's hand yesterday. Sadly, he wasn't allowing photographs to be taken with him (it would slow the line down too much). I forgot to mention this in yesterday's blog. I am glad to report that he was a very kind and gentle soul, and couldn't have been nicer to his fans.
• I tried in vain, yet again, to get some pictures of Splinter Cell: Conviction. Unfortunately, the game is so dark that all my photos look like terrible smudges.
• Did you know that if a dwarf in a rabbit costume falls on their back, they can't get up? They need to be picked up and placed back on their feet by their handler. This is simultaneously hilarious and horrifying.
  
• If you laughed at that last bullet point, you're going to hell.

James Cameron's new movie Avatar is cloaked in secrecy. No one even knows what the plot is about, but there are whispers of mind-boggling special effects similar in scope to Star Wars, when it was first released in 1977. I was able to get a picture of one of the movie's props.

The most important game that I got to see today was Beatles Rock Band. I know, many of you are tired of music games by now. But I must say, they really went all out to make this game as enjoyable as possible. First, if you play on "easy" you can't lose. This is because they wanted to make sure that the elderly and non-gamers could jam along with the rest of us. The example given was an entire family playing together, even Grandma. Second, there are no songs to unlock. So you don't have to spend days unlocking everything before you invite others over to play. They expressly stated that they wanted people to throw a Beatles Rock Band party on the same day that the game comes out (9-9-09), without having to wait for a pay-off. Sadly, the only drawback is that even though the game will have many songs already on it, they will indeed have some Beatles expansion packs in the future. But that's hardly surprising, it is a business after all, and downloadable content for music games is the only thing that has made a dent so far in iTunes' armor.

I know that I sound like a cheerleader for this game by now, but I don't even own Rock Band, and only mildly had any interest in the antecedent Guitar Hero series. The best way to put it is that this game is just so inviting. You look at it and automatically want to play it, right away! Also, they have polished this game, and put so much love into it that it shows and glimmers above all that cam before it.

A couple of parting shots:

• The trailer for Star Wars The Old Republic looked amazing. Why couldn't the prequels have been that moving?

• Hideo Kojima's involvement in the Castlevania franchise seems to be exactly what the franchise needs.
  

The First Day is Over!

Wow, what a blast! Yes, it's official. This is the same E3 show that we had grown to love, before it was reduced to a sad joke last year. Although, they really trimmed the fat. For starters, there was no exhibitors in Kentia Hall! Before you cry for the "little guy" companies, please note that they had all been relocated to the end of South Hall instead. If anything, this gave the smaller companies much more exposure, than when they were banished to the basement of E3. Due to less European companies making the trek to Los Angeles, the "little guy" got to share floor space with Capcom, Konami, and Microsoft! Not too shabby.

My friend Jay, and I, started off at the Nintendo booth in West Hall. Where we got to see the newest additions to the Wii library. Yes, I know your Wii is gathering dust, so be prepared to dust it off, and play it again soon. Here's why. First, there is Wii Sports Resort. You know how Club Med doesn't have televisions, so that you're forced to go out and perform fun activities? That's exactly what Nintendo is trying to emulate. With games such as fencing (think foam lightsabers, not Olympics-style swordplay), ping pong, and frisbee with a cute pooch, you'll keep playing over and over again. I must say, it sounds simple and silly, but it was lots of fun.
Secondly, I got to watch this gentleman play Wii Fit Plus. His on-screen character was a giant chicken that was dropping from up above to the ground below, he had to flutter his wings/arms in order to land in the "safe zone." Basically, it was the parachuting level from the SNES classic, Pilotwings on steroids, and fully immersed.
Here's a video of his wing-flapping lunacy:

Finally, we got to play New Super Mario Bros. Wii. This is a multiplayer game, where you play as 4 characters on the same screen. The goal is to help each other overcome the obstacles before you. For example, Mario can pick up Toad and throw him upwards. Luigi can stomp out Koopas, while Toad gathers a much-needed power-up. It was pretty frenetic, and is sure to be a new hit at parties.

Oh, before I forget, look who I found walking around the show floor. Yes, the new Ghostbusters game is being well-represented at this year’s E3. Thought you might get a kick out of their outfits, I know I did.

Did you ever see the Docu-drama, The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters? If you did, you already know of Steve Wiebe, the man who has made it his mission to conquer one of the toughest videogames of all time, Donkey Kong. He was at E3 this year, trying to beat the world record score of 1,050,200. Sadly, after four attempts (one of which was cut short due to a power outage), he only managed to get 989,400 points before he reached the kill screen.

In closing, the coolest game that I saw all day was one that isn't getting much press by the major gaming websites. That game is Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell: Conviction. I never played any of the previous games in the franchise. However, I can tell you that this game takes stealth-action games to the next level. It felt like a Jason Bourne movie that you control. The action was very high-minded, whiplash fast, and constantly in flux. I can't wait to play it, instead of just watching the developer's demo tape.

Well, that's all for tonight. I have to get some sleep, and try to repeat this process tomorrow. All the best, and happy gaming to all.

The Day Before the Battle Begins - Two Interesting Announcements

Those who were lucky enough to see Paul McCartney live at Coachella a few months ago, may have been keen-eyed enough to get a glimpse of the new Beatles Rock Band game (the footage was projected onto the screen playing behind him, skip to ~1:20). Well, we now have a full trailer for the game that we've all been waiting for. I love the fact that the Beatles' catalog is being remastered and re-released on the same day that the game drops. It's amazing to think that some youngsters will be hearing the Fab Four for the first time! This decision also illustrates how massively important music games are to artists' financial bottom-line. Who would have guessed that ringtones, videogames, and digital downloads would be the future of the music industry (for better or worse)?


Also, keeping up with my never-ending fascination with the Metal Gear series, it was announced today that a new game in the series is heading to the much beloved Xbox360. Hideo Kojima had set up a viral site designed to tease the life out of us Metal Gear fans. What started as a looping Shockwave image of a stormy sky, gave way to two countdown timers, an image of Big Boss, and lastly a link to the E3 website!? Finally, the truth comes out. The game is called Metal Gear Solid: Rising. The kicker is that the main character of the game is Raiden! The previously annoying girly-man from MGS2, turned up in MGS4 as a half-cyborg/half-human, 100% badass, who rescues Solid Snake (his mentor)! Sadly, we never got to play as him in MGS4. Well, now we will. The trailer for the game is below as well.


That's all for now. I have to recharge my camera, watch Conan O'Brien's debut at Jay Leno's old time slot (he's got Pearl Jam on!), and most of all get some rest. Until tomorrow!

E3 2009 - The Return of the Menace!

After one year's absence, my friends and I will be going back to E3. Yes, the show is back at the Los Angeles Convention Center (i.e. no more disease-riddled, airport hangar in Santa Monica). Yes, it is supposed to be a return to the E3 show of old: shwag, booth babes, and callused feet. As always, I'll be your eyes and ears on the inside. Please join me on this journey back into the mouth of evil, and pray for my safe return. Sleepless nights and jittery, caffeine-fueled mornings here we come!