A Life-long Dream Come True.


Okay, maybe not "life long", but for at least the last 10 years or so, I've wanted to go to the Electronic Entertainment Expo, better known as E3. Unfortunately, it's a trade show that is not open to the public, and as such, you have to work in the gaming industry to get in.

Well, I might not technically work in "the industry," but I know someone who works for a little company called "Blizzard Entertainement" and she was able to get me a pass for free admission. (On a side note, to use the pass, you have to prove your employment with a company. You do not, however, have to prove that company has anything to do with gaming. So for my purposes, the company I work for is affiliated with the gaming industry.)

So anyways, down to Staples Center for E3. I've been to the LA convetion center for the Auto Show several times. E3 is not much different except instead of cars, they have games and instead of normal people they have nerds. And it's louder. Much louder.



"Establishing Shots" to show the pandemonium and scale of the event. Take note of the banner advertising "Spyhunter" the movie, starring The Rock and directed by John Woo. Three guesses as to how that's going to turn out. And it can't possibly be as good as Dave "Fargo" Kosak's version.



G4 had a presence there as well. Didn't see Adam or Morgan. One of the signs says "meet the hosts of 'Attack of the Show'" between 11am and noon on Friday. It was 12:03 when we arrived and I snapped the picture (/cry).

Pictures from the show floor.

First off, I'd like to register my extreme disappointment at the lack of booth babes. I had been lead to believe that E3 was filled to the brim with scantily-clad booth babes who would throw themselves at passer-by. While walking around the show floor I experienced a distinct lack of thrown booth babe-related injuries. I want my money back.



I did take this one very bad picture of the geek's favorite booth babe known as Lara Croft. I'm only posting it because I timed the picture perfectly to get the worst possible facial expression. She could play Gordon Frohman.



There was a booth babe, albeit somewhat conservatively dressed one, at the Pixar booth. I suppose buxom blondes isn't the best way to advertise a kiddy movie/game.



I did, however, come across some booth, um, army guys. The advertised game is Brothers in Arms: Hell's Highway. Aren't the developers ever going to get tired of making WW2 themed games? Probably not as long as we gamers keep shelling out cash for them. And as long as games like Call of Duty 2 keep getting made, that's not likely to stop anytime soon.



F.E.A.R. Very creepy game. They're making a very creepy expansion too. The game is creepy because 1) it features a 14-year-old girl who has supposedly been dead for the last 20 years hunting you down with her mind, and 2) it makes my computer run slowly, except if I turn the graphics settings all the way down (/cry). It's one of those games where you need a $500 video card to properly enjoy it.



Blizzard went all out with their booth. They had a huge screen playing a trailer for The Burning Crusade, the expansion to WoW. If you've been living under a rock, or are not a gamer, then you might not be aware of the two big announcements Blizzard made last week for E3. (Friggin' finally. Rie and I have only known about the Draenei for six months or so.)

On the show floor, they had a playable demo of Burning Crusade, so what does Rie do? Plunks down to play it. We drive all the way to down town LA so she can play WoW.



This is Illidan. He used to be a High Elf, before the Dark Times. Before the Empero- um, Sargeras.



Concept art of Illidan.



Concept art of, um, something. A Draenei perhaps?

At the Activision booth.



Don't mess with him, man. He's Optimus Freakin' Prime.



A Strogg cannon from Enemy Territory: Quake Wars. Don't know much about it, but it combines titles from two games of vastly different settings. Nazi Strogg battling it out with US Space Marines maybe? Might almost be as good as He-Man battling legions of Borg-Nazis.



Close up of the cannon.



Don't remember which booth this was at. It's Wolverine's Harley from the forthcoming X3 movie and game. It comes complete with befuddled looking guy staring at his cell phone.



I'll only drive it if it goes "waka waka waka waka."



A new Pirates movie can only mean one thing. A new Pirates game!



Avast Matey!



Don't be touchin' me swag!



...or me chair!

Speaking of Swag, one of the best parts of E3 is all the free stuff you get. All the companies give out free stuff in a desperate attempt to get you to remember their name or product amongst the sea of lights and noise. Our list of swag includes: 3 NVidia t-shirts, featuring artwork from NVidia-sponsored games on the back (one for Enemy Territory: Quake Wars, one for Supreme Commander, and one for Tomb Raider: Legend, signed by Lady Croft herself. She loves me! The signature said so!); an NVidia adverzine; two Tomb Raider: Legend mousepads; posters for Tomb Raider: Legend, Eragon: The Movie, and Guild Wars: Factions; a Webzen Games inflatable boogie board; folders for Webzen Games' titles Soul of the Ultimate Nation, Huxley, and Project Wiki; two NVidia glowing buttons; four Webzen Games flashy logo necklaces; two Pac-Man trinkets (a plastic ghost and a keychain); an SOE flashy bouncy ball; N-Gage, NVidia, and Webzen swag-carrying bags; five advertisement flyers (two beta invitations for Pirates of the Caribbean Online, a Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning ad, an Eragon: The Movie contest flyer, and a Gamespot After Hours flyer; a moist Towelette with The Game Factory logo; one forty-five caliber automatic; two boxes of ammunition; four days' concentrated emergency rations; one drug issue containing antibiotics, morphine, vitamin pills, pep pills, sleeping pills, tranquilizer pills; one miniature combination Russian phrase book and Bible; one hundred dollars in rubles; one hundred dollars in gold; nine packs of chewing gum; one issue of prophylactics; three lipsticks; three pair of nylon stockings. Shoot, a fella' could have a pretty good weekend in Vegas with all that stuff.

One booth I didn't take any pictures of, but which might have been the coolest booth there was EA's booth. The booth was set up like a panavision theater, where a giant screen wrapped all the way around you. Accompanying the 360° theater was a several trillion-watt sound system. Y'know the kind that shakes the floor when someone in the movie whispers loudly. Anyways, they were showing trailers of their games on this screen. Some of the more intersting ones included Spore and Battlefield 2142. On one section of the wall, they had X-Boxes set up that were running Battle for Middle Earth II.

Now, I have a love/hate relationship with EA, but they have some interesting stuff in the works. Aside from the afformentioned games, the one that really blew me away (and was perhaps the best game at the show, IMHO) was Crysis, from CryTek, makers of the much acclaimed and much-fun FarCry (yes, all their titles have "Cry" in it somewhere). The graphics were mind-blowing. Soft shadows, focal blur, volumetric clouds, motion blur... all the graphical goodies I've been waiting for. I didn't come across it until near the end of the show, so I didn't have enough time to stick around and play, but I did watch another player for a bit. Everytime he quickly jerked the view, a motion blur effect would kick in, as if you were doing a quick-pan on a camera. Remember Commando? Remember "Gardening with Uncle Arnie"? Well, this game allows you to do that! I watched as the player sprayed gunfire towards a palm tree. The palm tree was cut in half and the top half fell to the ground. It's the type of game engine in which I would be happy to run around banging two rocks together.

Anyways, moving on....



The LucasArts booth. For those familiar with the Auto Show or the LA Convention Center, this isn't in one of the main halls. This is off in one of the smaller side halls. Y'know, the one that normally has the Lamborghinis and Ferraris. I guess LucasArts is trying to hold themselves up as more cultured and elite than the rabble on the show floor. I didn't actually go in because you had to stand in a line just to get in the door. Trying to make it feel more like an art gallery, I think. *Sigh* I remember when they used to make good games. They did have a couple interesting announcements, though.

Speaking of art, there was a small exhibit of various artwork for different games. I think this was so the ESA could pretend to be all highfalutin and elite, while still just being gamers.



This is from Rise of Nations: Rise of Legends. I think it's concept art of some Vinci city.



This is from Myst: Revelations. The only Myst game I haven't beaten (mainly because it had the great misfortune of coming out a few weeks prior to World of Warcraft).

The Sony Booth.



They had a giant screen inside a mock-PSP, showing game play from various PSP games. Behind it was a semi-circular panoramic screen.

Of course, the also had a whole bunch of PS3's on the show floor, running various forthcoming games. One of the more interesting-looking ones was Warhawk. They also had a big screen showing demos and trailers of various PS3 games. On which looked interesting, although it gave no indication to the actual gameplay, was called Afrika [Working Title]. The trailer consisted of nothing more than some very highly-detailed and well-rendered African wildlife. I think it was mainly to show off the processing power of the PS3.



We wandered into one of the private showing rooms, where they were demonstrating an interesting niche card game. This game utilized a camera facing the game play board. When you placed a card on the board, the camera would pick it up and show whatever creature or monster that card represented on the screen. When a card was played that would start a battle, it would show the monsters fighting on the screen. An interesting concept, although as one in our group pointed out, having to watch the fight on the screen would only serve to slow down the pace of the game. One might be inclined just to skip the video game portion of it and just play the card game. Now if you could actually control the monsters during the fight, that would be one thing.

As I came out of the private room, I was told to stay right where I was by a large black man, who was attempting to direct traffic. In the bumping and jostling, I realized I was standing right next to Rie's former boss, Mike Morhaime, President and Co-Founder of Blizzard Entertainment. He had actually been in the room with us, but I hadn't noticed. I turned to shake his hand; "Hi Mike. I don't know if you remember me, but we've met before. I'm Anne Marie's husband." He just looked vaguely through me. "That's Steven Spielberg," he said, pointing over my shoulder.

Bwuh?

I hadn't noticed it amongst the large black fellow and jostling crowd, but the guy directing traffic was actually a body guard for Steven Spielberg, who was entering one of the other private rooms at the PS3 booth.

Quick! Get the camera!

I didn't come out well, but I had to post it anyways. The person covered up by the bright flash, whom you can only just barely make out is, in fact, the demi-god of the movie industry,


Steven Spielberg.

We were all in a little bit of awe after that, even Mike Morhaime. I wonder if he was thinking of doing a little schmoozing, considering Blizzard is in need of a talented film director?


The group with Mike (top-center). Never been in a picture with a murderer before.

So we hung out with Mike a little bit. Earlier, we had gone over to Mythic's private booth, where they were showing Warhammer Online. The booth was not open to the public, but Rie's friend knew someone from Mythic who was able to hook us up. For those not cool enough to be in the know, Mythic recently got the rights to turn the popular Warhammer table-top miniatures game into an MMO. Though some might criticize me for saying it, but at first glance, the UI and gameplay looked to be a complete rip-off of Warcraft. So it's no surprise that Mythic and Blizzard are going to be big competitors. So here we are, two people in Blizzard E3 shirts, walking up to the Mythic booth to get a demo. Rie's friend started talking with one of the Mythic employees and I was almost certain fisticuffs would break out. But anyways, we got in and played the demo. Well, anyways, fast forward a bit and we're with Mike Morhaime. Rie's friend asks him if he wanted to see Warhammer. He seemed a bit confused (as if they would let the president of Blizzard in to see a private demo), but went along. Rie's friend talked with his friend and said "my boss is here to see the demo." The response, "who's you're boss?" "The president of Blizzard." Oh my. "Let me get my president and have him talk with your president." But anyways, Mike met Mythic's president and the talked for a few minutes inside the booth. When Mike came out, Rie commented that he had a slightly bewildered expression on his face that seemed to indicate he was thinking "my gosh, it's Warcraft all over again!" Pure speculation, though.

Anyway, so the show winds down and comes to an end at 4:00. On our way out, I turned around and saw that I'd lost Rie. After a couple moments of looking, I saw her madly trying to call me on her cell phone. "Look who it is!"



That guy pwns!

In case you hadn't picked up my not-so-subtle hints, you really need to check out purepwnage.com. Absolutely hilarious stuff. Anyways, we inadvertantly stumbled into Jeremy and Kyle, creators of the show, while filming.


(You can see why Kyle always stays behind the camera. Not nearly as good-looking as Jeremy.)

When I approached to take a picture, Jeremy finished up the bit they were filming and came over to me. We were able to talk for several minutes. I asked about their success, whether we would see them on TV, when their next episode is coming out. Jeremy was incredibly nice and seemed very eager to chat.

When he found out that Rie worked for Blizzard, he started asking her all sorts of questions, like if the people at Blizzard play WoW, what they were working on, and such. He also mentioned that he wanted a cameo in the upcoming Warcraft movie. I suggested he should play Leeroy Jenkins.


he liek totly pwns n00bs n stuf

So anyways, shortly after that, we left the hallowed grounds of E3 and began the trek from downtown LA to Santa Ana.

And thus ended another adventure of...
Joe in the 21st and a half CENTURYYYYYYY!!!!