One of the things I really wanted to try was the Nintendo
Wii controllers (or the "wii-mote") but the line to try it was closed
by the time I got to it. Nintendo really surprised everyone, by the
fact that their new console has really sparked a lot of interest among
gamers and developers alike. Despite the graphics not being on par with
PS3 or 360, no one didn't seem to care too much and was actually
talking about *gasp* gameplay! Out of the big three, I feel that
Nintendo "won" E3 by having the best buzz.
Sony finally had PlayStation3 demos on the show floor this year, and out of those ones, Heavenly Sword was very very very impressive. Ofcourse they are also showcasing the trailer for Metal Gear Solid 4,
and boy does it draw a huge crowd of people that love to watch it. One
thing I noticed about the PS3 is that the graphic quality only seems
slightly better (if at all) as opposed to the xbox360. The PS3 does
seem to have a little more detail and clearer than the 360, but the
comparison is much smaller than it was between the xbox v.1 and the
PS2. A lot of people (including myself) felt that Sony had a luckluster
presence in E3, although their booth is still packed as ever.
Microsoft this year was all about games, games, games for the xbox360. A lot of their titles were very popular on the show floor, from Lost Planet, Crackdown, Saint's Row, Ninety Nine Nights, Chromehounds, Splinter Cell : Double Agent, Dead Rising, Viva Pinata, and Rockstar's Table Tennis (damn fun). I was even able to see a very extensive demonstration of Gears of War, and wow did that look oh so excellent. There was even a section dedicated to the next-gen PC games like Crysis, which is probably the most technically beautiful looking game. Also just like with MGS4, when the Halo 3
trailer pops up, people stop to watch, and for several of them they
actually stop playing to do so. With this showing, Microsoft had a lot
of great buzz as well, much better than originally expected by the
public.
Other things that happened at the expo was me doing
really bad with magnetic darts, trying to win a prize. I also noticed
that there were even more news media covering the event. Oh, because of
the newer more conservative E3 rules about booth babes this year, it
seems that there really were less of them around for men to gawk at.
Speaking of the media and booth babes, the infamous Paris Hilton
made an appearance to promote a game. Man, she drew a huge crowd to the
point that it became a fire hazard and people had to be forced out of
the area. So nope, never did get to see her.
I didn't really do much photo ops with the booth babes this year, but I had a funny encounter with one. It was one of the Tecmo girls,
and she liked the shirt I was wearing with the flames on the collar and
all. She was all "wow, love the shirt, you're flaming! No wait, I'm not
saying you are gay, but wait, I'm not saying there's anything wrong
with that either." I just gave her a chuckle, told her that's alright,
thanked them and walked off. Then she goes "Oh God, I just say the
stupidest things!" hahaha
After about four
hours at E3, to my surprise I started to feel bored. For whatever
reason though, I just didn't feel the "magic of gaming." Admitedly, I
only had one hour of sleep between my graveyard shift at work and
attending E3, but the event did keep me wide awake the whole time.
Maybe it's because I always end up just observing somebody else playing
the games, as opposed to me actually playing it myself. Once I've seen
all I can see in the exhibit halls, I promptly went over to the live
taping of G4's live E3 coverage,
to see if I could maybe catch myself on TV. Sure enough, I would
occasionally see myself on TV in the first 45 minutes of the show.
In fact, at one point I was on screen a whole whopping 15 seconds! Sweet.
Next year, I may not care about attending again. The truth of the matter is, with extensive live TV coverage of the event, the internet doing a really great job this year in providing non-attendees game trailers shown at E3, to using the xbox 360's live marketplace
to download those trailers and play demos of games as well, there's
really less reasons for me to attend. But we'll see if I do decide on
that next year.
Best multi-player playable game : Chromehounds (xbox360)
Best surprise : Nintendo Wii
Worst surprise : PS3 price
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