Category: Gaming

Day 2: Walking towards the convention to E3, Atari had their logo Matrixized with the then unreleased Matrix Online. That was cool but while I am looking up at Matrixed Atari logo out of the corner of my eye I see people falling from the sky. What is going on here I think to myself and see that it is the army doing a demonstration for the American Army games. This is day two for me so I take time to stop and pick up some swag and magazines in the entrance. On day one I just wanted to get inside and see the games and it was everything I expected and more. I picked up the official E3 magazine that details the events of the day. I flip a couple of pages and come to a map of the convention. Don’t laugh because this was my first time but there were more rooms and sections that I did not know existed. On day one I thought it was odd because I didn’t see the official Nintendo or Sony booths and just thought maybe they were not there because there next-gen systems were not ready. I completely overlooked the first room and directly headed to these new found areas. I went to the Sony’s booths first, wait before I continue I have to explain when I say booths I don’t mean like a hot dog like stand. Their booth likeness is closer to small communities with mascots, outrageous displays and games all over. Sony had a strong showing with tons of demos for the PS2 and for my new shiny PSP, all the upcoming games that I am now feeding it. The line for the PS3 was insane with people wrapping around the whole building. I had to pass on that for now to see Nintendo’s showing. Before I say anything good I was disappointed that they were not showing the Revolution to the regular E3 attendants and only to the press. Maybe this is why I was not impressed with their setup. They had the Gameboy Micros on display and for playing, if I remember right but all I could think was why would people buy that with the DS and PSP out(guess I was right on that prediction). Nintendo’s only saving point for me was the new Legend of Zelda game that was being shown. The line for this game was almost as long as the PS3 line and again I had to pass for more games. Day two finished up with me buying a hot dog wrapped in bacon and just taking in everything I had just seen.

Day 1: I walk in and my senses went into overload from all the lights, sounds and people. I can honestly say I have never been to any event quite like this. E3 goes all out, with displays, statues and booths with your favorite video game characters and trailers towering over you. The first one I see is a huge Mickey Mouse in a black suit holding a weapon. If I had no sense of dignity I would have ran up to it screaming like a little school girl but I played it cool and walked up to the kiosk to see people playing Kingdom Hearts II. This is my favorite RPG hands down besides Mushashi for the Playstation I and I have been waiting so long for a sequel. Next up was the Sega’s booth with too many games to mention. Then I stumbled upon the Square Enix’s booths and tried to get into the preview movie but all the tickets were gone. I stopped by the PC section to see games like Starship Troopers and Terra Firma from an independent publisher that has a game that allows the player to switch between third and first person shooter action. At this time I was not into PC games like I am now so I missed a lot of current and future titles. EA being the biggest company in the game market made sure you felt their presence at E3. EA’s setup lets you walk into this large circular room with games like Need for Speed for the Xbox 360 but that was not why everyone was there. Looking directly up you see that the upper wall is a huge 360 screen. The presentation (if I remember correctly) starts with a familiar song from the Godfather followed by a couple of scenes from the game making you crave more and they deliver with the next big game the Sims 2. The Sims 2 had different scenes happening on the circular screen so you had to turn around to see the different scenarios. Just as that finishes a car burns rubber and a cop car with sirens a blazing chase it to introduce Need for Speed: Most Wanted. The sound was incredible in this room; it almost drowned out the sound from the convention. The next huge game that demonstrated the sound system the most was Fight Night because they have two guys sparring in a ring. You can hear every punch with the occasional nearby gamer saying, “Oh no!” Believe me, it was that realistically looking and for the grand finale one of the boxers throw the finishing punch and his opponent’s face ripples from the punch but at the same time the floor shakes as if you were the one getting hit. Remember my school girl reference earlier well there were people who had no hang ups and let out there screams and dances. I even broken my calm demeanor and had to applause for that presentation. This wrapped up day one for me. I made a mental note of where to resume on day two.

My E3 experience could not be summoned up in one word. It would probably fill up three thousand pages if I wrote out every little detail of days at the big event. To give you a picture of my mindset and excitement going into E3, I will have to give you a little bit of my video gamer background. I will also tell you how I got my pass into the show, some of the companies that were there and the video I shot.

I don’t think my mom even knows this but I will have to credit her with my first gaming experience. My mom would bring home her computer from work probably a Commodore, I don’t remember but the games were addicting. My first video game system was an Atari 2600 with a lot of great games like Commando and Pacman and one of the weirdest, nonsensical games ever invented: E.T. Wait that is getting a little negative lets turn it around. He was green if you had a color television back then that is positive, right! More quarters dropped in arcades than I could count back then. Fast forward to present day and a growing video game addiction and we come to my very first experience at E3.

Again special thanks to Clark Steel at Gamerave.com for the pass. When I received the pass I immediately got all three days off from both my jobs because I wanted to get the full experience. Next I had to get the requirements for E3 so I used my first job because they actually used to attend before I started working there. They would go for educational games but stopped for lack of educational games offered at the show. So I go to register a day before the event and had all the credentials from my company. I asked the lady at the desk if I had to use my company’s name or if I could use my website company. She said it would be fine to use the website name. So on my new shiny badge it said Tobias Henry, Game Consultant/Reviewer, EclipticSight.com. With my badge in had I was ready for the next day. Let me tell you I could not even sleep that night thinking of all the games I was going to see and play.

I picked the perfect time to attend E3 2005 because the next-gen consoles were going to be shown with the exception of the Nintendo Revolution. That was a big disappointment on their part. All the big players in the video game and computer industry were there from Sony, Microsoft, EA, Nintendo and a host of small and independent developers that I didn’t even know about.

I made sure to have my MiniDV camera in hand to record the event but later after reviewing the film, I found out most of it was pixelated with garbage on the screen and could not use it. I also took my PSP to E3 hoping to get demos or something but no luck. I do have a good story about my PSP and Nintendo for later. I got the capture below from the now retired MiniDV with my swag in all its greatness.

Four Part Review:
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4