May 12, 2006

• The exhaustion of E3
  Woke up early Thursday morning to drive up to E3. Get there around noon and begins the insanity of E3. I hung out mostly with Nick, Miller, and Webb. We checked out a trailer for Metal Gear Solid 4, and immediately played the demo for Guitar Hero II. The PSP showings were really starting to look up, with Loco Roco and Ultimate Ghost n’ Goblins leading the way. Great design and good artistic direction. God of War II also looked very good, though it’s definitely pushing the PS2 to it’s limits. After Sony, we went to Nintendo to check it out. The Wii was generating a huge amount of buzz and the to demo it was out of control. We checked out some DS games, and were very happy to see that they were bringing the Japanese rythm game, Osu! Tatakae! Ouendan!, to the states with an American theme. Though it seems just as hard as it’s Japanese counterpart. Nick also took note that it’s interesting that Point Blank is being ported to DS. After Nintendo, we left the West Hall and proceeded to the South Hall were we pretty much went straight to the THQ booth. Of course we had to pass through EA and check out their 360 display booth built on a bass thumping platform. It’s a great way to show off title while nearly causing seizures in the attendees. THQ’s booth had some of the best looking booth babes in the entire convention, and almost all the games were generating good buzz. We ran into Sam and Monica and then wandered around the booths for a while with them.
  Dinner was at Ciudad, a Latin restaurant near the convention center. We had a prefix meal that had delicious calimari, and I had the chili relleno, which was quite delicious. After dinner, we headed over to Hollywood and started drinking at the Saddle Ranch. It was Me, Nick, Jason, Chris, and Dylan, with Will coming in tow. After riding the mechanic bull, we headed over to Miyaki’s where there was a sorority there for the evening. Good times ensued and we got home at around 2:30.
  Me, Miller, and Nick woke up Friday around 8:30, mostly rested and without a hangover. We had brunch at The Original Pantry, an old fashion diner. Full of food and caffine, we proceeded straight to the Nintendo booth to get our hands on the Wii. After a cool intro with two guys playing the drunks using Wiimotes, we watched three other people conducing an orchestra, playing Metroid Prime 3, and tennis. When it was time for our own hands on, we played Warioware! Smooth Moves, which was a ton of fun. It was really cool because it showed off a lot of different ways to use the controller in a short amount of time. Nick got in line for Super Mario Galaxy, and 30 minutes later, the line had advanced by one person. Me and Miller played some tennis (which has support for top and back spin), as well as Super Monkey Ball. I think the title for the Wii will be great. Finally, Nick got to play Super Mario Galaxy, and by that time, he had already memorized the demo and breezed through it. After Nintendo, me and Miller played some more Guitar Hero II, visited the THQ booth again, and checked out the Kentia Hall, where lots of independent developers live. Red Octane was down there, so we got to play a couple more songs that weren’t available on the upstairs Guitar Herro II demo. And Nick and I played Unreal Tournament 2004 via the Trimersion VR prototype. We looked quite silly spinning around trying to shoot a bot. We returned to the South Hall and watched a live halfpipe show put on by Activision for the Tony Hawk series of games. It was pretty cool being that close to the halfpipe and seeing how high these people get. They are crazy!
  Exhausted and fullfilled, we hopped into the car and sat in traffic for an hour before hitting smooth roads and making it down to San Diego.
  Pictures to come soon!

  • 11:40 pm
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