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E3 Diaries
Tuesday, May 17, 1999
So where was I?
This E3 was probably the most fun and also the most work I have put into the three E3s I have attended. I went to over 25 meetings and obtained exclusive information on new adventure releases. In fact, I have so much information that I plan on devoting a separate column to the new adventure releases on display at E3. Our RPG editor, Katie Scarlett, will be penning her own observations on the RPG releases.
I have noticed that some other disreputable sites are crowing the imminent release of Monkey Island 4 and Myst 3. Well, let me tell you, it ain't so. There is not, at the moment, a Monkey Island 4 announced by LucasArts. There is an enhanced version of Myst being released by Red Orb. It will have new 24-bit graphics, digitally remastered music and an "electronic guide" that will help the novice adventure player through the game. Katie gushed over this "new" Myst and will be reviewing it when it is released.
All was not work, though; I was busy collecting goodies for our E3 contest and trying to spot the celebrities in attendance. I did have the honor of meeting Sergio Aragones from Mad magazine, and he drew a caricature of yours truly. Somehow, I managed to constantly miss the flow of sports celebrities (Mario Andretti, Ricky Carmichael) and wrestling celebrities (Booker T, Goldberg, Hulk Hogan) that were in attendance. I shook paws with the Planet of the Apes characters, danced with Pac Man and threatened to pull apart the Lego Man. Katie interviewed Jane Jensen, and we chatted with the creators of The 7th Guest and The 11th Hour as if they were old friends. My smile must have been wider than the Los Angeles Convention Center as publishers and game developers alike constantly praised the work that Just Adventure is doing to keep the adventure genre viable.
There
was a lot of fun to be had besides the arcade, console and PC games that populated
the show floor. A dance contest with Parappa the Rapper, a Michael Buffer sound-alike
contest (Let's Get Ready to Rumble!), and in a moment of testosterone masculinity,
I showed Katie how a real man rides a mechanical bucking bronco! Three Pentium
III computers were given away, as well as three Volkswagen Beetles, scores of
gamepads and hand controllers, scads of computer and console steering wheels,
Voodoo 3 cards and speakers, to name just a few. It was hard not to win something.
The Board of Directors for the E3 presents awards to what they believe are the best games of the exposition. They do not have an award for best adventure game (though they do have one for best action/adventure) and ignored my pleas for an adventure award. So in the spirit of true adventuring, Just Adventure created awards in five categories and presented them in person to the recipients. We will have the awards presentations on-site for our readers later this week. Take a look at our Adventure Games at E3 column and choose who you think will be the winners in the following categories--"Best Adventure Game at E3," "Best Action/Adventure Game at E3," "Most Original Adventure Game at E3," "Most Anticipated Adventure Game at E3," and "Dark Horse Adventure Game at E3."
That's about it for this year. My plane arrived safely, and I have enough material to fill the Just Adventure site for the next two months! We will be writing separate columns on the games we previewed, our E3 contest, LucasArts' attitude toward gamers and a gallery of photos from the E3! Be with us as the best and most-read adventure site on the Internet continues to bring our readers the inside news on adventure games from around the world! Thanks, everybody!
JA+ E3 Contest Prizes!
Main prize--a Gabriel Knight 3 mousepad autographed by Jane Jensen!
A copy of Pinky and the Brain supplied by Southpeak
E3 Official Media Hat
Re: Action Cap
G.O.D. T-Shirt
Eidos Tote Bag
Assorted Stickers
Assorted Pins
Assorted Press Kits
Assorted Keychains
Assorted Magazines
E3 Daily Magazine
E3 Directory and Media Guide
Friday, May 14, 1999 (Morning)
Random notes from the E3 floor:
A sprinkling of small tidbits that I forgot to mention last night. SouthPeak's 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea has been pushed back until the spring of 2000 and will be released only for the DVD format.
Also, Bob Chase of SouthPeak informed me that they will be running commercials on the Cartoon Network for their Scooby Doo adventure game.
Mindscape has picked up the North American distribution rights for Cryo's Ring. This is great news for adventure fans; let's hope it leads to further distribution of the Cryo line of adventure games.
We got an in-depth preview of an action/adventure game named Nocturne. Nocturne is being published by G.O.D., and I cannot say enough about this game without gushing for the next 1,000 words or so. We will have pics, etc. next week.
Another surprise was a game called Shadowman by Acclaim. You play as an escaped convict who has absorbed the souls of deceased serial killers. The gameplay and graphics were fantastic. I hope it is a little more adventure-oriented, but even the action sequences were fantastic.
More later; I have to go ride a bucking bronco and I'm late!
Thursday, May 13, 1999
What a rush! This place makes the Mardi Gras look like a nunnery. The cacophony of light, color and sound is truly mind-boggling. Bronze-breasted, sneering Duke Nukem lookalikes are abundant--their necks are thicker than my chest. Nor is there a short supply of women challenging the material in their bodices with cleavage deeper than the San Andreas Fault--not that I have noticed. This is a rollicking extravaganza celebrating gamedom in an orgy of overkill. A Disneyland for geeks--and I haven't even left my hotel room yet! (Just kidding, Sandy!)
With all of the noise emanating from the Quake 3 arena and the other 3D shooters on display, one would think that they are the majority of the show. I am happy to report that they are not. In fact, there seems to be a greater diversity of games on array than in years past. While these violent games battle for supremacy with their over-the-top displays of grandiose pomposity, tucked away in small, quiet corners of the exhibition floor are the adventure games, the red-haired stepchildren of the industry.
But search we have, and the staff of JA+ is happy to report that there are a lot of promising adventure games scheduled for release late this year. Probably the biggest surprise, though, is the volume of adventure games scheduled for release for the Playstation and Dreamcast. We have already seen Clock Tower 2 and Echo Night from AGETEC. Not to mention Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver for the Playstation (and PC), Resident Evil 3, Dino Crisis and Alone in the Dark 4. It looks like the supernatural aspect of adventure gaming is ready to haunt gamers throughout fall and winter.
Some of the surprises we have seen so far include a new Scooby Doo adventure from SouthPeak, an adventure/action game from Eidos named Omikron starring David Bowie, and The Wild Wild West, also from SouthPeak. In fact, SouthPeak is releasing two different versions of The Wild, Wild West--one for PC and one for PSX. Both will have entirely different plots, and I must say that the PC version does look excellent.
Tomorrow morning, we have an exclusive interview with Jane Jensen scheduled and a private meeting with Sega and the Dreamcast people as they show us some exclusive adventure games to be released for their new console system. Plus we will be visiting a lot of the smaller companies to take a look at other adventure releases.
In other news, the JA staff presented Jane Jensen with our "Most Anticipated Adventure Game of the Year" award, and we made sure we took pictures to scan for the site! Katie was invited by Mindscape to a private preview of Pools of Radiance II, and she has world-exclusive screenshots and insider information that she will be sharing with you next week!
Movie stars? Not a one! Last year in Atlanta, you could not turn a corner without bumping into someone famous. Since the E3 is in Los Angeles this year, one would expect movie stars galore. Nope. Lots of women in tight t-shirts. Lots of Star Trek and Star Wars lookalikes. Not one movie star. Oh well, maybe tomorrow. For now, it's off to the Acclaim party for more hard work!
Wednesday, May 12, 1999
Getting to the E3 the past two years was not a problem. I rented a car and drove the 13 hours from Pittsburgh to Georgia. Last year, I took my 15-year-old son with me; the year before, one of my best friends. This year, I am flying to Los Angeles on a 747.
Coming home, though, has been a different story. That first year in 1997, we were pulled over at 3:00 a.m. for speeding. We were flying along at 5 miles over the 65-mile limit on an empty, godforsaken highway in the middle of West Virginia, a.k.a. Nowhere, USA. The only state trooper in the entire world on duty at that time of night pulled us over and subjected us to a stern lecture concerning the dangers of speeding. Having seen enough prison movies to be able to mentally picture a West Virginia jail in the middle of nowhere and the toothless mountain men that must be prisoners, well, let's just say that for the first time in my life I knew enough to keep my mouth shut. As if that were not enough embarrassment, for the previous 300 miles I had patiently listened to my traveling companion complain nonstop about a little misunderstanding that had occurred at a rest stop in South Carolina. It seems that as he was voiding his bladder in the restroom, a stranger had approached and made him an "offer." For the next six hours, I listened to the ranting and raving of a homophobic maniac as he constantly cried out in anguish, "What made him think I was like that!"
But last year was even worse! My son and I left Atlanta on a Friday evening at 6 p.m., and it took us two hours to drive the next 30 miles as we crawled through a tornado that poured a torrent of rain that brought traffic to a standstill. Already behind schedule, we finally reached South Carolina around 8:30 in the evening. A small, off-the-beaten-path restaurant promised real southern cooking. The down-home food was good, but the greedy stares from a diner full of patrons that resembled the extras from Deliverance left me squealing to get out of South Carolina once and for all. We then drove all night, sleeping sporadically in truck stops, finally reaching Pittsburgh at noon the next day.
This year will be different. Five hours nonstop by plane. I won't miss the 14-hour driving excursion, but I will miss the interesting scenery of the south: the fireworks stands, "Peaches Here" signs and every restaurant promising biscuits with gravy. But as nice as Atlanta was, it is not the true South. It is homogenized and sanitized. The legendary South was the diners in small towns where the clerks had a southern accent so thick you could slice it like pecan pie. The scary South was the gift shops that sold hats and t-shirts that had unbelievably racist remarks from the Civil War era emblazoned across them.
So now it is off to La La Land. City of Angels. It is 25 years since I have been to Los Angeles. Which once again begs the eternal question--why am I doing this? Why am I traveling across the country just to see some games? I am paying for my own transportation and hotel room. No one is sponsoring me. The answer is simple: play Gabriel Knight 1 or Sanitarium or Grim Fandango, and you will have the answer.
I already have 24 appointments scheduled with publishers who have or are promising new adventure games. It is a huge thrill to be one of the first to see these games. It is an even bigger thrill to be able to share the experience with the readers of JA+. Two publishers have contacted JA+ and promised us exclusive sneak previews of adventure games that no one else in the industry has yet seen! I also have appointments with Piranha, SouthPeak (20,000 Leagues, Wild, Wild West), LucasArts (Indiana Jones and the Infernal Machine, The Phantom Menace), Hasbro (Simon 3D), DreamCatcher, Sega, Infogrames (Outcast, Alone in the Dark 4), to name just a few.
But wait, there's more! A party with David Bowie and Eidos at the House of Blues (which I just found out I will probably not attend due to the lateness of my flight), a chance to meet Gene Simmons from Kiss. A Psygnosis shindig at the Playboy Mansion. An opportunity to match wits at the Mindscape booth with the chess champion of the world. Not to mention the sports stars, wrestlers, and movie and television stars that will be in attendance. Probably, though, the person I will enjoy meeting the most will be Katie Scarlett, our RPG editor. I have never had the good fortune to physically meet any of the JA+ staff, and I am really looking forward to meeting the voice from the telephone.
But wait--my favorite part is yet to come. There will be, I guarantee, at least one "journalist" on another webzine or print magazine that will complain about the opulence and decadence that is E3. He/she will whine that the money could have been better spent on advertising, that the entire affair is nothing but a glorification of the emptiness and shallowness of the industry. This person will have had his/her big butt put in an airplane for free, had his/her big mouth fed for free, and had his/her big head sleeping in a $150 a night room for free. Me, I'm spending my kid's tuition money and loving every moment. Go figure.
So fasten your seat belts and be back here tomorrow as I bring you as much news as I can throughout the day concerning the adventure genre, or my name ain't "Scoops" Sluganski.