While
I’m No Longer an E3 Virgin, I’m Still Pretty Tight
or What
I Did on My E3 Vacation
I had been looking forward to this year’s E3 practically
since last year’s E3. What an extravaganza!
Outside
the Convention Center
(clicking on most pictures will enlarge them)
I
flew into the Burbank airport, in the San Fernando Valley area of Los Angeles,
and Darcy picked me up. We battled the infamous L.A. traffic (yes, the horror
stories are all true) and checked into our hotel near the ocean in Santa Monica.
Soon, Ray called from the Los Angeles International Airport and said that he had
picked up both Cindy and Randy, and the five of us met over at Ray’s apartment
for an evening of drunkenness and group sex soft drinks and conversation.
We stayed up late talking about games and other stuff, and then Darcy and I returned
to our hotel room and passed out. Darcy snores really loud. There’s your tidbit
of inside information about your beloved JA staff members.
The next morning,
we got up and had a 46 damn dollar breakfast in the hotel restaurant. What a ripoff!
And that’s not including the tip! So we were plenty crabby as we climbed aboard
the E3 shuttle armed only with our $5 bottles of water from the hotel. Then it
took a good hour to get to the E3 because the bus had to sit for about 20 minutes,
then pick up passengers at four or five other hotels, then battle the L.A. freeway
traffic, and all the while our great big butts were stuffed into little bitty
seats.
We finally arrived at the Convention Center, but we were too late
to meet the rest of our group as scheduled, so we collected our badge holders
and decided to take a gander at the console hall.
The E3 took up the entire
L.A. Convention Center, which consists of three gigantic exhibit halls and a bunch
of smaller meeting rooms (that were still pretty good-sized) off the numerous
corridors. The West Hall is the biggest room, and it’s where the console companies
stake their spots. Although there were quite a few smaller exhibitors in this
hall, probably three-quarters of the space was taken by Nintendo and Sony. For
some inexplicable reason, the Nintendo display this year was walled off, with
only limited entrances. Darcy and I did a human wedge kind of thing and forced
our way through the crowd into the exhibit, and then we forced our way right back
out again. And that was the last we saw of that whole room. We did get a very
brief look at the Game Cube and Game Boy Advance screens, and we really liked
the looks of the Game Boy Advance. I’ve gotta get me one of those.
We worked
our way down a half-mile concourse to the other side of the Convention Center,
where the other two main exhibit rooms were. The South Hall is upstairs from Kentia
Hall. South Hall is where the big players in the PC games market were, as well
as the Microsoft X-Box exhibits and the Segasoft display (last year, Segasoft
was in the West Hall with the rest of the console dudes; I wonder if they are
shifting their focus to X-Box?). Kentia is where the smaller PC developers are,
as well as the components and accessories people and other assorted support-type
industries.
We met the rest of the JAholes over at the Arxel Tribe booth
and had a very impressive demo of Arxel’s upcoming Hitchcock game. Keep
your eyes out for this one; it’s going to be great! Parts of the Hitchcock movies
are actually woven into the game! I believe Hitchcock is due out in September
2001.
Hitchcock
Screens
Next
up was a meeting with Her Interactive. They are developing not one but two new
Nancy Drew games, Treasure in the Royal Tower and The Final Scene. We
saw a working demo of Treasure in the Royal Tower, which takes place in
a Wisconsin mansion whose owner was obsessed with Marie Antoinette. Fans of the
series will be glad to know that the graphics are even nicer and the cursor/navigation
system has been improved. We were presented with a swell Nancy Drew magnifying
glass (which is now mine, all mine, mwa ha ha!), and here also are some scans
of the box designs for the two new games.
After
that, we headed over to the Dreamcatcher booth in the South Hall. Randy had to
meet with the president of Dreamcatcher, and Ray and Cindy were getting demos
of Schizm and Atlantis 3. Darcy and I absconded with our favorite
Dreamcatcher employee and got some lunch. (Until then, it hadn’t occurred to us
that all of the people staffing the exhibits don’t really get to see the show
because they have to work the whole time; that would really bite, wouldn’t it?)
Dreamcatcher has a really great-looking lineup. In addition to Schizm and
Atlantis 3, they are the North American publishers for a whole raft of
Cryo games, including the upcoming Jekyll & Hyde. Randy will probably
supply a lot more serious info about these games; we girls just wanted to have
fun.
Atlantis
3 Poster
We then tried to get the scoop on Amerzone 2 from
the Microids people. They showed us Road to India, which looks beautiful
and should be available in May 2001. Development on Amerzone 2 has only
just begun, so there was nothing for us to look at, or so they said …
Road
to India Screens
Following that, Darcy and I had a meeting with
Pan Interactive. We wanted to talk about their upcoming Hitchhiker’s Guide
to the Galaxy game, which is well under development, as well as their Legacy
of Rosemond Hill, a game for girls 11 and up. We had a great conversation
about Hitchhiker’s Guide, including the impact of Douglas Adams’s death,
but unfortunately were prevented by time constraints from learning anything about
the Rosemond Hill game. However, if you’re interested, you can check out
the Rosemond web site.
So
here’s the scoop on the Hitchhiker’s game: Pan Interactive had been working
closely with Douglas Adams in developing the game to remain true to the novel(s),
and Adams had been approving segments of the game. At the time of Adams’s death,
development on the game was substantially complete, in keeping with Adams’s vision,
and so while his death was a blow to the development team, they are confident
about the end result. The game is an action/adventure; the developers likened
the gameplay style to Tomb Raider. I have to say that the unprepossessing
Hitchhiker’s hero looks nothing like Lara Croft!
Arthur
Dent
This was the middle of the afternoon, and Darcy and I were
done with our appointments for the day. We strolled around and looked at various
exhibits and tried to score some souvenirs for our kids. We were largely unsuccessful,
but I took a couple of pictures of the Harry Potter exhibit for my son.
And you all:
Harry
Potter Exhibit
We left the E3 and had dinner with Ray and Cindy
at a Mexican restaurant, El Cholo. We talked about whether we had actually met
in person people we knew from the Internet, and of course we all said yes, and
then the question was narrowed down to “anyone outside of gaming?” and
the answer was no. None of our real-life friends understand our strange gaming
compulsion, and so we have to troll the information superhighway for compatriots.
Go figure!
On Friday morning, Darcy, Cindy, and I had a meeting with LucasArts.
Great news here! We learned not only that Escape from Monkey Island is
being ported to Playstation 2 (hopefully opening up a whole new audience for adventure
games), but also that LucasArts has not one but two adventure games in development.
The LucasArts rep was very cagey about these two games; he did say that one will
be a sequel (but he didn’t say to what; our loud speculating was met with an utter
and complete poker face) and the other will be completely new. He assured us that
LucasArts has absolutely no intention of ever (then qualified that to “in
the foreseeable future”) abandoning the adventure genre.
Avast
ye! Booty!
Darcy and I then met with the PR rep for Presto Studios,
who introduced us to two of the artists who worked on Myst 3. We did an
interview with them outside the Convention Center; look for that on JA very soon.
It was an interesting inside look at adventure game development, especially from
a woman’s perspective. We also learned that Myst 4 is already in the works,
but nobody ever heard of Myst 5!?
All of our “official”
duties were now behind us, so we wandered aimlessly until we bumped into a wall,
then turned around and wandered aimlessly in another direction, soaking up the
sights and sounds. Then we went back to our hotel, but on the way we spotted these
cars pulled up to the curb:
I
want a Pikachu car!
Next morning, Saturday, I had an early afternoon flight
home and Darcy had a long drive ahead of her. Instead of returning to the E3,
we went to the infamous Venice Beach and ate breakfast at a sidewalk (boardwalk)
café and did the tourist thing. All I have to say about that is, “Wow!”
You want to talk about your cross-sections of American society? There you can
see a microcosm of the rise and fall of western civilization. I got my sons some
Pokemon sunglasses and myself a swell refrigerator magnet, and then it was time
to go to the airport for my return flight.
To my way of thinking, Los Angeles
is not a nice place. I grew up there and only moved here around 10 years ago.
The overweening impression I have of L.A. is brownness, both ground and air, and
the traffic is miserable, and the drivers are incredibly aggressive. Expensive
cars, white teeth, and big boobs count for a lot there, and I have none of those
things. Nor do I give one whit about the motion picture or television industries.
Ask Ray, though, and he’ll give you a whole ‘nother perspective. He loves it there.
So, while I had a great time and will certainly go back again next year, I’m sure
happy to be back home.
The best thing about the E3 this year was the people
I met, some new friends and some old friends. I also liked seeing the different
offerings of all of the different developers and talking with the actual people
behind the games. I’m sorry I missed out on the X-Box stuff and the Wanadoo exhibit.
I’m not sorry I didn’t see the Playstation stuff because I would’ve suffocated
if I stayed in the West Hall even one minute longer than I already had.
Next
year I think they should move the E3 to Las Vegas.
Here are the rest
of my E3 pics.
