Marc Summers
May 11th, 2006, 12:53 AM
First things first. I almost didn't get in today. There I was, having traveled for two hours by train and subway, having this menopausal woman tell me that I wasn't appearing on their system. Two weeks before this, our company was DENIED E3 tickets because we didn't provide enough documentation this year. They actually started requiring payroll records and W-2s. After a huge argument, we were accepted, but it was too late to send badges, so we had to pick them up at will call. OK, fine. When I show up, our whole company showed up at first not in the system, then in the system, but denied. I luckily bumped into the president of the company I work for, and explained the situation. We went through this huge maze of bureaucracy for about an hour and a half, until I finally got my badge 5 minutes before opening. Christ.
I immediately made my first mistake my not heading for the Wii first. The line was 2 hours long, since Nintendo only had one Wii per game, while the PS3 had 4 or 8 depending on the game, and the 360 had about 2-4 per game. I cleared the Sony area in about an hour or so, with little waiting due to the abundance of consoles. I also saw some previews for games like FFXIII and MGS4, where Snake was shown as an old man that looked like he's giving a blowjob to a gun (see pics). I played Sonic at first, and was pretty amazed by the level of detail, at least physics-wise. The 360 version was pretty much the same. However, the PS3 game that blew me away the most was Heavenly Sword. You're stuck in an arena-type situation, and just the combos you do are so kick-ass...it really flows well and looks stunning. Of course, it's a demo, so it was pretty damn easy.
I played FFXII, which pretty much met my expectations. Not revolutionary, but pretty fun. Okami was there, which I've been following for about a year now. You play as this wolf goddess, Amaterasu, and have access to the celestial brush. You can turn the world into a piece of paper, draw on it, and see the changes made when done. Bridge out? Draw in the gap. Every pic I took of Square Enix games are technically not supposed to exist. I think one of them is extremely blurry because I was tapped on the shoulder by security in mid-capture and jumped :/
I moved on to the DS area, and played Brain Age. Kinda like those "What is your IQ" games. I kinda fumbled around with it on the stand, because it can be accomodated for lefties (the DS is played with screens on the left and right, so it can be flipped for lefties), but the stand it was on did NOT accomodate that. After much fumbling and almost dropping the whole thing, I just decided to hold it in my hands. That's when it told me I have the brain of a 40 year old, I'm 600 grams short of a brain, and I think like Michelangelo...and I came in last on a 4-player rapid fire arithmetic mode becuase of my neurotic habit of double checking answers. The puzzles were pretty tricky and fun, though.
The PSP had the same amount of interest for me as the DS area, which wasn't much. I had tons of fun playing Super Puzzle Fighter 2 Turbo over and over again, but that was about it.
Then I walked around for a bit and got some free crap, and just took a look around. I played a few 360 games...I think it was Too Human and Gears of War. Both were pretty fun, but I'm not really too much a fan of those genres. I'll take a look again tomorrow for Dead Rising.
The line for Spore was an hour and a half, and I didn't go. Another thing on my to-do list for tomorrow.
Booth babes were banned this year :(
I'm going to post pics when I finally get them off my roommate's camera that I borrowed :/
I immediately made my first mistake my not heading for the Wii first. The line was 2 hours long, since Nintendo only had one Wii per game, while the PS3 had 4 or 8 depending on the game, and the 360 had about 2-4 per game. I cleared the Sony area in about an hour or so, with little waiting due to the abundance of consoles. I also saw some previews for games like FFXIII and MGS4, where Snake was shown as an old man that looked like he's giving a blowjob to a gun (see pics). I played Sonic at first, and was pretty amazed by the level of detail, at least physics-wise. The 360 version was pretty much the same. However, the PS3 game that blew me away the most was Heavenly Sword. You're stuck in an arena-type situation, and just the combos you do are so kick-ass...it really flows well and looks stunning. Of course, it's a demo, so it was pretty damn easy.
I played FFXII, which pretty much met my expectations. Not revolutionary, but pretty fun. Okami was there, which I've been following for about a year now. You play as this wolf goddess, Amaterasu, and have access to the celestial brush. You can turn the world into a piece of paper, draw on it, and see the changes made when done. Bridge out? Draw in the gap. Every pic I took of Square Enix games are technically not supposed to exist. I think one of them is extremely blurry because I was tapped on the shoulder by security in mid-capture and jumped :/
I moved on to the DS area, and played Brain Age. Kinda like those "What is your IQ" games. I kinda fumbled around with it on the stand, because it can be accomodated for lefties (the DS is played with screens on the left and right, so it can be flipped for lefties), but the stand it was on did NOT accomodate that. After much fumbling and almost dropping the whole thing, I just decided to hold it in my hands. That's when it told me I have the brain of a 40 year old, I'm 600 grams short of a brain, and I think like Michelangelo...and I came in last on a 4-player rapid fire arithmetic mode becuase of my neurotic habit of double checking answers. The puzzles were pretty tricky and fun, though.
The PSP had the same amount of interest for me as the DS area, which wasn't much. I had tons of fun playing Super Puzzle Fighter 2 Turbo over and over again, but that was about it.
Then I walked around for a bit and got some free crap, and just took a look around. I played a few 360 games...I think it was Too Human and Gears of War. Both were pretty fun, but I'm not really too much a fan of those genres. I'll take a look again tomorrow for Dead Rising.
The line for Spore was an hour and a half, and I didn't go. Another thing on my to-do list for tomorrow.
Booth babes were banned this year :(
I'm going to post pics when I finally get them off my roommate's camera that I borrowed :/