E3 Expo is here and this is my ninth year attending – so here’s a checklist for all you newcomers: comfortable shoes, drink water, business cards, digital camera, make appointments, good attitude and most of all put on extra deodorant!
Sunday (Yesterday) – a bunch of us went down to the LA Convention Center to pick up our badges. It was nice to see all the huge signs all over the convention center again – much like the ‘glory’ of the old days of E3 which ended in 2006. Lunch with Godfree (Gamertag Radio), LadyLuck, Ross (sfx-360.com), Chris Glass and Sam Houstom from gamerDNA at Yard House which had good burgers for $12. Also ran into Collette, Dale and Neiro from Destructoid and they did a short interview with me about my first impressions of E3.
Monday – Just finished watching the Microsoft Xbox360 press conference which ran about 2 1/2 hours. The show started off with footage from Rock Band Beatles (highly anticipated) and Modern Warfare 2 (which will be the biggest game this year) and also some XBL titles that looked so-so. They showed lots of in-game footage and pre-rendered cgi trailers (my least favorite thing to watch). MS premiered a teaser for Crackdown 2 and a segment on Halo: ODST (which still doesn’t interest me) and a teaser for Halo: Reach. One of the games that did interest me was Splinter Cell: Conviction which looks more like my style of gameplay. For my next-gen games I prefer tactics, stealth and cover and the new Splinter Cell from Ubisoft looks to have all of the above.
Many more games and new gimmicks to Microsoft but the ‘biggie’ was Peter Molyneux and his demonstration of ‘Project Natal‘ which is the codeword for Microsoft’s new interactive sensor technology. Peter showed us an interactive ‘game’ that his team had been dabbling with for the last three months where ‘players’ interact with an on-screen character called Milo (or Mylo) by talking and moving around. Those lucky to get an invite from MS will get to demo this first-hand during the rest of the week!
Which party to attend tonight – best two choices are Destructoid’s Karaoke (downtown LA) or Activision’s DJ Hero/Guitar Hero party with surprise musical guests Kings of Leon, DJ AM, Travis Barker, Jay-Z and Eminem.
great blog. the JTV chatters were acting like it was the 2nd coming of God… it was so-so at best. Splinter Cell and that Cliff B 2D action game were the best parts I thought… and totally buying Rock Band: Beatles!
Microsoft easily took the floor today, they may even sweep E3 like last year. But again it is too early to tell.
This is a very informative one.