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So Much For Hope
May 18, 2004
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Woo. The E3 was so many piles of incredible that I can hardly describe it... which makes me glad that I did the run-down for Friday shortly after it happened instead of tonight. This is particularly good because at certain points in the day, my recollection of events becomes blurred into vague memories of collecting mass amounts of swag, Adam and I running about clinging to each other's shirt or backpack like some strange pair of marsupials to keep from being swept apart by the crowd, and seeing scenes of videogaming beauty powerful enough to make a grown man cry. Oh yeah, and meeting Tycho and Gabe and nearly freaking out with joy that Tycho remembered me... for your enjoyment, I present the moment in a special badly-drawn BONUS COMIC that I did on the spur of the moment to commemorate the occasion. Anyhow. Here 'tis Friday's E3 Rundown, and believe me, 'tis LONG indeed (so don't say I didn't warn you):
Friday
- Got the news, while in the shower, that Adam's roommates (whom we are getting a ride with) are intending to leave in like ten minutes, and I yell "SHIT!" and hurry that shower up as much as possible. Josiah is a sweetheart and plays phone tag between Adam and Christina, the other person we're supposed to give a ride to. I get ready pretty fucking fast, if I do say so myself. We head out the door and pick up Christina and make it to the E3 in pretty damn good time - about 9:40, maybe ten minutes after it opens. Woo, and then some MORE woo.
- We walk up towards the center and some nice lady hands us some "Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow" game demos. We ask tentatively "do you have any t-shirts?" and she says "SURE!" and gives us each one - I also get a hat. I ask if I can have another for Josiah, and she accidentally hands me two. I take them and say nary a word. Teehee.
- We enter and let the guys get registered, and all head off to the South Hall to bop around. We hang out and enjoy ourselves for a bit. This is where it gets funny in my memory because I was tired and we didn't have any sort of plan, other than seeing cool things and acquiring swag (did we EVER!) We attended a Matrix Online demo (that we could see none of because the group of human bodies filled the room to beyond capacity) and barely survived acquiring t-shirts from the event.
- Christina had a maximally heavy Renaissance dress she was supposed to give to one of her friends (who was apparently a booth babe for 1UP.com), so we split up from Adam's roommates - Matt and Christian - and headed back over to the West Hall, visiting a couple separate developers like Acclaim and Sega on our way. I get shown the upcoming game Red Star (based off the comic book) by its lead programmer, and am really dammed impressed. Must get game. ::grin::
- We make it to the 1UP.com booth in the West Hall, where dress is delivered (Adam, who was carrying it like the gentleman he is, sighs in relief). Sadly, the 1UP maiden cannot offer swag, as they'd run out already: Adam and I are slightly saddened by this, but know we'll more than make up for the loss. We look around for a bit and visit, in particular, a tent for a new handheld device called the Gizmondo (shirt acquired there, too), which seems marginally nifty but has a bit of a shitty button design. This seems to be THE YEAR for handhelds, in my opinion. I fear it will turn into another scramble for a single available financial slot (with the PSP, the Nintendo DS, and apparently now the Gizmondo - oh, and the new N-Gage, FEH - struggling for that $200-400 range for a game system with a shit-ton of peripherals) where only one victor reigns supreme, like the battle long ago between Sega's Game Gear, Nintendo's Game Boy, and Atari's Lynx. "Atari's WHAT now?" you may ask, to which I say "Exactly." Anyhow.
- Adam and I want to go see Tycho and Gabe before the line gets from Hell to Breakfast (like yesterday), so we split off from Christina and head BACK to the South hall. We get there at like 12:15 - 45 minutes before they're supposed to be there - and already there is a line of like 50 people at LEAST. Adam and I breathe great sighs of relief that we got there when we did. We're in front of a clever fellow (who must forgive me as I forgot his name, I'm horrible with names... curses!) from GameSpy, and his very tall brother who took excellent over-the-heads-of-the-crowded-masses shots. Nice pair of blokes, good conversationalists. See my friend Greg from work, BS for a bit, bid a fond farewell. Anyhow. Time passes, and people begin to glom onto the line from the sides to join their friends, and I start to get more than a little riled - punching people in the back of the head is mentioned (by myself, I must admit) more than once, if their presence means that I will not get a "PA Presents" comic for Tycho and Gabe to sign (as there are only 100). Somehow I get towards the front of the line, and manage to withhold the nervous tickle from my tum-tum. I ready my present.
- FINALLY! I'm there, in front of Tycho and Gabe! Holy sheeeeit. I give them my present - strawberry Pocky - which they seem to be pleased with, and select the Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon comic for them to sign. I tell Tycho that four years ago, I e-mailed him from Macalester about starting a webcomic, and he asks for clarification of what it was. I reply "I'm Blue" and ask if he remembers me, and he says "of COURSE I remember you!" and proceeds to ask about a play my school did - which was in fact, the sketch "Squirrel Heads and Hard Drives" that I wrote for Bad Comedy with them as characters, and told him about... that I had almost forgotten about. I am about to spaz out here. Jerry Holkins is the most awesome man alive at this point. I shake hands with them both, thank them for everything, and wish them well. I am about to wander off in a daze but Adam reminds me that he's got my camera (and, I might add, took two really excellent shots of me interacting with T & G). We all - including the PA guys - laugh at this, I take a picture of Adam and the guys, and I thank them again and we move on our happy way. When we're out of sight I do a stupid dance of joy in my fangirlness. Heh. A lot of fun.
- Okay. At this point it is like 1:30, and we're more than a little hungry. We meet up with Christina and AGAIN head off to the West Hall, where we again meet up with Adam's roomies Matt and Christian to pick up some not-as-mindblowingly-expensive-as-the-rest-of-the-food-here munchies, and get some caffeine, and sigh in relief as our tummies are again filled and the sugar levels in our respective bloodstreams return to normal. At one point Matt and Christian leave to get a demo of the new nVidia card, Christina heads off to find the booth that was giving out free water, and Adam heads off to the little gents' room - leaving me to watch something like NINE BAGS full of swag. I make myself a little bag-fort and when Adam returns, several humorous pictures result from this. Hee.
- Christina is determined to see the presentation for the Nintendo DS (Dual Screen), but - upon seeing the hour-and-a-half-long-line for a 15 minute demo - the rest of us all decide against it. She gets in line, and myself and the guys play another part of Donkey Kong Jungle Beat, which is like Dance Dance Revolution for conga drums: the four of us tackle "The Legend of Zelda Theme" and kinda suck at it, but it was a hard song and we all had fun. We stop by the PSP booth to maybe get a look at it, but a 15 minute + line dissuades us. Adam & I head off on our own again, to see if maybe we can score a mousepad from the Magic booth. No dice, but several other places give us swag, including shirts. Woo.
- Ah, the Sony area. I nearly have a spaz attack when I see the playable Sly Cooper 2 demo, and while Adam runs off to try his hand at the new Transformers game, I run over there and geek out. The guy showing off the game is with Sucker Punch, and I go on and on about how awesome the first game was, and how badass the second looks to be. The other guy trying out the demo himself was in an art school and hadn't yet beaten the first game, and I again went on and on about the awesomeness of Sly. Stopped when I began to feel like that one "Unofficial Wendy's Spokesman" guy (yech!), but got in some great conversations. Nice fellows, both.
- Final leg of the show: tried out both Demon Stone (new AD&D-type game with story from the notorious R.A. Salvatore) and BS'ed with a guy about the Star Ocean: Until the End of Time game (both seem like excellent games, I must point out quickly) and the guy and I both concurred that the big thing this year seems to be real-time combat in RPGs (as I had noted earlier seemed to be the case with Final Fantasy XII, for better or worse), which is kinda bad/good. But yeah.
- Adam and I blink and go "holy shit it's 3:45, this thing closes in FIFTEEN MINUTES," gather our peeps back together to head out to beat the traffic, which at 4:10 on a Friday in LA is still righteously bad. But with a trunk full of swag and so many badass things seen in the small space of one day, we all feel pretty dammed good. ::smile::
Oh, and PICTURES! But of course.
...Anyhow. That's it. And aside from that? Well, not much goin' on. I'm actually trying to light a fire under myself (so to speak) to get a new site design (plus FORUMS) in the works, but yeah. Hopefully that will work out well and swiftly.
That's it for me for now. Be well, and see you all back on Friday. You know the drill.
Nothing Short of DESTINY,
Annie "Blue" C
And I thought this time
I'd say something new
- Reel Big Fish
"The Set Up (You Need This)"
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