It's the last business day before the N-Sider Staff embark on their journey to Los Angeles; and what better way to celebrate the last day of the preceeding week, than to take a look back at the last day of E3 2005.

In today's excerpt, Mark Medina gives us his perspective on the events of that day:

Ahhh, the fateful last day. The day when you try to do all the things you thought you'd have time for, like seeing other stands and playing games you hadn't looked at the previous two days. I'd pretty much seen and played everything I wanted to play, but this day was the day I'd finally gotten around to trying Mario Strikers and man I wish I'd gotten to it sooner. Ricardo and I were amazed with it when we played it two-player (I won, for the record :P) and later Josh joined us for some 4-player action and we managed to crash the game! That was amusing.

After the show I hung out with the crew at the hotel for some gaming and whooped Brandon's ass at Street Fighter :P (apparently he'd wanted to challenge me earlier but we couldn't because I was always going home on the trains while there was still daylight!) and Ricardo's ass at Mario Tennis :P. A bit of Mario Kart: Double Dash!! here, some other games there, and day turned into night.

As people started to get hungry Angel, Glen, Brandon and Jess decided to go out for some dinner so I tagged along to get a ride to the subway station. I said my goodbye's to Justin (who's also experienced the joys of the Blue Line on his way to the hotel at the beginning of E3), Ricardo, Dean, and Ben. The rest of us squeezed into Angel's Honda and as I said my goodbye's to the four of them, the last thing I heard as I closed the door was Angel saying "Be Careful Mark!!!!!" as I walked to the subway, which leads nicely to my funny transportation story of the day. It was the first time I'd ridden the train home after sunset and I admit I was a little worried at what sort of passengers I'd see on my way home. Luckily nothing scary happened on the way and even though there weren't any cops I felt alright, must've been just me being used to it. The funny part is that on each day I'd organized for someone to pick me up and they'd always be there when I got to the station so I never had to wait, except this day they came 20 minutes late and I had to hang around at the train station in Long Beach waiting for my ride while some seedy looking guy was at the other side of the station just loitering. It was quite a tense wait. All up, it wasn't that scary commuting to and from Downtown L.A. to Long Beach but it doesn't help when you hear a few horror stories that happen in areas that you travel through each day!

 

With just 3 days before the beginning of the big events, be sure to stick with N-Sider as we transform into E3 mode. As always, a special "N-Sider lite" design will show up over the next few days, and a few cosmetic changes will be sure to follow as well. As always, a friendly reminder that our E3 DVD is available for preorder, only $6 with free worldwide shipping. So what are you waiting for?