N-Sider @ E3-2K2 Page 2
Jeton
This being my second time at the E3 trade show, it was a great feeling to finally get to experience the whole thing again. Last year I met most of the veteran N-Sider editors, including Anthony, Stephen, Dean, Glen, and Jason, but this time around only Jason and Glen were able to attend. Stephen, while busy with work, was able to meet up with us a couple of times though, and was even nice enough to drive me and Brenden to LAX on the last day. This year I also had the privilege to meet Brenden, Cory, and Emily for the first time, but unfortunately I didn't get to see Pete as his busy schedule forced him to entirely miss the show.
While getting to play the games of tomorrow is one of the best reasons to attend E3, it certainly isn't the only one. My passion with E3 is and always will be to meet up with all the people you only talk to online or only read about in the media, from editors of other websites such as IGNcube and Planet GameCube to employees of big developers such as Nintendo and Rare. That is why I spent a great deal of my time on the show floor just wandering around and looking at other people's badges in search for big names in the industry. Being obsessed with Rare in particular, I was hoping to meet some of the fine people working at the company and was quite let down when I heard only about half-a-dozen of them attended the show. Despite this, I did get to talk to the power trio Chris Stamper, Tim Stamper, and Joel Hochberg as well as some of the other Rare and ex-Rare employees on the show floor.
To summarize, the show was everything I had hoped for, and while it could never match the experience of the first time I was there, I did get to sample some of the best games to come out in the near future on my platform of choice, not to mention the great times I had with the N-Sider staff. I can't wait to get the chance to meet up with all of them again, hopefully as soon as at next year's E3 show.
Glen
So, it all began with me registering N-Sider. It consisted of a lot of last minute running around and a few desperate phone calls.
Finishing up college finals but a week before and moving back home, May 20th and the much needed vacation finally arrived.
I boarded the plane that morning. The ride was a smooth one. That is of course, if you don't include the fact that I was sitting next to a woman sunk inextricably into the depths of intoxication. It appeared she had one too many drinks before the flight. Neither was she shy about drinking during the flight. I was lucky enough to have a window seat...or so I thought. The drunkard next to me found it amusing to gaze out the window, with her mouth open-wide, all while blowing her nauseating breath directly into my nostrils. I of course proceeded to close the window...fo' sure. Directly behind me, a man snoring loudly complimented the drunk big booty.
Anyway, I eventually arrived in LA. After locating my luggage, I walked outside to flag a cab. I hop in. "Um, yeah, that was my exit," I exclaim. "I no speak english," replied the gibberish-speaking cab driver. After a good half hour of intentionally driving in circles, the cab driver finally let me out of the car...just before cleaning my wallet out of an outrageous $40. As I grabbed my bags from the trunk, an acquaintance of the cab driver approached him and the two exchanged high fives and laughter. I leave feeling as though I had just been raped.
So, I made a short walk to the Figueroa Hotel, running into the Swedish-Rare-Expert, Jeton on the way to the office. He takes me up to the room where I find Jason and meet Brenden for the first time.
Alright, I'll speed this up a bit.
Cory and Emily died. N-Sider mourns their loss. No actually, their plane was delayed and as compensation, they were given shiny necklaces. Anyway, that night we accomplished a few hours of sleep.
In the morning it was off to the Biltmore Hotel -- Nintendo's Media Briefing. We ran into the regulars, PlanetGameCube (The whole 50 of them), IGNCube Francube and Matt, and others. For those unaware, I attended Nintendo's pre-show last year. Comparing this year's to that of last, I have to admit I was more impressed with the previous year's show. I think it was mainly due to the fact that last year, the games were all new. This year, everything bar F-Zero was expected.
The pre-show was quickly over. We grabbed our spiffy Nintendo GameCube shoulder bags and then it was off to Denny's and the Fabulous French Toast.
It's mid-afternoon right now. We decide to pick up our badge holders and then spend the rest of the day relaxing reading up on William's Almanac featuring Mandroid Prime, and also battling each other in SSB Melee. Battle meaning, Cory consecutively beating each of our asses.
Blah, blah, blah... The days following consisted of a whole lot of video game playing and Denny's dining. We ran into a lot of big names on the show floor. The most notable was our interview with the president of Factor 5, Julian Eggebrecht. Here's the dialog of the interview.
Jason:"Hi, Julian."
Julian: "Factor 5 doesn't have any games on the floor."
*Jason, Glen, and Emily stare blankly*
*Julian attempts to run away*
Jason: "Um, so what do you think about the games?"
Julian: "Zelda is pretty neat. Although, I think Zelda's graphical style would have fit Mario better."
*Julian runs away*
That wasn't the last of the interviews. We also managed to catch up with president and CEO, Yasuhiro Maekawa and director of operations, Graham Markay of Natsume. Then there was Jamie Bullen from Acclaim, Nalin Sharma from Puzzlekings, Chris Hoffman from Working Designs, Robert Goltz from NewKidCo, as well as Yuji Naka from Sonic Team.
Nintendo had a game in its booth...no, no, not a video game. After patiently waiting in a ridiculous two hour long line, people would sit around a circular table. Booth babes would stand in the carved out center and spin the table, prizes sitting along the edge. Whatever space landed on your arrow, you were to receive those prizes. The prizes usually consisted of character themed t-shirts, as well as a Game Boy Advance cover. Occasionally you could win a shiny necklace, Game Boy Advance, or even the chance to play Mario Party 4 and ultimately win a WaveBird. I managed to play Mario Party 4...but didn't win a WaveBird. I tell ya, I was so damn close. The first player to win three games, wins the WaveBird. I did win three times...however, some other damn kid won three times as well. We played a tie-braker game...and again, we tied. Finally we played a tie-breaker-tie-breaker-team-game. Of course, my team lost. I was tempted to strangle my team mate with my controller, but alas, no cord.
Anyway, if I keep going into detail, this story of mine is going to take up a few more pages. So instead I'll end by revealing my pick for Game of the Show. That award goes to Cory, while imitating Mario, jumped from platform to platform and injured his ankle. Err...Super Mario Sunshine. The game was so genuinely fun. By the way, Eternal Darkness is a must purchase. Despite Super Mario Sunshine being my pick for game of the show, I probably spent the most overall gameplay time with ED.
Until next year... I'm never touching Denny's food again.
Cory
This was my first E3, and I was surprised to be there at all. That I had actually managed to maneuver myself into a position where I would be able to attend still shocks me to this day. Getting the N-Sider gig, getting a job to pay for the expenses, school ending just in time... it all just fell into place so nicely. And good lord, was it all worth it.
LA blew my mind. There were palm trees EVERYWHERE. They lined the streets, they popped up between buildings, and they dotted people's lawns. It was as if they were REAL trees, and not just the trees I saw in movies shot on the west coast. Every time I saw one for the first few hours, I pointed it out hysterically. There were tall and skinny ones, there were short ones with really bushy tops, and there were some where the dead leaves lined the entire trunk, making the whole thing look furry. While the shuttle took Emily and I from the airport to the hotel, all I did was scan the horizon for palm trees. I even got yelled at by the police when we were leaving and I tried to cross the airport road to get a picture of the trees. The cop actually used his car to block traffic as I was shooed back across the street - made much more difficult by my severely sprained ankle. The ankle is a whole different story though...
...that I'm sure you're just dying to hear. See, we were all going to the ATM to get some cash, and there was a quad with lots of flower boxes. Like, 9 of them in a square formation that were 5 feet or so on each side. So I was jumping from box to box, whoopty do. Then I decided to jump back and forth from box to box, landing only on their edges. I only pulled off two jumps before it all went down. I remember thinking to myself, "what the hell am I doing?" right before I slipped off the edge and my ankle crashed to the ground. The sheer number of cracks and groans that came out of my ankle in that split second still sickens me to this day. I had to limp to Dennys, and took off my shoe to reveal so much swelling that it looked like I had the mass of three entire feet. Over the next few days, it just got puffier and more black and blue. Every feature of my former foot was encased in flub. It's still painful to this day. That was a pretty smart stunt I pulled there, eh?
Oh, and there were games, too. Those were fun.
Brenden
I'm sure most of everything has been said, so I'll try to give my experience from primarily my perspective without getting too redundant. No promises though.
This was my first time going to E3, and for the amount of time, travel and money that went in to it, it was damn worth it. It felt really good getting to meet a few of the staffers (and Emily, our little tag-along). It also felt really good to get a ton of free stuff! Man, gaming companies are surprisingly generous when they're trying to get you to wear their logo. Not to say that we minded of course, the bags Nintendo gave out at the Pre-Show were really snazzy. Everyone came away with a bunch of stuff that was just given away. Shirts, books, pendants, you name it. Actually, there was one book that was given out which was absolutely terrible. It was a gaming almanac that was given out when you received your badge holder. It included a lot of information on developers and publishers, kind of like a reference, but the information wasn't quite accurate. We all got a good laugh when we noticed that Retro Studios was developing Mandroid Prime for the Nintendo GameCube. Oh well, free stuff is free stuff.
Nothing compares though, to the first time I stepped into the Nintendo booth. Well, it was technically the second time because Cory and I snuck in the day before, all in the name of journalism of course. It was like being 6 years old on Christmas morning. The great thing was, it wasn't that crowded because media personel had access to the floor for 1 hr before anyone else on the first day. Cory and I promised each other that we would jot down all of the control schemes for you guys to look at, which we did. But as I was heading back to media centre, there was an open kiosk with The Legend of Zelda running on it. Obviously, I wasn't going to back down from it's calls of "Play me! Play me!". So I picked up the controller and selected the first stage. Oh, what a glorious feeling that was. Something magical about it almost. I guess that's what Nintendo does to a fanboy at heart.
I only played for about 10 minutes, as I had to run up to the media centre to make that update, but as soon as Cory and I got back down, we decided to go check out Metroid Prime. Now, here's something beautiful about Nintendo's booth. They have these little cornered off rooms called "sound booths", which I couldn't be more grateful for. There's only one kiosk in there, but it's on a nice, big screen and you can actually hear the game. Cory and I sauntered in and watched a few people play. Everyone kept dying at the same spot where during the escape, you run into a room with a couple auto-guns. So, I picked up the controller and gave it a shot. When I made it to the spot where everyone died, I just changed back into Samus form (from morph ball) and blasted the auto-guns. Pretty simple. About a minute later, I had beaten the demo. Everyone clapped and Cory even patted me on my shoulder. The only thing I could think was "wait, that was easy".
Upon realization that the shortness of the demo (about 12 minutes for a first-time attempt) might cloud some views of people who didn't get a chance to play it, I decided to start planning my Metroid Prime @ E3 Feature. I really was impressed with the demo. It had everything they needed to show to make you ecstatic about the game, but still had you wanting more. So, I started collecting some general information by asking a few questions, then on the last day, I sat in the sound booth for about 2 hours. Sometimes I would play the demo so I could grab a few pictures of what I wanted, but most of the time I just watched others play. Needless to say, I became quite the expert on the demo.
Aside from the Metroid overdose, it was much the same for me at the show. Playing some games, running up to the media centre, running back to the floor to play some games, running back to the media centre, etc. I got to play everything and with enough time to be satisfied. I was really pleased with a couple other areas of Nintendo's booth. They had a nice little "Connectivity Corner" spot, where you could play some of the GBA + GCN games that connect. On the opposite wall, there was a place to play all of the 3rd party titles. It made life a lot easier because you didn't have to run off to another booth to play some of the bigger name titles. Again, thanks Nintendo.