From the E3 Show Floor: Part 1

Our merry band of E3 groupies--err, journalists have completed our first day of tireless exploring of the Los Angeles Convention Center. There's no way that the sheer noise and crush of people can be properly communicated through mere text, but for an E3 virgin like myself, it was quite a trip. Thankfully, there is a media hospitality suite with couches and wireless Internet access, or I have no idea how I would have made it through the day.

The rest of our fearless team has some thoughts of their own to share:

(Doug Tabacco, Webmaster) Wow. Seriously, Dreamfall is the coolest thing I've seen so far today, no question. But what kind of developer doesn't have a free outlet in their conference room? Ouch. And, on top of that, they made Marek walk ALL the way across the room (nearly TEN feet!) to throw away his apple core. I mean honestly. Just kidding, of course. It was only eight feet. Really, though, everyone at Funcom was really great, and they did a great job of making sure that we got to see everything they could possibly show us and that all our questions were answered. We'll be covering the game in full next week (and it'll probably be one of the first ones, rest assured), so be patient and you shall witness the sheer volume of awesomeness that is Dreamfall. Oh, and moving away from adventures, I got to see the trailer for Kingdom Hearts II, and oh man... seeing Mickey Mouse bearing a sword and beating people up may very well be the high point of my life.

(Marek Bronstring, Editor-in-Chief) Where do I bin this apple core? How am I ever going to scrape all that cheese off this free ham-cheese croissant? I need to meditate.

(Ragnar Tornquist, game designer) So are you going to let me finish, Marek? Is there anything else I can help you with? Just throw the damn apple core away.

(Mike) What the hell is Dreamfall? Anyway, I have developed a theory regarding company booths at E3: the worse a company's product sucks, the more scantily-clad women appear at their booth flouncing around and trying to attract the attention of the hapless reporters who get jostled into the booth by passers by. Take the new Phantom video game console: God, that thing looks stupid... but there were a lot of cute women handing out pamphlets and free T-shirts at that booth. Were it up to me, Adventure Gamers would set up their own booth and would have Christina or Marek walk around in a bikini with the AG logo printed on the butt and tell certain companies how much their games suck. And if Marek were walking around doing this, he should definitely jiggle a bit in front of the Eye Toy. They could even go up to booths without being aware what their products are and still rip into them. If the booth has more than three silicone-laden, spandex coated harpies trying to sell a product they don't know anything about, it doesn't matter what that booth is pushing; it's still going to suck so badly or be so boring that it'll drive the average gamer into a state of torpor within five minutes of use.

(Chris Remo, News Editor) I'm just as surprised as anyone else that I'm saying this, but The Adventure Company's Atlantis: Evolution actually looks kind of cool. Sure, it's just another Egypt--er, I mean Atlantis--game featuring the same rehashed plot we've seen countless times. And the dialogue probably won't be all that engaging or the characters lovable. I've got to say, though, that the first, most obvious, thing I notice about almost every TAC title is that they tend to all look the same. Come on, you know what I'm talking about. Anyway, something went wrong, I guess, with this one, because the art direction actually looks like art that was directed. Lorraine from The Adventure Company, who showed us the game, indicated that the artists were partially inspired by the Disney style in terms of character models, and the influence is apparent. The real-time 3D character models definitely carry their own style, and do not simply strive for the usual TAC slightly-less-photorealistic-than-the-latest-FPS approach. The animations themselves are extremely fluid and often quirky, and seem lovingly crafted. As expected, Evolution will make use of pre-rendered 3d backgrounds. They're certainly not as unique as the game's character models, but they blend well and show an uncommon amount of detail that goes beyond "we turned up the reflection settings to maximum in Maya." Anyway, why am I writing this much about an Atlantis game? What the hell is going on?

(Christina Gmiterko, Staff Writer) Dreamfall rocks. Everything else sucks. Apple cores suck, therefore Marek sucks. Adventure Gamers' editor-in-chief leaves star game designer speechless. Hilarity insues later at hotel upon audio replay and incoherent article writing. Thank you, good night.

(Evan Dickens, Managing Editor) Well, that’s pretty much all you get from a group of five of us that got about a full eight hours of sleep between us. Here’s some quick impressions that I took away from today:

Jane Jensen is pretty much the nicest person I’ve ever met. I tried my darndest to keep my journalism hat on, but couldn’t avoid “raving fanboy” mode a few times. Jane was extremely patient in thoroughly answering everything she was asked, and she talked to us for almost a full hour and a half without seeming annoyed or bored once. The best part of the interview was seeing how genuinely excited she is, about both Booby Trap and the possible future of the genre in general.

Ragnar Tornquist was also super, super nice. It’s quite possible that scenes of Ragnar’s presentation (and our subsequent drooling) from our behind-closed-doors preview will appear in the “making of” movie, as the project director was filming the whole thing.

And by the way…you may be shocked to hear this, but the apple core thing was probably a LOT funnier if you were there. If any further apple core incidents occur, we’ll have the story here first.

I actually played Leisure Suit Larry: Magna Cum Laude for a few minutes between meetings, and quite honestly really enjoyed it. We have a more extensive playing time scheduled for today.

In non-adventure news, my early pick for E3 Best in Show is Paper Mario 2, but I’m a sucker for “cute” RPG’s.

The most frustrating moment of the day was the torrent of blank stares from Atari when we tried to find out where Her Interactive and the Nancy Drew games were. Not only have none of them heard of the games that they’re publishing, but apparently they’ve never even heard of Nancy Drew. I’m surprised half of them actually knew what company they were working for.

The “sadly amusing” award goes to ESA president Doug Lowenstein, who gave us the show-opening address, letting us all know that “online gaming is about to boom” and that the gaming genre as a whole seems ready to take off at any minute. Apparently, someone gave him his 1997 address accidentally; he probably should have been reading the 2004 “our frigging industry is going to crash any minute because you jackasses keep remaking Grand Theft Auto 3, Medal of Honor, The Sims, and Everquest.” If you think it’s funny, you should walk around the floor; I have yet to see a really original idea.

Okay, that’s enough first-day impressions. Maybe we’ll sleep more than an hour each tonight. Maybe this deep groove in my shoulder from walking around with my laptop will subside soon.

E3 newbie, signing off. See you tomorrow.