But I’d like to make it clear: God created E3 as a media event, but it is no more. When fathers and sons, boyfriends and girlfriends, mothers and daughters show up and do nothing but nab swag and get in my way, I know that E3 has become more of a theme park than a media event.
This is, as a member of the media, very dissapointing, but not at all suprising. After all, the ESA is getting upwards of $500 for every Target and Boeing employee that wants to go. Even the all-holy ESA is not above that kind of funding.
Anyway, on with the pictorials. The elevator tried to eat Weezer on the way out of the hotel.
The crew, all dressed up and ready to rock out.
Through the front doors, past the UT2007 booth, through the angry "Exhibit Only" losers who can’t get in yet, and you end up here:
Go straight, look right, and you’re at Nintendo, the hottest booth this year.
A bit of Star Fox DS. All your Arwing needs, to go.
Wait in line for an hour, and you end up in the brand new "Wii" section, where all the playable Wii’s are kept under strict bouncer guard.
Most worthwhile games back here had wait times upwards of half an hour, but it was so worth it…
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Weezer, showing us how it’s done.
There was also this sexy bit on display, the modern Zapper. Notice how the Wii remote fits into the handgrip, and becomes an integral part of the zapper. Slick design.
Alas, we must move on; meetings in smelly armpit of convention center halls, Kentia.
Like a garage sale, Kentia has a few scattered cool bit among a ton of junk. Like this Dragon Quest PS2 controller, which looks like this…
But turns into this…
It even manages to stay comfortable, if you can stand being seen with it.
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This was one example of the junk. It’s a PlayStation controller, not that comfortable, clunky buttons, but here’s the kicker: You can yaw the handgrips left and right like this…
…for no reason that I can think of. We had a few laughs over it, and moved on.
As always, there’s the gaming museum set up in the middle of Kentia. Any console or handheld you can think of is on display, and probably playable with multiple games. Great way to kill time in between meetings.
Like our meeting with Red Octane, where Weezer rocked out with one of the represenatives.
We got our share of el’armpito Kentia, and had bigger fish to fry. On to South Hall. Up the Turok stairs, past the door greeters with the blacklights, and you end up in the crowd of Activision spectators. God dammit, did you fucks really come here to watch a halfpipe?
Off to the right was the Fatal1ty booth, where I’ll end up later with one of Fatal1ty’s clanmates. Again, worthless fucks waiting around to see if they win a prize.
They did have some hot rigs on display, like this Zalman cooled custom with dual RAIDed Western Digital Raptors, which come out of the package with clear tops. No more Dremel tooling! And, you can also slide more hard drives into those roller-locking slots at the bottom. No screws required, and the rollers absorb vibrations.
Onto to Logitech, where we made press contacts and tried out their G25 wheel-n-pedal kit.
Here, they had vs. races with the G25 kit and surround screens. The exhibitors also tracked the fastest time of the day; I was second, only .4 seconds behind first. I want another try!
SEGA!
Squeenix, which has basically the same games playable as Sony.
I thought of Triad when I saw this.
nVidia, whos booth looks remarkably similar to last year’s booth.
Our last stop of the day, Namco.
I found a Time Crisis 4 machine within. As you might guess, nothing has changed from 3, but that didn’t stop me from milking three plays out of it before they kicked us out.
