Suckers, pt. 2
Agent Collier and New Deep Cover Agent Horvath infiltrated the E3 again today, but were unable to penetrate Rockstar’s GTA: Vice City blockade. Oh well, the game *was* just announced like last week. If they don’t have a Delorean in it, I will boycott on principle. Didn’t see amazing skateboarding like I did last year. Chris Gentry, Kevin Staab, Neal Hendrix, and Shawn White were all at the halfpipe, but none of them were quite up to what Bucky or Mr. Hawk busted out with last year. My main game Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 4 was somewhat underwhelming, as was the show in general.
Last year we had two console debuts, and the PS2 really coming into its own. Metal Gear Solid 2 was on the way, and stopped crowds everytime its video played. There was really nothing like that this year. DoomIII had a two hour line to see a 15 minute making-of clip. Mario, Zelda, and Metroid will all be amazing games (unless they *really* drop the ball) but none of them are revolutionary in any way. Well, Zelda really does look amazing. Not quite like anything around, but it also doesn’t scream “we have just reached a new level in gaming.”
This year felt more like a trade show. As in: “This is our Fall line of games. Would you like a t-shirt?” Burger, fries and a soda cost $10. And they suck. Everywhere is crowded, especially Nintendo. Booth babes are veeery few and far between, unlike other reports. You start to realize that there really are a lot of really crappy videogames out there. Did you know that people still develop for the Super Nintendo? Scary, ain’t it?
Don’t get me wrong. I’m incredibly glad I attended this years E3, but following last year’s show is a difficult act. I got to play all of these amazing games (the big Nintendo ones, THPS4, Shinobi, FinalFantasyXI, and more that would take too long to mention), and I got to play my beloved Super Monkey Ball 2. Sega developing for Nintendo at its best. Leave it to monkeys in hermetically-sealed see-through balls navigating labrynths in search of Dole bananas to brighten my day everytime. Thanks monkeys. Thanks a lot.
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As far as details on games go: Zelda looks beautiful because it uses cel-shading in a way that I haven’t seen before. I had generally gotten sick of the gimmick, but Zelda really uses it in a different way. You can pick up the weapons of fallen enemies, one of which is a wooden club. You can then light it on fire (a la Ocarina of Time) and then if you have the fire close to the camera, it will cause heat distortion on the cartoon world. No internet video will do it justice. We’ll just have to buck up and wait and hope they don’t delay it.THPS4’s underwhelming-ness would take pages and pages to describe, and i’ve already done so on other forums. Suffice to say that it feels more like THPS3.5 than a whole new revolutionary game. Oh well. At least burnquist is back. and spine transfers exist now.I couldn’t get into the Apple room, but I think it was more of a timing thing. If I had known about it yesterday, maybe things coulda happened. Now that I know about the upper press asskissing rooms, I have new goals for next year.If people want more info, lemme know. we’re almost at the point where we need to make more pages for this, if yall want me to go game by game. e3 is definitely an experience.