E3 Day One

Oh my, oh my. It’s going to be difficult to describe this day. It has been a few years since I last covered E3 and, truly, I missed it. I can hardly explain what it is like to be here but I will try my hardest for the sake of all of you on other continents and those that making the trek to LA would nearly impossible. It’s home. I can pick ANY game from ANY era from ANY platform (including boardgames) and someone in the vicinity will be able to chime in on some level. Even when I was a junior newsie for a small gaming site and I had to pay my own way and my own hotel for E3, it was worth it. All of a sudden, I wasn’t a freak. No longer the outcast, I was part of the normal that exists here. You will see every gamer stereotype, you will see every game dev stereotype, you will see every gaming PR stereotype, and you will see so much random and wonderful stuff that won’t even matter.

Lemme see… today I got to meet up with Leo in person for the first time since Call For Help moved out west and became The Lab With Leo Laporte. It’s always good to to get some face time with excellent online contacts/friends like Troy Goodfellow, Tom Chick, Matt Harris, and the entire Gameshark crew (yes, they do more than cheat codes. You should seriously add them to your bookmarks!). My 3DS appointment isn’t until much later, so my impressions must wait until I get enough time to form more than “omg, wow. They actually did it! wtg <3.” As you can see, this is purely an emotional response and a less than rational one. Nonetheless, good times.

Today was mostly a walkabout day and much more productive than I had ever anticipated! Darren and I checked out a lot of stuff that you will see on the next Hak5. Super short summary: Wii Party is much more multiplayer friendly than any Mario Party, we ran around in a giant hamster ball with a monitor/goggle headset and a gun to experience a different kind of immersion for FPS games, played around in inflatable Mario Karts (I came in first, Darren came in last… but he’s a far more enthusiastic driver than I am and, well, inflatable toys cannot withstand his energy), and played a few games with the PlayStation Move and Microsoft Natal-nee-Kinect. Stunningly, they overcame my initial pessimism and each provided solid experiences that make me wonder how the heck I am going to afford a billion games come this Christmas!!! My parents, who are definitely non-gamers but eventually adjusted to the fact that this is my life, would love some of this stuffand I know exactly what I am getting my dad for his birthday later on this year. It will be nice to see him use his PS3 for more than a media server. Oh, and after the show we ended up upstairs at a rooftop bar in LA with waterbeds by a glowing pool. It was a really, really good day. Tomorrow is going to be exceptionally crazy since something got accidentally double booked. Do I spend time doing a podcast with a gaming legend or check out Portal 2? It’s far too close to call right now!! Presently it’s around 4 am PST, which is 7 am EST (my timezone of habit), and there’s soooooo much to film tomorrow and appointments to hit. I do not ask for your pity here, just your patience. I am again posting this thanks to borrowing Darren’s cell phone for tethering purposes. The hotel promises that the tech will try to get the building online again tomorrow but I refuse to hold my breath. I am able to check e-mail about twice a day so feel free to send a message to jenn at openalpha dot tv if there’s something specific you think I should check out or leave a comment here. 1 day down, 2 huge days to go! I should probably sleep at that point. Perhaps that point is now. I didn’t even know that one’s internal clock could ever get this screwed up!

Tagged as: E3