There was a strange moment where we were talking to humans from LucasArts, and they said that they were big fans, and we said that we were the Goddamn fans around here, and it nearly came to blows with us trying to determine who respected the other more. More surreality from the E3.

Today's first sketch concerns our Thursday interview with the producers of Star Wars: Galaxies, which I think of as the first truly next-generation MMOG or whatever the fuck the kids are calling them now. We're going to post the whole interview we did for Amazon, and even though we mainly asked questions about the sort of characters we'd like to create - and they quite understandably avoided almost every question having to do with Jedi at this point - we learned a lot, and hopefully some of it will be of interest to you. The hardest of the hardcore already get their questions answered directly on the very active official forums, so they might already know everything we're going to say. Gabe has a Bounty Hunter planned, while I (as might be surmised) am looking forward to spending too much time with the crafting elements, so expect to hear about my imaginary store a lot. The LucasArts booth in general was pretty overwhelming. Titles we'd seen on the floor and been unhappy with made a lot more sense when we actually figured out what everything did. Just grabbing a controller for some weird-ass new game might seem like the best way to suss out it's worth, but it really doesn't work that way in practice. For one thing, many of the games you play here aren't exactly done - they're good enough to show off, take some pictures maybe, but there is a lot of tuning yet to do. What's more, a deafening room surrounded by jostling humans with a line of people waiting for you to please finish is hardly quality time.

The second sketch concerns the highly anticipated Doom III, which was finally shown in action on the floor. It's hard to believe, but we're told that every frame of what we saw is actual footage, rendered live in the engine - not being home, or connected to the web as I type this, I don't know how much they're letting you see. The much vaunted lighting is as amazing as we have been lead to believe. I'll tell you that the enemies look nearly photorealistic, and because of that (or, some other reason) the encounters we saw were not the pitched battles anyone might be familiar with from classic iterations of the series. It felt much more along the lines of Survival Horror in first person, which to me is not a bad thing. I think it's a marvelous piece of technology, one that will no doubt serve as an excellent proof of the technology when it comes time for a compelling licensee to actually renovate the genre.

I'd forgotten a couple games I'd like you to take a look for on the web, as I think they really have a lot going for them. This is a show with a lot of things to show, so anything that actually pierces and remains in my consciousness (the spell checker suggested I replace that word with "couscous") under these conditions is probably something to take note of.

Gladius really has no right being as cool as it is. A turn-based (yay!) arena battle game, you manage a school of gladiators in the stats-oriented fashion you might run a baseball team. Add to that a staggering number of combatants from different regions and species, two thirty-six hour storylines, upgradeable armor and equipment, and characters which accrue special attacks and notoriety with each successive victory and you're talking about something that is much more than it could have been - I spent a good twenty minutes or so grilling the developer, and he a had a good answer for every question. I'll be watching this one pretty close. It's going to hit all major console platforms, so nobody gets left out this time.

I don't know if you've played much Dynasty Warriors, but I think they're alright. I've had some good fun with them, and as a series they sorta do their own thing. They're branching the series in a direction called Dynasty Tactics, and it's exactly what you think, only it looks better and it's way cooler. I'll have to read up online for more information, though the small amount I saw displayed some very original concepts and exciting scenarios. There wasn't all that much shown there, and this sheet I have for it basically just says "Dynasty Tactics! Yay!"

Going to bite the bullet today, try to get in line early to see C&C Generals as well as Earth and Beyond, which I know next to nothing about. Apparently, the booth that is showing Planetside and Everquest 2 was having a contest yesterday, and the winner (one in twenty) got to actually see the game. You can't get in otherwise. Being a Planetside fanatic myself, I mailed their press people to try and get in there - no dice. With any luck, I'll be able to sneak my way in somehow tomorrow when it's quiet. I just really want to keep up with Planetside, and with them as closed-lipped as they are, this seems like the only way to do that.

(CW)TB out.

Each day at the Nintendo booth they do a little game show sort of thing were you could win a Wave Bird. I woke up this morning and I told everyone that today I was going to win one. They all laughed at me but I knew it was the truth. I was like Babe Ruth calling his shot. I pointed to the Nintendo booth and said today a wireless controller will be mine. After two hours in line with Porkfry we had finally worked our way to the front. That is When Monkey showed up and slipped into line with us. Along with about eight other people we took our places around the prize wheel. The prizes started spinning as we all clapped and banged on the counter top. As the wheel slowed I noticed the little cardboard cut out of a Wave Bird moving closer and closer. It stopped right between me, and the guy to my left. We both looked at it and then looked at each other. As I sized him up a large man in a Nintendo shirt put his hand on my shoulder and said “you’re a winner, stay seated.” I did as I was told and looked across the table to see that Monkey to was still seated as well. We both glanced over to see that a girl and her boyfriend where also still with us. I shot monkey a look that said, “we must destroy these people”. The four of us were then led to a big screen TV and a row of movie style seats located high above the Nintendo booth. Each seat had a Wave Bird resting next to it and Mario Party 4 was on the TV. We took our seats and a woman explained that we would play seven party games. For each victory you would receive a point. As we came to the last game Monkey and I both had two points, the guy had one and the girl had one. Each character now had a stamp and the goal was to bounce around a giant piece of paper. The player who was able to cover the most surface area by the end of the game would be the winner. The match started and we were off, each of us stamping like mad. I looked over and noticed that monkey was actually just following along behind the other guy. He was actually stamping over every square of color this poor bastard put down. It was a brilliant strategy and I immediately put it into effect against his girlfriend. Getting teamed up on in such a way must have been extremely frustrating for both of them. Or at least I like to imagine it was. The game ended and when the stamps were added up Yoshi was the winner. I got the last point of the game and as I walked off a woman congratulated me and handed me a small velvet bag with the words Wave Bird stitched into it. I was a winner.

I saw enough Star Wars stuff today to fill a dozen news posts. Once I get back home and gather my thoughts I’ll try and post something on each of them. For right now I’ll just say, Galaxies is everything you want it to be, Bounty Hunter is what would happen if John Woo directed a Star Wars movie, Clone Wars is fantastic and Knights of the Old Republic is the RPG they play in heaven.

I hope to see as many of you as I can at our little meet and greet today in Kentia hall. That will be around noon in the cafeteria there. We will be back home on Saturday so if you mailed me this week it may be a while before you get a response. I know my inbox was full for a while but that should be fixed now. I am gonna cuddle up with my new Wave Bird now and get some sleep.

-Gabe out

I probably should have known I'd be in trouble when I asked for emails in a broad sentence like "Send me any questions you have about this vast gaming Mecca!" So, somewhere between 100-200 mails later (I lost count), here I am again. I'm sorry that I couldn't respond to all of you personally, but that would have been physically impossible. I'm also sorry if some of you asked questions that get no answer whatsoever from me... I really only have the resources to address the hot issues, which I'll try to do over the course of the next few days. Please know that I read ALL your mails, even the dumb ones, and have considered them in my heart of hearts. More or less.

A lot of people have asked me for a Top 5 list like Gabe did yesterday, but that wouldn't be very fair... I want to reserve judgement until I see the entire show, and then I'll give you all the best analysis I possibly can. Today, however, I've decided to try and break things down by platform, to see if that makes anything any easier to manage. I'm also going to try to avoid mentioning games that we talked about yesterday.

EDIT: Ok, that didn’t fucking work. I wrote everything out, and it was something like 2.5 pages. I’ll just post some Nintendo-related thoughts tonight, something short tomorrow, and then do a massive writeup when I get home. Sorry, I know you’re all impatient… but remember that good things come to those who wait. Like ketchup, and steak sauce, for example! I don’t know how it applies here, though.

Gamecube
A lot of people asked about Mario Sunshine, and I'm not quite sure what to tell you. The game LOOKS nice, and there are a lot of cute things Mario does when interacting with his environment, but something about this game just failed to captivate me. It felt an awful lot like Mario 64 with better graphics, and I just couldn't shake that feeling. Mario 64 was a great game, mind you... but it's not the groundbreaking title I'd like to see. On the one hand, it's too bad that Nintendo won't go in terribly interesting new directions w/ the franchise. On the other hand, that means we don't have to stomach titles like Super Mario Extreme Volleyball Arena Racing, so I guess it's a draw.

Metroid Prime questions also filled a fair portion of my Inbox. The game looks amazing, that's for sure... it's graphically as good or better than Halo, and I'd be willing to bet I won't have to wade through mindless, repetitive levels. The enemies look cool, and the environments are engaging... in short, it's great. Or rather, it's great if you love FPS's on consoles. I like the game a lot, but I've never gotten the hang of console shooter controls, and so I don't think I'm going to extract the amount of enjoyment out of this that some of you might. I can't say that this game is a bad mark against the franchise, though... not at all. I know that a lot of people are going to go apeshit over this.

This wasn't a massive title they were touting, but I'm excited as all get out to get my hands on Mario Party 4. I've played it, and it certainly appears to be a fun extension to the existing lineup, with crisp new graphics. I don't think anybody is going to buy a GameCube for this title, but if you loved the previous iterations I think you're going to be pleased. I see that Gabe already told the story about how we won him a WaveBird... somehow, I don’t think the Nintendo group counted on fucking Clan Prancing Pony showing up and competing in their little game. Anyway, suffice to say that I BONED our poor enemies, and it was really funny. I feel pretty good about myself.

I don't own a Gamecube right now, but the fact of the matter is that I'm going to change that situation in short order, if I can. Between the new price cut and the great titles coming out, it's hard to have an excuse not to own one. Hell, I feel like a big winner for holding out till the price drop.

Game Boy Advance
Unfortunately, it turns out that the Zelda game I played is not what I thought it was. In single player mode, the game IS A Link To The Past. Apparently, in multiplayer there's some sort of competition to see who can get the most rupees. Now, this isn't a terrible thing, per se... Link To The Past was a great game, but now that I've thought about the possibilities of a multiplayer Zelda game, I feel kind of disappointed. Nintendo: You need to make a multiplayer Zelda RIGHT NOW.

I didn't pay a lot of attention to the other GBA titles, but I did see a few intriguing new things. For starter's, there's a new Megaman title called Megaman Zero, which is pretty interesting. There's also some kind of Megaman RPG, and a bunch of great looking new fighting games ala Street Fighter Whatever, and Capcom Vs. Fill In The Blank. Sorry, I don't pay much attention to fighters. They looked nice, though, and Gabe seemed to like them, which says something.

Jesus, it's late. I'll see you all tomorrow.

(CW)Safety Monkey is in the hizouse

HOW YA DUIN?

Sorry I didn't give you any E3 stuff like the rest of these long-winded ghouls but I was very tired and cranky last night. I needed to put my PJs on and GO TO BED. I saw less on Thursday and more today. I will do a big write up after I get home tomorrow. I am very tired and need to put my PJs on and GO TO BED AGAIN.

ALSO, sorry Kara and I didn't do a Love & Hate this week but I was tired and cranky at night here in LA and couldn't bring myself to try and come up with a new abusive way to respond to angsty teenage gamers that like this girl, see, but don't know how to approach them and let them know that BLAH BLAH BLAH SLICING DOWN/NOT ACROSS, EVERY PILL IN THE HOUSE, SHUT UP MOM I'M BUSY DOWN HERE! CLOSE THE DOOR! NO MOM, I SAID I'M BUSY!

I will have quite a bit to say tomorrow I think. A few games have caught my attention over the past two days. PLUS I GOT TO SLAUGHTER A SACRED COW IN FRONT OF AN AUDIENCE.

Stay tuned!

I'm typing because my voice doesn't work anymore.

We'll get a sketch and some final thoughts up for you later this morning, before we head back home on the plane. Friday's excursion was exhausting in the extreme, and I'm not sure why that is because I barely remember today's chronology.

Well, I did sign on a girl*. I remember that much.

Okay, I'm back.

Yooooooooooooooooooooooooo. I said that mainly to bother Batjew, but if it bothers you too, that's fine.

We made friends with some very nice Englishmen, who we interrogated endlessly regarding their native snack options. Porkfry and I made an extensive list of items for them to bring back, which featured Hostess Tiger Tails and Fruit Pies in positions of prominence.

Just as a point of information, if you have nothing else to do - i.e., you aren't meeting anybody and you don't eat food - you could see the whole show in one day, give or take an hour. Obviously, this doesn't include having your picture taken with a woman who has no pants on. That's why we hold things like das meeten und greeten on the last day, because everybody's usually seen everything. But this year, I just took more time with everything I wanted to see, so I used Friday morning to check out Deus Ex 2 and C&C Generals, as well as Earth and Beyond - whish was demonstrated by Eric Wang. I know, it's great. I'll leverage my insider knowledge to bring you sauce on those for the Monday Update, when (away from this deafening circus) we'll collect our thoughts and try to sort out all this stimuli. I also picked up a few copies of Duke Nukem: Manhattan Project, which it will be my pleasure to distribute in a June contest.

Infogrames is putting out D&D: Heroes, which launched me into pleasure realms heretofore unknown. In my opinion, it's a four player Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance. I'm not trying to impugn them for it, I mean, that's one of my favorite games. In my opinion, the more games that resemble the old HeroQuest boardgame the better.

I saw a little game called Moon Base Commander that I'm going to make it my mission to promote. It's a simple multiplayer game, more reminiscent of a board or card game than a computer one, and I wholly authorize it's return to pure gameplay for my leisure hours.

Monkey told me last night that he'd have his Thinkpad out on the plane, writing either a sad poem (he asked me what rhymes with "despair," and I suggested "hair") or some final thoughts on E3. So be on the lookout.

(CW)TB out.

*A girl that called ME an "ACCESSORY" and a "PERIPHERAL"

To everyone that came out friday: I hope you had as much fun being abused as I had abusing you.

But some accessories are really cool, like one that would let me make pasta or perhaps control sea life. And don't even get me started on peripherals.

(CW)TB