Electronics Entertainment Expo 2002

These are various photographs from my trip to E3 2002. I'll spare you all the cheesy tourist photos I took of the LA area, since this was my first trip to California.

The main wing of the convention center.

Here's the America's Army people drumming up interest in their game outside the convention center. Here, a soldier strikes a dainty pose.

Some friendly rocket truck things.

A plasma TV in a tank? Why not?

I'm being oppressed. Actually, another soldier is taking this picture. He was a very mousey-looking fellow and kept saying, "Oh, I'm not sure we should do this," but the guy putting me in the headlock outranked him and was all "PFFFT it's fine, shut up and take it." So he did.

More Army inside.

Preparing for some rapelling demonstration.

Rappel, rappel!

"Damn, we got stuck. Someone grab a ladder?"

 

"Hey kid.. wanna touch my gun?"

Akklaim. From Mortal Kombat to some weird indian dude.

This is the largest poster I've ever seen.

AoM looked pretty good, but I haven't enjoyed Ensemble's stuff as much since they ruined their RTS economies with the Rise of Rome model.

BF1942: I knew nothing about it going in, and was hooked on how damn fun this game was when I left. The best thing about a press pass is having devs kick some random kid off so you can sit down and play whenever you want.

 

Bloodrayne is hot.

Very hot. In fact, I confess I'd periodically go by wherever she was to ogle. Later in the day, I was trying out the beta of Bloodrayne on an Xbox upstairs, and she went into a room to change back into normal clothes. The best part was, she left the contacts and fake fangs on, even though she was wearing normal clothing. Or were they contacts and fake fangs?...

Some assorted, hairy boothbabes.

Everquest II boothbabes.

Bruce Campbell! The king of B movies himself! Unfortunately the line was ridiculously long, so I just took a picture of him instead. Picking his nose.

Do I hafta leave?

Capcom.

This was by far the biggest attraction at the show. I never once saw the line less than all the way across the exhibition floor, with 3-4+ hour waits. The best part is, they showed you a short movie clip and then a small engine demonstration, which they also showed on the monitors outside the booth. I guess it's more fun to sit inside the booth and watch, however.

The monitor, and a disgruntled dogmonster.

"Sarge! My face is lumpy and I squint like Clint Eastwood! What have these demons done to me?!"

Electronic Arts had the biggest booth by far. They were first, right as you walked into the main hall, and it took probably 1/3rd to 1/2 of the space along the room (note: the room is very, very large).

Konami, Midway, etc. (aren't I helpful?)

Lara Croft, Tomb Raider. I only took this pictures because a friend of mine asked me to (honest!). It was quite sad to see the fanboys clamoring for her attention as she strutted back and forth across the stage during a presentation.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Microsoft also had a very large booth, considering it's Xbox exhibit was enormous, and nextdoor was Ensemble Studios and the rest of their games.

Nintendo made these very cool walls of televisions, showcasing all sorts of Gamecube titles.

More Nintendo.

Wouldn't you like to have this many screens in your living room? Including the enormous one in the back?

Metroid

Pacman, Akklaim again, etc.

No surface was left un-advertised.

I don't know what the hell "Primal" is, but the displays were really neat. Basically they had this pane of glass coming up from the stand which they'd use to project an image onto for each side, so they could fit 2 game consoles in the space of one, without needing LCDs (although the projectors were probably just as expensive, it still looked cool).

Ah, Sony Online Entertainment. They hired two scary-looking bodyguards to keep people like me out.

The receptionist didn't have my name on the list of guests, despite assurances from Terrence Yee that I would be cleared. I asked them to go inside and tell Dave Georgeson (the Producer) I was here, so that they'd let me in. He came out, and let me in. It was very cool getting special treatment like that. Too bad he turned psychotic and ruined the game.

Dave and Kevin McCann chat it up.

Don Newell flies through a warpgate.

Danny asked me to sit down at one of their bar tables so he could go over his presentation (I was there first thing in the morning on the first day, before the more "important" media reps showed up).

Quit stuttering, Danny, you're doing fine.

Kevin takes over.

Kevin was really cool, and seemed genuinely passionate about making this game come alive. I think we all know how that turned out, but +1 for trying. I have to say, I'm thankful these guys let me stick around and grill them for as long as I did. Aside from the fact that we all know the game turned out terrible, at the time it was very considerate for these developers of a $10-12 million (or more?) title to devote something like 2 or 3 hours of their time listening to my questions. By the way, I was just a fanboy who drummed up some credentials 2 weeks before the deadline to register as press for the show.

I don't know what the hell this is.

The day before the exposition, Sony held an event for the PlayStation 2. They showed off stuff like their internet connectivity with some football game and SOCOM.

The screens were very impressive, this isn't even half of how many there were all around the hall. They also gave out spiffy bags and glowing light-up pens with steel-covered notebooks. Oh, and breakfast. Yay press!

Madden does us all a favor.

Professional slackers showcase SOCOM.

I forgot to mention, outside this Sony press event, while standing in line to get inside, I was behind a short, bald man with a red-haired wife and his lanky friend. It took a while to register, but then I realized it was none other than Jerry Holkins and Mike Krahulik, or Tycho and Gabe of Penny Arcade fame. Being a dumb kid, however, I was too shy to say anything and instead just took this picture of him after the show. Yay me.

Sega.

Vaulted walls of Sega.

Sega does bowling.

Another one of those cool glass-projector display screens.

Sega had a very respectable booth in size, which was next to Nintendo in the more ghetto hall (EA, MS, SOE, etc. were living it up in the main--Kentia? hall).

Pictures suck. This was a spectacular light show, where the colors would zip up and down on those poles, creating a dazzling spectacle. Instead, you get some random lights.

I really want a monitor about that size.

Welcome to E3, an orgy of videogaming.

Unreal 2003. It looked really good at the time.

Except when you took pictures at just the right moment for the picture to be interlaced.

World of Warcraft. It didn't interest me then, and it didn't interest me when Briley offered me a beta account. Why, then, did I waste so much of my life playing it?

Orcing around.

I'll chew your bones.

The cinematics on display were cool, however. If only they'd hire some coders and game designers, or do us all a favor and just do CGI movies.

XBOX IS HUGE LOL

AMIRITE?

X-women

I can't help but laugh at some of their poses. Storm is all "watch out, I'm pointing my fingers at you, evil-doer!"

And so, that's E3, in no particular order. Well, alphabetical order. Hopefully I'll get to go again someday, but if I do, I think it'd be more fun to take a friend. Either way, I've got to be press again because I loved having people kiss my ass so I'd write good things about their game. Except I'll have to plan interviews and meetings better, picking the good stuff and researching before hand what I'd like to do and when, instead of arbitrarily going to everything I got asked to check out on that mailing list. Such is the life of a clueless kid seduced by the glamour of gaming.