I’m sitting in the "media center" at the Fairmont typing this, with the Konami press event just ending and the Age of Conan party starting without me there (curse you, delays and lazy shuttle drivers!).
The room is stinky, it’s not air conditioned, and my back hurts like hell from lugging a backpack around all day from 8AM until two minutes ago. Sure I could put it down for brief sessions while I played a few games, but with that many people crowding around you-and a PSP, DS, laptop, and digital camera all in your bag-you wouldn’t want to, either.
Today was much more eventful than I originally thought, and slightly different. For starters, I didn’t make it to the Nintendo conference. Even if I wanted to go (which I already announced I wouldn’t), the parking situation in Santa Monica is RIDICULOUS. I left the hotel at 8AM; it should have been a quick 10-15 minute drive here, but noooo, the traffic made it impossible to move more than an inch at a time. I expected traffic, but I didn’t expect to not move an inch while LEAVING Los Angeles.
Being a gamer, I quickly grabbed the local map, and planned a route which would take me to the hotel without the freeway. Of course, that ended up taking about 20 minutes longer than normal, so I didn’t get to the area until about 10~. "Good, I made it in time for my meeting with Eidos!" I thought. Nope, because the valet parking at the hotel-the very hotel the ESA told us all to use for parking-was full. They directed me across the street, but guess what? That parking garage was closed. Since March. I found another parking lot near there with a "maximum daily charge of $10!" but once driving into the parking lot, there was a giant sign saying "Lot closes at 3:30 PM." No good, so I went to the exit, and just gave him my ticket with like a 30 second time on it to leave.
The dude got PISSED. "Why did you come in if you’re just going to leave right away?" I explained I would be here far longer than 3:30. He then got mad and yelled at me for not reading that before I came in. I explained I would have read it before I came in, but it was around a corner and behind a fence from the entrance, and if I could read through solid walls I likely wouldn’t need a parking spot in the first place. He yelled at me, told me to "Leave right this moment!" and I did. It’s not like I wouldn’t have, I was in the damn exit lane waiting for him to lift the bar!
I finally found parking in a closed off section of Santa Monica (closed to through traffic, but not to parking). It’s open until midnight, so that’s good. It’s also only two blocks from the Fairmont. I walked over there, partook of a few free lunches (to be fair it was a tiny turkey sandwich and chips, so it wasn’t exactly filling having not eaten a full meal since yesterday), and met a cool guy named David Dunwoody, who’s a Captain in the Air Force, a future developer of military software, and a game journalist. "This is my second E3," he told me. "Last year was fun, I tried to go to the years before that but I was in Afghanistan." Nice guy, check out his site when it’s working (right now for some reason it’s down).
I went off to the Hangar to actually get some work done. Or at least I tried to, because the first shuttle of E3 was late by about 15 minutes. By the time it showed up, we realized the ESA’s mistake this year-the shuttle seated about 24 people at a time. I’m not sure how many there are, but with each shuttle taking about 10 minutes to arrive throughout the day (except a longer gap at lunch), and thousands of people… I assume you can do math.
In E3 I was met by what looked like a ton of Best Buy displays. Each company has an oval shaped sign above a few HD screens, and either hands-on demos or a few developers showcasing a title. The first order of business was Guitar Hero 3. I quickly drew a huge crowd in awe of my godlike Guitar Hero ability (actually, I got people watching me in awe until I completely started sucking half-way through unexpectedly).
What did I do after that? I met more cool people, played a few games (Heavenly Sword, Dark Sector, Quake Wars, God of War PSP, DMC 4 and much, much more), and then left. For more details stay tuned for my hands-on impressions, as well as the next entry. I would cover them now, but apparently the press center closes in 15 minutes, and with how slow this Internet is I’ll need all the time I can get to upload this.
(PS, I think I’m the first guy ever at E3 to miss their three first appointments, all with major companies. Good thing they either didn’t notice [Nintendo] or love me [Eidos].)
