E3: Show floor Pics – Day 1

Alright folks, this is it. Welcome to the wild and wacky world of E3 as seen through the eyes of a mild mannered bumbling journalist. The crazy, the insane, the inane and the eerily familiar are all on display. And yes, we gots tha booth babes.

The Playstation 3 booth was probably one of the more swanky and stylish booths that I came across on the show floor. There were a couple of games playable on the show floor, from Warhawk to Heavenly Sword, to Gundam, to F1 2006 and even Resistance: Fall of Man. Naturally lines reached depressing lengths, crowds were daunting and I figured I might as well just stand and watch, take some pics and get my quality Sony time elsewhere.

I made my way over to the Sony Online Entertainment booth, and to my surprise there was a playable version of Untold Legends: Dark Kingdom. Color me unimpressed. The demo was only a few minutes long, and featured you taking control of a warrior class character, moving along a village path and basically smashing any enemies that came your way. You get to the end of the path and there’s a really big boss at the end for you to smash. Seriously, that’s it… What did it look like you ask? Meh, nothing really stood out. Sure it was in high definition, but pretty much everything looked generic and predictable, from the character design to the underwhelming enemies and even the environment… Next!

Oh yea! I found out why there was a helicopter parked in front of the Convention Center as well. It was all part of a promotional piece for America’s Army. (Who says the U.S. Military doesn’t have a sense of humor!) Moving along I came to the Konami booth which was showing a gorgeous 15 minute version of the MGS: 4 trailer first shown during the Sony press conference. Again the viewing area was packed full of people. Squeezing in I managed to find a place to watch he trailer in relative peace. Snake does indeed look even older and more weary than he did in the TGS demo, Meryl looks very cute with particular attention to detail paid to her facial expressions (great freckles!). The standout performance was probably the appearance of Raiden. Yup, you read right, Raiden’s back and he’s cool heck. Kojima made the wise decision of turning Raiden into this iterations “Ninja”. In an explosive sequence where Raiden is attacked by wave after wave of bio-mechanical Metal Gears, he flips, jumps, twists and hacks his way between them, jumping from platform to platform in the trademark fashion of the typical MGS Ninja. The trailer ends with the words “Metal Gear Solid: Guns of the Patriots,” underneath the title a date appears, “2006”. Everyone gasps, but then a digital brushstroke sweeps over the date, changing the “6” in 2006 to an “8”. Dismay! but then the brush crosses out the number “8” in red, and replaces it with a “7”… ahhhh, better.

Mmmm…. booth babes! just flash a camera and a press ID and they strut their stuff. They make you feel like you’re the only man in the world that matters… for about 10 seconds. The booth boy in the middle didn’t even bother posing, he just looked at me funny. he doesn’t look that tough though, I could take him.

Don’t thank me, it’s my job… someones got to do it.

Well that about wraps it up for the floor pics guys. We’ll have many more later today and tomorrow and even more for you to add to your “personal collection”. Look for video, more hands on impressions and a more detailed look at the seedy underbelly of the Electronic Entertainment Expo.

Alright folks, this is it. Welcome to the wild and wacky world of E3 as seen through the eyes of a mild mannered bumbling journalist. The crazy, the insane, the inane and the eerily familiar are all on display. And yes, we gots tha booth babes.

The Playstation 3 booth was probably one of the more swanky and stylish booths that I came across on the show floor. There were a couple of games playable on the show floor, from Warhawk to Heavenly Sword, to Gundam, to F1 2006 and even Resistance: Fall of Man. Naturally lines reached depressing lengths, crowds were daunting and I figured I might as well just stand and watch, take some pics and get my quality Sony time elsewhere.

I made my way over to the Sony Online Entertainment booth, and to my surprise there was a playable version of Untold Legends: Dark Kingdom. Color me unimpressed. The demo was only a few minutes long, and featured you taking control of a warrior class character, moving along a village path and basically smashing any enemies that came your way. You get to the end of the path and there’s a really big boss at the end for you to smash. Seriously, that’s it… What did it look like you ask? Meh, nothing really stood out. Sure it was in high definition, but pretty much everything looked generic and predictable, from the character design to the underwhelming enemies and even the environment… Next!

Oh yea! I found out why there was a helicopter parked in front of the Convention Center as well. It was all part of a promotional piece for America’s Army. (Who says the U.S. Military doesn’t have a sense of humor!) Moving along I came to the Konami booth which was showing a gorgeous 15 minute version of the MGS: 4 trailer first shown during the Sony press conference. Again the viewing area was packed full of people. Squeezing in I managed to find a place to watch he trailer in relative peace. Snake does indeed look even older and more weary than he did in the TGS demo, Meryl looks very cute with particular attention to detail paid to her facial expressions (great freckles!). The standout performance was probably the appearance of Raiden. Yup, you read right, Raiden’s back and he’s cool heck. Kojima made the wise decision of turning Raiden into this iterations “Ninja”. In an explosive sequence where Raiden is attacked by wave after wave of bio-mechanical Metal Gears, he flips, jumps, twists and hacks his way between them, jumping from platform to platform in the trademark fashion of the typical MGS Ninja. The trailer ends with the words “Metal Gear Solid: Guns of the Patriots,” underneath the title a date appears, “2006”. Everyone gasps, but then a digital brushstroke sweeps over the date, changing the “6” in 2006 to an “8”. Dismay! but then the brush crosses out the number “8” in red, and replaces it with a “7”… ahhhh, better.

Mmmm…. booth babes! just flash a camera and a press ID and they strut their stuff. They make you feel like you’re the only man in the world that matters… for about 10 seconds. The booth boy in the middle didn’t even bother posing, he just looked at me funny. he doesn’t look that tough though, I could take him.

Don’t thank me, it’s my job… someones got to do it.

Well that about wraps it up for the floor pics guys. We’ll have many more later today and tomorrow and even more for you to add to your “personal collection”. Look for video, more hands on impressions and a more detailed look at the seedy underbelly of the Electronic Entertainment Expo.