 Report from E3 2003 The Electronic Entertainment Expo attracts over 60,000 video game retailers, distributors, developers, investors, and geeks to the Los Angeles Convention Center. .It's one of the few places in America where being Asian seems to attract preferencial treatment. Am I there to unveil hardware, explain a programming technique, or drop loads of yen on product? Nope, I'm just there to preview the new games. Thanks for opening the door for me, though! |
The main pavilions are packed with the usual participants. Xbox, Nintendo, and PlayStation have huge, multi-story pavilions, and so do software developers like Midway, Atari, Namco, ActiVision, and Ubi Soft. It's like a huge arcade where you can play next year's hottest games for free. The companies tempt conventioneers with booth bunnies, costumed people, celebrity appearances, and giveaways. Since there weren't any new platforms this year, most of the show is centered around franchises like Metal Gear Solid, Yu-Gi-Oh, Resident Evil, and every single sports adaptation, but a few things stood out of the Las Vegas-like explosion of screens, sounds, and travelers. Activision's True Crime: The Streets of L.A. gives you an idea of what it was like for John Woo to direct Chow Yun-Fat. Combining the bullet tracers of Max Payne and drive-anywhere freedom of Sin City, this one has an Asian protagonist and a pretty accurate backdrop of Los Angeles. The level that I tried out took place in a Chinatown deli! The foes are running around in bloody white aprons. It takes a while to figure out the gun and bullet-time, but it's pretty cool when you do. What took so long for someone to make a Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon game? The RPG/fighting game by Ubi Soft for the PS2 looked pretty great on the widescreen monitors, but the exhibit dudes are hogging up the controls so I can't comment on the playability. Thankfully, the music is not techno or rap. It's tranquil, just like the movie. Michelle Yeoh's character being on both screens might mean that they haven't finished the Chow Yun-Fat portion of the game yet. Or it could just reflect the weird phenomenon of gamers preferring to play games as hot chicks. In that spirit, Tecmo has a Dead or Alive fashion show with models dancing around like the girls from the three-peat fighting game. No, they don't wear the thong bikinis from the "Xtreme Volleyball" spinoff, but there are pretty huge crowds gathered around. Do they have any new games? Who knows? Midway's NBA Ballers looks pretty good. You choose from 60 pros and 24 legends for one-on-one matchups in the legends' own backyard courts. It's like MTV Cribs meets NBA TV! The winner gets rewarded with fancy rides, fine ladies, a big posse, and bling-bling jewelry, which will be weird if you choose someone like Larry Bird or Yao Ming. I personally like the inclusion of James Worthy and Clide the Glide with newer guys like The Answer, KG, and Spree. This doesn't come out until December, so you'll have to play one of the many other good basketball games until then. |