It's really a race, now, between Monkey and myself, to finish our posts and be counted on the front page.
I must admit that neither of us are particularly well equipped to grapple with this task, as we had the poor sense to attend Microsoft's E3 festivities after the show - as a result, we have arrived at our hotel somewhere around two o'clock in the morning. I thought of so many things to tell you while I was at this event; the woman who stamped my wrist had the warmest hands I've ever felt, Garbage appeared for some inexplicable, surreal concert, I shook CliffyB's hand but didn't have the sack to engage him in a conversation regarding Bombing Run. Also, I had the good luck to meet up with one Greg Kasavin, who is so hot he could melt a stick of butter next-door. Check this shit out.
OMFG!
I think of drinking as taking an advance on future happiness in exchange for a short term, high interest loan on your physical well-being. I'm being perfectly honest when I say that I am not able to rightly enumerate the beverages I consumed, I can only say that I think "open bars" are a dangerous concept in desperate need of regulation. It's probably a good thing I didn't talk to Peter Molyneux when I saw him, I can't think of any way that could have ended with my purity still intact.
Everyone else seems to have said what they came away with most impressed, but I'm actually having a hard time with that at the moment. That's not the Midori sour, or the whiskey sour, or the other whiskey sour, or the gin and tonic, or any of the other drinks talking, either. It's just been such a full day that I'm having a hard time quantifying the whole shebang. One thing I can tell you for certain: Cel-shading is here to stay. I've seen so much cel-shaded shit this year I could get sick and throw up. It's not the games' fault, and I recognize that, but it's like some kind of unstoppable force on the showfloor. Also, I haven't seen everything by Activision, EA, or Ubi Soft yet, which will be good fodder for tomorrow night. Anyhow, let's talk turkey.
I think that the new Zelda is something that needs to be seen to be believed, and needs to be played to be understood. If you have done both and not come away impressed, I think that you need a new hobby. I'm not kidding. When something this great comes along, and you're simply to jaded to appreciate it, there's other things you could be doing you might derive more pleasure from.
I must say, I'm quite impressed with what the U.S. Army has to offer. They have funding for an additional five years, and virtually every gameplay concept we had is on the boards to be implemented at some point on the timeline - but the product they'll deliver at launch, the completely free product I might add, with as many as twenty maps out the gate - is nothing to sneeze at either. It goes gold in early June, you'll get a chance to see what I've seen before too much time has elapsed.
Obviously, I've got to stick with Jew on the Silent Hill 3 thing. His description of events is quite accurate. We'll be on the floor tomorrow - I don't mean on the showfloor, I mean on the actual floor, sitting like children at storytime - watching the fairly short cinema Konami has on display, but sadly it's not anywhere we can get our hands on it. I can quite comfortably say that the Silent Hill series has gripped me in ways that changed my perceptions of the medium itself. I'm in for a penny, in for a pound with this shit. I think Silent Hill is a bold, modern series that doesn't bother to shy away from provocative, mature themes. They're great. Can I be optimistic about a game I don't know anything about yet? Yes!
Though I'll be getting a chance to play it in depth tomorrow, what I've already seem of Hunter: The Reckoning leads me to believe that, like myself, development team High Voltage loathes the undead.
From what I've read, the core development studio behind "Commandos" (a personal favorite) is behind Duality, whose major tenets will be familiar to anyone familiar with cyberpunk fiction or roleplaying. Playing as a mercenary, a hacker, or what they're calling a "virtual being," it's up to you to look and act cool in ways beyond the most unhinged fantasies of celluloid. You can actually download what we saw right at your house, just poke around for the Duality E3 Trailer and you'll be set up. From the same publisher, "Strident" also looks stylish, clean, and promising.
Only a couple kiosks had it, but Red Dead Revolver was amazing to look at. A Wild West, six-shooting blast-'em-up, Capcom has done their genre homework, given it a unique twist, and bolstered the concept with high production values. It looks like something that is simultaneously an homage and the apex of the Western form. I'm sure there's video for you to download somewhere.
Lots of other stuff, I mean, it's nice to see Contra back again, and with the classic perspectives and gameplay that made the title a synonym for "action." Neverwinter Nights is too rich to depict, I'll be writing about my experiences with it in fairly rigorous detail for Amazon, so I'll just link that after I submit it. Haven't seen Doom III yet, but I've heard it leaves no ass unkicked.
(CW)TB out.
