There was a strange moment where we were talking to humans from LucasArts, and they said that they were big fans, and we said that we were the Goddamn fans around here, and it nearly came to blows with us trying to determine who respected the other more. More surreality from the E3.
Today's first sketch concerns our Thursday interview with the producers of Star Wars: Galaxies, which I think of as the first truly next-generation MMOG or whatever the fuck the kids are calling them now. We're going to post the whole interview we did for Amazon, and even though we mainly asked questions about the sort of characters we'd like to create - and they quite understandably avoided almost every question having to do with Jedi at this point - we learned a lot, and hopefully some of it will be of interest to you. The hardest of the hardcore already get their questions answered directly on the very active official forums, so they might already know everything we're going to say. Gabe has a Bounty Hunter planned, while I (as might be surmised) am looking forward to spending too much time with the crafting elements, so expect to hear about my imaginary store a lot. The LucasArts booth in general was pretty overwhelming. Titles we'd seen on the floor and been unhappy with made a lot more sense when we actually figured out what everything did. Just grabbing a controller for some weird-ass new game might seem like the best way to suss out it's worth, but it really doesn't work that way in practice. For one thing, many of the games you play here aren't exactly done - they're good enough to show off, take some pictures maybe, but there is a lot of tuning yet to do. What's more, a deafening room surrounded by jostling humans with a line of people waiting for you to please finish is hardly quality time.
The second sketch concerns the highly anticipated Doom III, which was finally shown in action on the floor. It's hard to believe, but we're told that every frame of what we saw is actual footage, rendered live in the engine - not being home, or connected to the web as I type this, I don't know how much they're letting you see. The much vaunted lighting is as amazing as we have been lead to believe. I'll tell you that the enemies look nearly photorealistic, and because of that (or, some other reason) the encounters we saw were not the pitched battles anyone might be familiar with from classic iterations of the series. It felt much more along the lines of Survival Horror in first person, which to me is not a bad thing. I think it's a marvelous piece of technology, one that will no doubt serve as an excellent proof of the technology when it comes time for a compelling licensee to actually renovate the genre.
I'd forgotten a couple games I'd like you to take a look for on the web, as I think they really have a lot going for them. This is a show with a lot of things to show, so anything that actually pierces and remains in my consciousness (the spell checker suggested I replace that word with "couscous") under these conditions is probably something to take note of.
Gladius really has no right being as cool as it is. A turn-based (yay!) arena battle game, you manage a school of gladiators in the stats-oriented fashion you might run a baseball team. Add to that a staggering number of combatants from different regions and species, two thirty-six hour storylines, upgradeable armor and equipment, and characters which accrue special attacks and notoriety with each successive victory and you're talking about something that is much more than it could have been - I spent a good twenty minutes or so grilling the developer, and he a had a good answer for every question. I'll be watching this one pretty close. It's going to hit all major console platforms, so nobody gets left out this time.
I don't know if you've played much Dynasty Warriors, but I think they're alright. I've had some good fun with them, and as a series they sorta do their own thing. They're branching the series in a direction called Dynasty Tactics, and it's exactly what you think, only it looks better and it's way cooler. I'll have to read up online for more information, though the small amount I saw displayed some very original concepts and exciting scenarios. There wasn't all that much shown there, and this sheet I have for it basically just says "Dynasty Tactics! Yay!"
Going to bite the bullet today, try to get in line early to see C&C Generals as well as Earth and Beyond, which I know next to nothing about. Apparently, the booth that is showing Planetside and Everquest 2 was having a contest yesterday, and the winner (one in twenty) got to actually see the game. You can't get in otherwise. Being a Planetside fanatic myself, I mailed their press people to try and get in there - no dice. With any luck, I'll be able to sneak my way in somehow tomorrow when it's quiet. I just really want to keep up with Planetside, and with them as closed-lipped as they are, this seems like the only way to do that.
(CW)TB out.
