| Eeeh Threeh 2005 a.k.a. TL;DR a.k.a. Sue Katowich is HOT |
[May. 21st, 2005|12:36 am] |
I went to my very first E3, and it was fun for a few hours until the novelty wore off. Problem was all the newsbreaking footage (PS3, Xbox 360, Revolution) hit the internet on monday/tuesday so E3 was the same thing only you had to wait in line. As far as the rest of the show, there wasn't that much I found exciting besides Urban Reign (the 3D beat-em-up I've been waiting for my whole life) and the PS3 Killzone trailer. To be honest, I'm not excited about the new consoles because they seem unnecessary. The industry could've waited another year or two instead of rushing to beat each other at the new-console-every-5-years routine.
I got in because my most awesome sister was a booth girl at Sega and got me a pass. She had plenty of horror stories to relay about the guys who asked for pictures. They'd be very shy for the most part, but some guys just straight up STANK. I was walking around and caught some passing funk from time to time, good GOD there was some serious stench wafting around the aisles waiting to strike.
Although I refused to play the booth girls' games and turn myself into a slobbering/hollering idiot for a free shirt, I still managed to procure a healthy amount of free swag. The Gamer & Phantasy Star shirts and AiAi from Super Monkey Ball 2 were Sega goods from my sister. I got the Pac Man shirt, about two dozen Gumbys, the Urban Reign shirt, the Katamari Damacy mousepad, and a Mage Knight archer elf figure from the Namco booth alone. All the free shirts at E3 were extra-large, which was rather an unfair implication- although it did force me to look at myself and realize just how far I've let myself go. Seriously though, I wonder why they all had to be XL. Some of the people there were incredibly rude when taking free stuff. They'd snatch and run while avoiding eye contact or just abrasively demand like they deserved it. I find that it's common courtesy to ask "May I have one?" and say "Thank you" afterward, plus girls giving things out will be much nicer to you. A seriously appalling lack of manners at E3.
Namco seriously had the best stage show in the place- all the other dance routines I saw were generic/boring/half hearted. Namco's stage show had little to do with their games besides just being a well-choreographed (really, it was) spectacle and giving out free crap. Man, you should've seen some of the overweight guys in business shirts standing next to me. Mouths agape, bug eyed and SWEATING. EEEUUGH. Way to compose yourselves there, fellas. Ilram was Mitsurugi in the SC3 part of the show, I'll put up some pics from that tomorrow on the ZG site.
Now the strangest thing was that the people I was looking for I didn't find, and the people I never expected I bumped into by chance. I was looking for ![[info]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) fandomgreen for the longest time, I was tackling every black guy I saw but to no avail. Damn your antisocial tendencies Racewing, DYLE and I both know good and well you were purposely avoiding us. We only would've body-slammed you if we thought you really NEEDED IT. I also found out later that Adam Clark (Jester/Arkham from Devil May Cry 3) was there but we never ran into each other.
But people I DID run into:
- Steve Allen (aka Handyman) from Pinole Valley High, now an engineer (imagine that, an Asian engineer) with a small bay area company that makes cell-phone games. He looks EXACTLY THE SAME. EXACTLY.
- Adam Bormann from Monolith actually FOUND ME. At about 2 p.m. I ducked into a shadowy alcove in a crowded hallway to pass out for a little bit, and somehow he saw me and woke me up. I was all huddled up in a ball and he just FINDS my ass. Amazing.
- Ken and Kerry showed up around the afternoon, I bumped into them and subsequently ran into Shinji Shinohara (Devil May Cry 3 cg movie producer) and Hideaki Itsuno (Devil May Cry 3 game director) at the Capcom booth. It was really great to see them again, and I tried desperately to get them to hire me on something in the future since Japan was so friggin' awesome. I showed them a picture of my sister and neither believed she was really my sister since I'm such a freakish ogre. (Oh HA HA you wry Japanese people ;_;)
- I got into a conversation with a nice couple who were both wearing Devil May Cry 3 t-shirts. They both loved the game to death and had bought the shirts from Capcom before E3. I told them I was the monsters, did some voice bits, they went nuts and took my picture with them. AGNI & RUDRA FOR LIFE BAY-BEE.
- When I had about an hour left, I was trundling by the Nintendo booth and was recognized by a foxy girl and a somewhat nervous Asian fellow. It seems my penchant for getting recognized at least once by strangers at every convention I go to is remaining constant, I still did a poor job of handling myself as well. So this Rob Henry fellow (stout and grizzled like a weathered Norsk fisherman decorated with tusks and tell-tale narwhal scars in a blue dress shirt) had been a regular at my old Capoeira site since the beginning and has followed my progressive online debaucheries with regularity. His very lovely companion Sue Katowich (A towering ebony megalith with penetrating heat vision and a take-no-guff attitude no doubt acquired during bicycle marathons in the Eastern Sahara) was also very familiar with my nonsensical internet hooey. It was a sincere pleasure meeting such supportive and levelheaded folks, I recommended someday we go out for Italian food since they don't live far from Canoga Park. By the way I'm going to link to Sue's site (even though it's only got a front page) in the hopes that pressure will build into a relaunch of its contents. I googlear-tell that Sue is quite the accomplished artist and now my curiosity gauge is all a-tingle. And Rob, I think you're a sexy beast too, I'll never forget our steamy tryst behind the Agetec booth. ;-*
I've been out working all day so I'm just going to post some pictures here and pass the fuck out, maybe expound a bit more later.
Namco section, Namco section 2, Namco section 3, Namco SC3 section
Katamari: A Namco staffer was gluing crap to this thing every 10 minutes. I took this pic when I got there at the beginning of the day, by noon the area was constantly swamped.
The Prince: I think the Prince was one of the dancers. The person was only out for about 10 minutes before they went back inside and disappeared. Gumby was also walking around for a while.
SF Anniversary cab, one of two at the Capcom booth: SF2 thru SSF2T plus Alphas 1-3, I played some guy several rounds in Turbo with Zangief and Guile before the crowd got huge. There were also old cabs for Final Fight and Side Arms.
Nintendo section, Sony section, Xbox section, Sega section, Konami section, SNK/Playmore section, Batman Begins Batmobile |
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