Experiencing E3 For the First Time
by NorseGamer, HSM Editor-in-Chief
Sore feet.
Yes, there’s a lot more to E3 than just that, but that kinda sums it up really well — because in order to try to take in the insane scale of E3, the only way to do it is to end up with sore feet. Because you will traverse a lot of ground.
It’s said that no one ever really saw the Battle of the Bulge; everyone just saw pieces of it. With E3, it can start to feel the same way. The sheer sensory overload of it all takes some getting used to. The mad crush of humanity, coupled with screens everywhere and competing subwoofer frequencies blasting your eardrums to powder is enough to have you cross-eyed, sitting in the corner, going bibble-bibble.
Trying to soak in where to go and what to do is exceptionally difficult. You look at one developer booth with some cool displays and think, “Oh, I’d like to check that out,” and then on the way over you see six different other screens all showing equally awesome enticements, and suddenly your brain can’t decide whether to walk left, join a queue to the right, or scratch behind your ears. But nobody notices your sudden lack of muscular coordination, because everyone else is doing exactly the same damn thing. E3 is like an e-mail inbox full of shouty presents from your subconscious gaming fantasies, except that your fantasies coalesced into a Brazilian supermodel who drank half a dozen Jägerbombs and sawed off a building before dropping in to see how you’re doing. It takes some getting used to.
Waiting in line...
Are there dull moments? I suppose. Cubehouse and I waited in line for roughly the same length as the last ice age in order to play the latest Metal Gear title. The queue was so long that we’re fairly certain that some people are still waiting there, trying to get pizza delivered to them. And if you’re at all squeamish about being constantly surrounded by a sea of people, then you will feel like Reginald Denny at a stoplight.
That said, E3 is bloody amazing.
It’s not just about the games. I know that sounds bizarre, but it’s true. The games are the focal point of the spectacle, but what makes the spectacle memorable are the fun moments when you get to hang out with cool people, and when you get to have the shared experience of something fantastic. How often have you heard the cliched line, “Ya had to be there, man!” in regards to some seminal rock concert?
Well, it’s true.
The blogosphere has been writing about how this year’s E3 seems lackluster — no major announcements, no huge surprises, no astonishing revelations. Let’s assume for a moment that that’s all true — which it isn’t. So what? It’s still a hell of a lot of fun to be at the absolute pinnacle of the gaming world, with attractions in every direction, and know that as a gamer, you have reached IT.
It is said that every true Moslem must make, at least once, the pilgrimage to Mecca. For the video gamer, much the same can be said of E3. And somehow it does connect you more deeply. When you get to interact with people whom you had hitherto only seen in digital representation, and you know that everyone around you shares the same fervor and enthusiasm as you, it is an intensely communal experience.
Cubes is playing Hitman. Do not disturb. Epic win in progress.
Are there some notable specifics to share? Absolutely. For starters, let’s talk about the utterly massive setup PlayStation has at E3. No, really. The Big Three — Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo — all share booths in the same building (indeed, they’re all sandwiched next to each other), and yet somehow the PlayStation booth is simply much more dominant. Microsoft’s space is laid out in odd, counter-intuitive angles, and it honestly feels like a lot of open space was wasted. Nintendo drew a lot of traffic, yes, but it didn’t have any sort of major visual sizzle to it. Whereas the PlayStation behemoth sits front and center, bi-level, with just tons of content to enjoy and people to enjoy them.
This is not in any way to detract from the content each developer is showcasing. This is simply to say that in terms of visual spectacle — in terms of pure presence — Sony visually appears to own the whole damn building. It’s an impressive bit of design.
There are other nifty bits, too. A particularly fun — albeit bittersweet — experience was the classic games museum. Oh my god. It’s all the game consoles and cabinets I used to play as a kid. Everything from Ralph Baer’s earliest invention to the last generation of consoles. And, for a brief time, I was four years old again. I felt young. It was astonishingly fun to play these games again. Sure, by modern standards, they’re rather quaint and graphically unimpressive. So what? It’s what you connect with, emotionally, that matters.
(It probably helped that A-Ha’s “Take On Me” was playing in the background whilst Cubehouse and I went through there. That’s one of my all-time favorite songs. I’ve secretly been trying to copy Morten Harket’s hair for the last thirty years. Shush.)
I have to admit that it saddened me to see all my old favorites labeled as “classic museum” games. I honestly felt like Jimmy from The Wizard, in the final scene where he returns to the Cabazon Dinosaurs in order to pay his final respects to his dead sister, long gone. Maybe you haven’t seen The Wizard; perhaps it, too, belongs in a museum. But dammit, those games hold a special place for me. I identify with them.
It just…I don’t know. I felt like Marius, brooding over the ruins of Carthage. Video games appeal to me because, to an extent, they still make me feel a bit young. They still have that sense of wonder and excitement which fires my imagination. I think it’s one of the reasons why Home appeals to me so much: because it’s something new, in an industry that seems intently focused on creating ever more photorealistic depictions of death and dismemberment rather than pushing the boundaries of what a game can be. And, quite frankly, it’s been a long time since anything (outside of Home) felt particularly new to me in the gaming industry.
Speaking of Home: there’s a small taste of it at E3.
PlayStation Home at E3. Frak yeah!
You have to look carefully for it, but it’s there. A booth for VEEMEE’s No Man’s Land.
This is darn cool, but for a reason other than you might think. It’s cool because it doesn’t have the Home logo plastered onto it. I watched people line up to play it, become enthralled with it, and then find out, oh, by the way, it’s a Home game. And the reaction is consistently the same: “This is a PlayStation Home game!?”
Gamer pop-culture opinion would have you believe that Home is some sort of digital version of Father Damien’s leper colony. Overcoming that mental snapshot from four or five years ago has taken a tremendous amount of time and money, but it is starting to have an effect. Cutthroats, for instance, is a multiplayer game in Home with no discernible lag and — as far as I can tell — practically no crashes. And No Man’s Land is so advanced, comparatively speaking, that it honestly doesn’t feel like a Home game, particularly when on display at E3. Which, naturally, makes the surprise impact of its Home exclusivity that much more enjoyable.
I still believe quite strongly that the beating heart of Home is its social interface, but major industry events require something splashier to gain attention. Scoring headshots in No Man’s Land does the trick quite nicely.
There are still two more days of E3 insanity to soak up. If it’s anything like today, I suspect my head will simply explode. And I will have sore feet.
It’s so totally worth it, though.
June 6th, 2012 by NorseGamer | 4 comments
NorseGamer is the product manager for LOOT Entertainment at Sony Pictures, as well as the founder and publisher of HomeStation Magazine. Born and raised in Silicon Valley, he holds a B.A. in English/Creative Writing from San Francisco State University and presently lives in Los Angeles. All opinions expressed in HSM are solely his and do not necessarily reflect the views of Sony DADC.
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Please tell me guys will hit up the ac3 area.
Great report from the front lines @ E3
Home has been full of the very experiences you are talking about in this article.
Thank you for sharing them. I have had a lot of very cool experiences with friends in Home that were just that. I hope to share them with everyone too. Well the mentionable ones.
Wish I could have come there, this sounds awesome. Glad to see Home represented there as well. Have fun for all of us, maybe more of us can go next year!