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E3
Madness 2004! The Jason Schachat Floor Report Part 2
Jason
continues his desperate dispatches. We swear that he did
take pictures of people at E3 other than booth babes, but
let's face it, we've got pictures of Stan Lee elsewhere
on the site.
Call
us crazy, but we think you'll agree with our decision today.
Mr. Sprinkles is still lost in the sea of gamers swinging
their tchotchke filled bags and milling through the exhibit
hall. Well, he’s not really lost. I just can’t
find him.
I
can’t help but think that one of the more aggressive
booth bunnies got him. Laugh all you want, it’s true.
Wilier
bunnies can stray far from their booths, like prowling lionesses;
lightning quick reflexes forcing pamphlets into hapless
hands without warning. Some bunnies are so desperate, they
actually operate on the general policy of dragging gamers
back to their booth lairs to force product after product
on the unwitting fools.
“Write
your name here and try this demo and you could win a t-shirt
or a car!”
The
poor, hopeless boobs never stand a chance.
Only
one device has been found to nullify the powers of a ravenous
bunny, and that is the hyper-mega big screen display, its
terrifying wingspan stretching twenty feet or more. The
bunny remains oblivious to the big screen, but her prey
are enthralled by its charms and rendered useless to even
the most dedicated bunny.
Konami’s
giant shining rectangle maintained an audience all throughout
the day. Strangely enough, the sound system was cranked
so high it was causing permanent ear damage to everyone
in the vicinity (yes, even deaf people), but that never
chased anyone away ‘cause, dammit, the big screen
is just that mighty!
How
else can you explain the way so many flocked to the warming
glow of
Dance Dance Revolution 2?
The
real hypnotism happened when Silent Hill 4 hit the screen.
Mouths hung open in awe at the sight of so much freaky blood
letting. The game itself looks impressive, but, pumped up
on that screen like it was, no one could turn away and casual
passersby slowly drifted into the flock.
Does
it say something about our society when the horror game
genre seems to be on the rise again with this and Resident
Evil 4? Is it at all indicative of something disturbingly
wrong going on when people would rather watch zombies explode
than be manipulated by attractive salespeople?
Eh.
Probably not.
When
it came to size, Konami delivered, but the spectacle wasn’t
quite there. What can I say? Console game engines only get
so pretty, and nothing could stand up to the cinematics
Blizzard was running.
Starcraft Ghost made a pretty good showing, despite all the years
people have seen it roll along through development, but
it’s cinematic on the Blizzard big screen (angled
into the heart of the hall) caused some of the biggest traffic
jams. It was just hard to tear your eyes away. I remember
their earliest cinematics in Warcraft 2, the Orcs and the
Humans, the catapult and the zeppelin, the grain and the
ghosting. Blizzard’s cinematics have risen to such
a level that they hardly even need to design games any more.
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