FantasiaWHT
05-21-2005, 09:29 PM
(It's long, I know, but I spent a lot of time writing it so I've just been posting it everywhere I frequent :) Feel free to comment, question, or simply ignore!)
Ok!
I had meant to do a day-by-day writeup each night, but first off, I did an insane amount of stuff each day- too much to write about, and each night we got home too late to really get anything done- pretty much going to bed right away. That and I've had computer problems (no suprise there)
So I'll just summarize, trying to touch on as much stuff as I can remember.
First off, BOOTH BABES! Rhonda would kill me, but... well no she wouldn't, we were joking about it on our phone calls at night. The booth babes are great. Nintendo's were all-around pretty- not scantily clothed at all- my favorites for all around. very *friendly* persontiest booth babes would have to either be Nyko (tiny tank tops tied under the breasts and tiny shorts) or the girls at "Singles 2" who basically wore some pretty small and tight stuff, but lounged around in their mock-apartment, doing everything they could to show butts, tits, and panty shots. Yoga stretches, dropping things to pick them up, rubbing lotion on each other, etc. They also would occassionally bring a guy in, tie him up to the bed and spank him with his own belt, or a broomstick. Best costume would either be the Mithra (from Final Fantasy XI- cute cat girls, or my girlfriend- Heather the Poker Girl (more about that later)
Ok on to games.
First and foremost has to be mentioned MY most anticipated title- Zelda 2. The line was insanely long Wednesday (didnt get in line right away) so instead we sprinted to the line as soon as the doors opened on Thursday. Even doing that the wait was still over an hour. BUT IT WAS WORTH IT! Aside from getting a Zeda t-shirt, there were 4 playable demos there. The horseback fight, running around the starting town, a dungeon and a dungeon-boss. The horseback riding was phenomenal. Not much more I can say about it, it just rocked. The dungeon was cool, but it had these monkeys that had enormous, pink asses that they kept spanking at you... disturbing... Also inside the "Zelda Forest" there was a floor panel that was light sensitive. It was lit from above, showing a koi pond and lots of little fish that moved around dynamically. If you waved your arm above them, they would swim away from your shadow, and you could even "catch" them by making a circle with your arms. Very neat technology- you also saw something similar in the concourse between South and West halls with a Star Wars mat.
Nintendo overall blew me away more than any other company. The sheer amount of AWESOME, exclusive titles they had for DS, GBA, and Gamecube was amazing. My only complaint would be that all the Revolution stuff was media only, so you all probably learned about it faster than I did. Odama looks freakishly cool- it's a combination of Pinball and Kessen. Hard to explain it more, but it's REALLY hard, and looks very good. Mario & Luigi 2 looks great! There's a new Mario game for the DS... it's a 2-player game that's cooperative, but competitive at the same time. You have to work together on some puzzles and bosses, but otherwise you are competing to finish the level first, or get the most coins, etc. Lots of great swag at the Nintendo spot too. Mario baseball and Mario Soccer look great! Nintendo's real baseball game looks horrible tho. No promise there at all. The Gamecube pokemon looks suitably generic, but they were giving out these really nice plush toys for playing the demo, so I sat through it a few times.
Other big Nintendo thing was the Gameboy Micro. Think Gameboy Advance pocket and you'll have it down, except the system is actually smaller than a Nintendo NES controller! It has a very sweet screen, and plays GBA games, but not GBC/GB.
Ok on to PS2, which took up about 1/3rd of the West Hall (Nintendo took up another 1/3rd of it, forgot to mention). Overall unimpressive. Huge ass line to see a video of PS3. I didn't bother, since I knew the video would be widely available anywhere online. The booth babes were utterly unimpressive. Mostly older, and mostly guys... Anyway, of the games they had on display, nothing really amazed me. Kingdom Hearts 2 I found quickly forgettable... not BAD, per se, but nothing really new. Slightly changed controls (odd actions are now mapped to the triangle button) but the camera is still very problematic, and the game's graphics look very dated. The most notable game I saw was Shadow of the Colossus, which was previously titled Wanda and the Colossus. A beautiful game, by the developers of Ico, SotC has you battling to take down enormous Colossi, which are probably about 30 times your height. It's really a living, breathing puzzle game- figuring out how to take down each individual Colossus is quite tricky. For one, you needed to climb up to the top of it's forehead and strike a few deadly blows, and there were multiple ways you could climb to get there. One option was waiting for it to swing its massive club, then jumping on the club and hoping not to get thrown off while he raises it back up, where you can jump on his shoulder. Ah I did forget one I loved... "We Love Katamari Damacy"! Yaaaaay! Always fun.
The rest of PS2's offerings were utterly forgettable... tons and tons of sequels of little interest... jak racing, ratchet bastardized, Dragon QUEST 8... dull.
Of the big three I spent the least time in Microsoft, and was NOT impressed by any single thing I saw there. Xbox 360 came across as an extremely minor improvement graphically, which is sad. Not many games for it in their area at all. Waited until the second day to go check it out, wandered around for about half an hour and left, never to return.
It's worth pointing out that information on the next generation of consoles was limited to media-only for the most part, so I'm sure most of you found out about them quicker than I did. What struck me most is that the gap between the power of PCs and the power of consoles is getting considerably narrower. The last generation, consoles operated in the 300-700Mhz processor speed range. In the next generation, we know that the Xbox 360 is running on 2 3.2 Ghz Pentium 4 processors, and the Playstation 3, with its cell processor technology, will be unmeasurable by current standards, and represent processor technology that will have advanced BEYOND the current capabilities of PCs.
ok on to smaller things. Well the biggest of the small things that I can think of was that I entered a Texas Hold'em Tournament on Friday. I played a 10-man tournament in the morning, and slaughtered the competition! What sucked about it was that the blinds doubled EVERY HAND, so it was really fast. I won the first two hands (5's and 6's in the first, pair of 7's with Aces high the second) and then pretty much just sat on my money while everyone else dropped out. My prize was a t-shirt So since I won that, I got to come back later in the day, and play...
PHIL LAAK!!!!! If you don't know who that is, he's a big celebrity in the poker world- world champion and stuff like that. Anyway, I got to play him head-to-head late in th afternoon, with higher "stakes" and the blind doubling every OTHER hand, so you could be a little more patient. And during the match, one of the booth babes was also sitting at the table as a distraction. Her name was Heather and she was quite pretty without being very *friendly* personty, unlike most booth babes, even if she was a little older (30-35 or so) We talked quite a bit after the tournament was finished hehe. Anyway, after a loooooooong match... I WON!! I beat the big guy! As a prize I got a shirt that said "I beat Phil Laak" aaaaaaaaand a really sweet cherry-wood poker set that he signed for me!
Other stuff... there's lots of it, I'll try to remember what was pertinent. Koei had Uncharted Waters Online showing and playing (a japanese version) looked alright, but shallow. Prize for the most wasted effort goes to "Webzen" a new Korean MMO company that threw huge blasts with tons of booth babes, tons of giveaways, a large booth, and big blasting presentations that occurred frequently. But still nobody knows what they are or cares about their games hehe.
Tons of fun swag! Some of the better ones... an inflatable Conan sword, a picture with two twins from Conquest by TQ Online (guess where they're from) where you get to hold a sword and they project a green-screen image behind you, a mario kart DS stylus, all the bags you could ever want, tons of magazines and product info, tons and tons of t-shirts, CDs, free beta tests, stress balls, lanyards, decks of cards, and more I can't even remember because I'm too tired.
I suppose I should mention SOME PC games, but to be honest, there were so few (aside from the millions of MMOs) that the ones there were had huge lines to check them out, so I really didn't bother. I know that's going to piss off plenty of the people at Sword and Pistol I heard Civ 4 looked good, and Age of Empires III had some nice shots. City of Heroes/Villians had a large presence, and a friend of mine won a beta test spot for City of Villains. Other PC games ran a lot of head-to-head competitions, frequently girl-only clans like "Frag Dolls", who were never beaten by anybody. Decent prizes for these competitions, too! The 6 members of a FFXI team who could take down the game's nastiest boss all got a free gaming rig, and lots of speaker sets and copies of games were given out as prizes.
Lots of big sound stages with huge jumbotrons, speakers, and dance routines. Tecmo, Namco, NCSoft, TQ, Webzen, True Crime were some of the big ones. Oh Konami had some cool MGS trailers running... a little hard to explain without being able to see it, but... long story short, Hideo IS directing the next one, despite him saying otherwise, and Raiden will NOT be the main character.
Uhhh... it's late... wondering if there's anything else worth reporting. Probably. It can wait til later though. Pictures will also be forthcoming!
Ok!
I had meant to do a day-by-day writeup each night, but first off, I did an insane amount of stuff each day- too much to write about, and each night we got home too late to really get anything done- pretty much going to bed right away. That and I've had computer problems (no suprise there)
So I'll just summarize, trying to touch on as much stuff as I can remember.
First off, BOOTH BABES! Rhonda would kill me, but... well no she wouldn't, we were joking about it on our phone calls at night. The booth babes are great. Nintendo's were all-around pretty- not scantily clothed at all- my favorites for all around. very *friendly* persontiest booth babes would have to either be Nyko (tiny tank tops tied under the breasts and tiny shorts) or the girls at "Singles 2" who basically wore some pretty small and tight stuff, but lounged around in their mock-apartment, doing everything they could to show butts, tits, and panty shots. Yoga stretches, dropping things to pick them up, rubbing lotion on each other, etc. They also would occassionally bring a guy in, tie him up to the bed and spank him with his own belt, or a broomstick. Best costume would either be the Mithra (from Final Fantasy XI- cute cat girls, or my girlfriend- Heather the Poker Girl (more about that later)
Ok on to games.
First and foremost has to be mentioned MY most anticipated title- Zelda 2. The line was insanely long Wednesday (didnt get in line right away) so instead we sprinted to the line as soon as the doors opened on Thursday. Even doing that the wait was still over an hour. BUT IT WAS WORTH IT! Aside from getting a Zeda t-shirt, there were 4 playable demos there. The horseback fight, running around the starting town, a dungeon and a dungeon-boss. The horseback riding was phenomenal. Not much more I can say about it, it just rocked. The dungeon was cool, but it had these monkeys that had enormous, pink asses that they kept spanking at you... disturbing... Also inside the "Zelda Forest" there was a floor panel that was light sensitive. It was lit from above, showing a koi pond and lots of little fish that moved around dynamically. If you waved your arm above them, they would swim away from your shadow, and you could even "catch" them by making a circle with your arms. Very neat technology- you also saw something similar in the concourse between South and West halls with a Star Wars mat.
Nintendo overall blew me away more than any other company. The sheer amount of AWESOME, exclusive titles they had for DS, GBA, and Gamecube was amazing. My only complaint would be that all the Revolution stuff was media only, so you all probably learned about it faster than I did. Odama looks freakishly cool- it's a combination of Pinball and Kessen. Hard to explain it more, but it's REALLY hard, and looks very good. Mario & Luigi 2 looks great! There's a new Mario game for the DS... it's a 2-player game that's cooperative, but competitive at the same time. You have to work together on some puzzles and bosses, but otherwise you are competing to finish the level first, or get the most coins, etc. Lots of great swag at the Nintendo spot too. Mario baseball and Mario Soccer look great! Nintendo's real baseball game looks horrible tho. No promise there at all. The Gamecube pokemon looks suitably generic, but they were giving out these really nice plush toys for playing the demo, so I sat through it a few times.
Other big Nintendo thing was the Gameboy Micro. Think Gameboy Advance pocket and you'll have it down, except the system is actually smaller than a Nintendo NES controller! It has a very sweet screen, and plays GBA games, but not GBC/GB.
Ok on to PS2, which took up about 1/3rd of the West Hall (Nintendo took up another 1/3rd of it, forgot to mention). Overall unimpressive. Huge ass line to see a video of PS3. I didn't bother, since I knew the video would be widely available anywhere online. The booth babes were utterly unimpressive. Mostly older, and mostly guys... Anyway, of the games they had on display, nothing really amazed me. Kingdom Hearts 2 I found quickly forgettable... not BAD, per se, but nothing really new. Slightly changed controls (odd actions are now mapped to the triangle button) but the camera is still very problematic, and the game's graphics look very dated. The most notable game I saw was Shadow of the Colossus, which was previously titled Wanda and the Colossus. A beautiful game, by the developers of Ico, SotC has you battling to take down enormous Colossi, which are probably about 30 times your height. It's really a living, breathing puzzle game- figuring out how to take down each individual Colossus is quite tricky. For one, you needed to climb up to the top of it's forehead and strike a few deadly blows, and there were multiple ways you could climb to get there. One option was waiting for it to swing its massive club, then jumping on the club and hoping not to get thrown off while he raises it back up, where you can jump on his shoulder. Ah I did forget one I loved... "We Love Katamari Damacy"! Yaaaaay! Always fun.
The rest of PS2's offerings were utterly forgettable... tons and tons of sequels of little interest... jak racing, ratchet bastardized, Dragon QUEST 8... dull.
Of the big three I spent the least time in Microsoft, and was NOT impressed by any single thing I saw there. Xbox 360 came across as an extremely minor improvement graphically, which is sad. Not many games for it in their area at all. Waited until the second day to go check it out, wandered around for about half an hour and left, never to return.
It's worth pointing out that information on the next generation of consoles was limited to media-only for the most part, so I'm sure most of you found out about them quicker than I did. What struck me most is that the gap between the power of PCs and the power of consoles is getting considerably narrower. The last generation, consoles operated in the 300-700Mhz processor speed range. In the next generation, we know that the Xbox 360 is running on 2 3.2 Ghz Pentium 4 processors, and the Playstation 3, with its cell processor technology, will be unmeasurable by current standards, and represent processor technology that will have advanced BEYOND the current capabilities of PCs.
ok on to smaller things. Well the biggest of the small things that I can think of was that I entered a Texas Hold'em Tournament on Friday. I played a 10-man tournament in the morning, and slaughtered the competition! What sucked about it was that the blinds doubled EVERY HAND, so it was really fast. I won the first two hands (5's and 6's in the first, pair of 7's with Aces high the second) and then pretty much just sat on my money while everyone else dropped out. My prize was a t-shirt So since I won that, I got to come back later in the day, and play...
PHIL LAAK!!!!! If you don't know who that is, he's a big celebrity in the poker world- world champion and stuff like that. Anyway, I got to play him head-to-head late in th afternoon, with higher "stakes" and the blind doubling every OTHER hand, so you could be a little more patient. And during the match, one of the booth babes was also sitting at the table as a distraction. Her name was Heather and she was quite pretty without being very *friendly* personty, unlike most booth babes, even if she was a little older (30-35 or so) We talked quite a bit after the tournament was finished hehe. Anyway, after a loooooooong match... I WON!! I beat the big guy! As a prize I got a shirt that said "I beat Phil Laak" aaaaaaaaand a really sweet cherry-wood poker set that he signed for me!
Other stuff... there's lots of it, I'll try to remember what was pertinent. Koei had Uncharted Waters Online showing and playing (a japanese version) looked alright, but shallow. Prize for the most wasted effort goes to "Webzen" a new Korean MMO company that threw huge blasts with tons of booth babes, tons of giveaways, a large booth, and big blasting presentations that occurred frequently. But still nobody knows what they are or cares about their games hehe.
Tons of fun swag! Some of the better ones... an inflatable Conan sword, a picture with two twins from Conquest by TQ Online (guess where they're from) where you get to hold a sword and they project a green-screen image behind you, a mario kart DS stylus, all the bags you could ever want, tons of magazines and product info, tons and tons of t-shirts, CDs, free beta tests, stress balls, lanyards, decks of cards, and more I can't even remember because I'm too tired.
I suppose I should mention SOME PC games, but to be honest, there were so few (aside from the millions of MMOs) that the ones there were had huge lines to check them out, so I really didn't bother. I know that's going to piss off plenty of the people at Sword and Pistol I heard Civ 4 looked good, and Age of Empires III had some nice shots. City of Heroes/Villians had a large presence, and a friend of mine won a beta test spot for City of Villains. Other PC games ran a lot of head-to-head competitions, frequently girl-only clans like "Frag Dolls", who were never beaten by anybody. Decent prizes for these competitions, too! The 6 members of a FFXI team who could take down the game's nastiest boss all got a free gaming rig, and lots of speaker sets and copies of games were given out as prizes.
Lots of big sound stages with huge jumbotrons, speakers, and dance routines. Tecmo, Namco, NCSoft, TQ, Webzen, True Crime were some of the big ones. Oh Konami had some cool MGS trailers running... a little hard to explain without being able to see it, but... long story short, Hideo IS directing the next one, despite him saying otherwise, and Raiden will NOT be the main character.
Uhhh... it's late... wondering if there's anything else worth reporting. Probably. It can wait til later though. Pictures will also be forthcoming!