So Natsume was the only booth with the balls to have stuffed animals at E3, and for that I applaud them.  Anyway, day 2 at E3 was a bit more laid back since I felt I accomplished a lot on the first day.  After taking a look around Little Tokyo only to discover nothing was open yet, I hopped on the shuttle back to the convention center, feet still raw from exploring the day before.  As the shuttle rounded the corner onto Figueroa street, I noticed some kind of commotion.

Once we got a little closer I could see that some protesters had gathered outside in front of the South Hall.  After reading their signs, I could tell pretty quickly that they were protesting EA’s upcoming action title Dante’s Inferno.  Once the shuttle dropped us off, I made a b-line for the protesters:

Their various signs, which I couldn’t help but laugh at, said the following:

• Hell is not a game!
• My high score is in heaven
• Play Dante’s Inferno – go to Hell
• Just say Infer-No!
• EA = Electronic Anti-Christ
• Trade in your Playstation for a PRAYstation

This was a great way to start my day and even though it should have made me angry, I just found it funny.

After going inside, I kind of gravitated towards Square Enix’s booth again.  I am not really sure why, it just had that effect on me.  While I was there, I noticed the display featuring some figures already in the works for Final Fantasy XIII.  Not sure how I missed this the first day:

There was every known main character as well as the summon Shiva appearing as Snow’s bike. If you are a fan of jewelry, it may also interest you do learn that Lightning’s necklace as well as a necklace featuring the glyph-tattoo on Snow’s arm will also be available.  The price for everything was TBD but the quality appeared pretty high.  I was really amazed with the detailed beading on both Shiva and Vanille’s skirt.  Also, I dig how the holsters for Sazh’s guns are functional, similar to those on the new Zidane figure.

After this, I made plans to meet with friends and some people in the biz who had previously only existed as e-mails/tweets to me so I basically took the rest of day two to meet up with them.  Hopefully some of my efforts will lead to employment somewhere down the road, but if not I had a great time just meeting everyone and getting to know Los Angeles.

Day Three

I really love this photo because there is a big fucking red thing walking around and every person in the photo is looking in a different direction.  It’s the simple pleasures in life, right?

Since this was the last day of E3, I tried to milk it for all it was worth and I could tell the various booths were throwing out their last efforts to attract people.  At this point, many games were marked as “Best of E3 Nominee” by popular magazines and what-not.  This helped decide what games to check out; popular opinion has been known to be right from time to time.  One game that initially caught my eye but I didn’t end up playing until day 3 was Silent Hill: Shattered Memories.

I played the demo for a while, which was pretty enjoyable.  In terms of exploring, I was reminded of the flashlight controls of Fragile: Farewell Ruins of the Moon, only this game featured a lot more running and no combat.

If you look carefully at the image, you’ll notice a disclaimer which reads: Psychology Warning.  Basically, the fine print says that the game learns how the player plays and actively reacts to it which is awesome.

I started by filling out a psychological exam which had a series of questions – including a few about my sex life.  I didn’t really feel awesome answering them in front of a gaping crowd but maybe they just assumed my lameness was actually a made up person testing the game’s programming… yeah.

As I was playing, a Konami rep asked if I wanted to take part in a round-table discussion on the game with some of the developers.  Oh yea, there was free food, too, so off I went.  A variety of decent questions were asked about the game’s different appearance and deviation from the series.  Basically all this was chocked up to “it’s Silent Hill.”

I asked about how the game reacts to the player and about the psychological exams.  I guess there are times when the player will arrive at a fork in a road or be forced to make a decision that affects certain unknown factors which in turn affect the story and events which follow.   The initial psychological exam was equated to rolling for stats in an RPG.  They got my attention there!

While I was at the Konami booth, I noticed that the trailers for the two new Metal Gear Solid titles were added to the huge screen they had.  The one for Metal Gear Solid Peace Walker is much more revealing than the one for Metal Gear Solid Rising, however it did confirm that Rising will not be exclusive to the Xbox 360.  Have fun trying to understand the story with one title, Microsoft fans.

Anyway, it looks like Peace Walker will have some multiplayer functions which will be loads of fun!  Leave it to Kojima to figure out a way where everyone can be Big Boss:

As expected, the story looks pretty awesome for Peace Walker.  The future is fun and all but I appreciate the fact that Kojima is taking us back into the past where things feel a little more concrete.  I really like the game’s setting of Costa Rica in 1974.  It almost seems like a play on the Bay of Pigs Invasion of the 60’s, only reversed… or better yet Kojima-ed.

This day ended with trying to load up on as much free stuff as possible.  Now that I am sitting on this mountain of swag, I am not really sure what to do with it all, but I guess I will start spreading it around.  A random person to comment on this post (that has their e-mail address included) will receive a free beta code for the Uncharted 2 multiplayer demo!  I will think of some other contests down the road as well.

E3 was a lot of fun and I am glad that because of Kotowari I was able to go.  I met a lot of great people and saw a lot of awesome new games.  Also, it was a nice vacation from my crap job.  I hope you guys enjoyed my coverage on the event, although I apologize it was a bit late.  I plan on having a few posts down the line that may go in-depth on some of the titles I didn’t mention in these posts (The Last Guardian FTW), so look forward to that!

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