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How was E3 (Gaming Convention) for you? |
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Point - Isaac I've been to the last couple of E3's and this year for sure was one of the most conservative. From first day impressions, you'd be a bit disappointed if you were a freebie hunter. Judging by the crowd count and giveaways, the first day had the impression that exhibitors were cleaning up as if it were the last day. Nevertheless for the video game and anime fans, there were several solid honorable mentions. I found myself fascinated by the presentation value put into Square/Enix and Xbox's "Halo 2" booths. Remember Disneyland's "Star Tours" and "Captain EO"? Well that's sort of what these to booths were like, minus the motion sickness. Bandai's booth had their same setup up. Which isn't a bad thing considering they were giving away ".hack//SIGN" t-shirts and demo discs. While the "Lupin" and "Inu-Yasha" games looked majorly impressive, the "Gundam" game was not. Of all the Gundams in the world, I had to get the one that could only do a low kick? Must've train under Chung Li. Overall the booth looked great and I can't wait to see what they have in store for the anime cons. Mixing "Evanescence" with a "Witch Hunter Robin" definitely leads much to the imagination. Thanks Bandai!  Fans of American Idol were delighted to see judges Randy Jackson and Paula Abdul for a chance to go to the American Idol finals. ( Sigh, no Simon though.Would've love to hear some critique on "Chance Pop Session".) Forget Ruuuuuuuuben and Cl-cl-cl-clay Aiken, America and Japan unite for your new Anime Idol! (Akadot Idol?)  Big ups, to Rockstar games for not holding back on the goods and Gamespot for the most creative giveaway. Surgical masks! Nintendo and Playstation both had great setups like last year and Tecmo stuck to last year's game plan... sex appeal!
But of course, there was also a tsunami of new stuff coming out this year. For anime fans who love video games on the go, very soon you will be able to enjoy clear anime on the GBA am3 Smartmedia. I was really impressed with this idea and can't wait for it to come out. Overall E3 2003 was worth the trip, I'm always interested in seeing the sights. Although I will always consider myself more of an anime fan than a gamer, the second "E" of the Electronic Entertainment Expo, will forever be etched in my brain. Till next year of course... |
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So now lets talk about my favorite part of E3. The infamous E3 girls! This year was a bit of a let down, for it seemed overall the new girls were "above-average" looking rather than "hotter than Hell-sing" looking. But don't worry, veterans model like 
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Counterpoint - Amy
I really didn't have anything definite I was looking forward to this E3, unlike last year where it was *ZOOM* straight to Konami's booth for GenSui III goodness. *_*;;; As like last year and the year before, Konami's block was monstrous and eye-candy happy, with the key giant screen running previews of their company's next big line-up. Sorry guys, no Suikogaiden 3 (although if Konami Japan took the hint from the April Fool's spoof, that would be awesome XD), but Metal Gear Solid 3 : Snake Eater looked spectacular. If you thought MGS 2 was awesome, the details and effects in the movie preview thing were frighteningly acute. Another interesting game from Konami, as well as MGS' game designer Hideo Kojima, slated for GBA release, is Boktai, which will interact with the player's timezone in a way that it will have a solar sensor on the game to influence game play. Talk about weird! And the characters are kyooot. Don't be turned off by that comment- I think lots of weird things are cute sometimes, like cooking utensils and appliances. <_<;
Moving away from Konami's block, Square-Enix lingered nearby, and although it was clear the simplicity of Square's past booths was present, it was still odd finding titles such as Enix's Star Ocean : Till the End of Time sitting amongst the FFX-2 and FFXI consoles.
Namco was spouting their wonderfully awesome Soul Calibur II, which for those of you that don't keep up-to-date with imports and video game magazine reviews, features an extra character specific to the console each game is distrubuted to. Legend of Zelda fans will be happy to find Link on the GameCube version, and them-thar Tekkan peeps will see Heihachi on the PS2. Lastly on the X-Box will be Spawn from Todd McFarlane's comic series, and he was present, actually, to promote a new Spawn game.
At Capcom's display, it was zombies coming out of the ears. And Megaman. There's not one, but several titles coming out for the Resident Evil series, one of them being an MMORPG. Chew or be chewed! Err... Out of South Hall and into another- I was on a mission to seek out Bandai as soon as being taunted by seeing someone pass by wearing a Helva shirt. I was hoping for the second choice to be Balmung, since last year's E3 the selections were (naturally) Kite and Black Rose. No such luck for the winged Blade user this year, instead it was the mysterious cat PC, Mia. This year's catch to getting a shirty, rather than play a bit of the .hack game and fill out a survey, you had to race a Grunty (Puchiguso). Never liked those things in the anime to begin with, and now they're making me race one~~! ;o; It was short and very unsweet, but mission objective complete! And whilest waiting about for Isaac and co. to get through the line for the race thing, I wandered around the corner to watch the Witch Hunter Robin preview music video done to Evanescence's Bring Me to Life. *_* I so can't wait to grab the series when it comes out on DVD, it's one of my favorites. ^_^ Right across from Bandai was Sammy, and of course, with it, Guilty Gear XX. Yeah, the game's been out a while now, but I haven't picked it up yet- BAD ME! BAD!! I will though, promise! The updated preview runs of the game included as like last year, cuts from the special anime dvd from GGX as well as screenshots of gameplay from GGXX. I'm hoping the new anime scenes that were mixed into there were from the game's intro... otherwise I'm on another dvd hunt. ~.~ Got tired of waiting about that area, no Guilty Gear goodies, so I wandered over to the giant Nintendo empire. It also resembled last year's layout, and the game consoles within the area were equipped with Soul Calibur II among other titles. One of the ONLY games I stopped to play (I'm not counting the racing thing >.<), and although I happily whupped some guy with Raphael, some other dude cheesed me with Link when I was using Kilik. Poor stick-boy. Second time around I used Raphael again, managed to get at least one KO. And then bombed by Link. Love that char but he can be a dirty fighter! XD I wandered through the Playstation area, which took up a good portion of the center of West Hall. Blinky, crowded, and LOUD. Then after going about the hall again, passing Sega very briefly, we headed out to find what was in Kentia Hall. It was the last main hall, I think, and definitely the quietest. Not to mention kinda empty. Mostly game accessories, computer programs, and miscellaneous odds and ends. That pretty much summed up the one day's trip, and I didn't get to go back this time like last year. Yet I have made a few resolutions. 1) Pick up Guilty Gear XX sometime soon; 2) Invest in a GameCube. There's some nifty games coming out for that! ^-^ Dahahahaha!!
The views and opinions expressed in The KareKano column are solely those of Amy and Isaac and do not necessarily represent the views of Digital Manga, AKADOT or its sponsors.
American Idol © Fox.
Halo 2 © Bungie Studios.
Boktai © Konami.
Final Fantasy © Square-Enix.
Images © to their respective owners.
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