By now our little adventuring party was itching for a little lunch, but Tyler was like a little kid in a candy shop in the Sigma area (being the Relic fanboy that he is) so it took us a while to make it to an E3 food area where I found out the hard way about just how much food costs within E3. A typical E3 burger meal costed about ten dollars US, compared with a few dollars for something from McDonalds. If I were to convert this into Canadian money it would have been around fifteen dollars. Ouch. Being the junk food connoisseur that I am, this would equate to about on average 3 McDonalds Extra Value meals (with a smaller side of fries than in the US too!), but I digress. Balking at the exuberant prices I opted for a bag of chips and some pop, which ended up costing me around five dollars US. Not really a good deal either in my opinion, but I wasnt really that hungry since I was still rather excited at being at E3 (although those curly fries that they were selling appeared to be quite appetizing).
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Next we wandered around South Hall some more, taking in some more of the sights. The brightly lit MadCatz exhibit had a Gladiator theme to it, as it was built to look like it was part of the Colliseum in Rome and featured several people in legionnaire outfits. Several consoles designed to resemble chariots let people see how well MadCatz controllers worked with Quake III. Across from MadCatz was the Mythic Entertainment booth where EverQuest, I decided to check it out. On the surface, Dark Age of Camelot didnt look like much of a surprise. I have to honestly say that at first glance, one can almost mistake Dark Age of Camelot to be a higher resolution EQ but before I get flamed to death I will add that I didnt get too much of a chance to take a closer look than I may have wanted to since there were people crowded around the consoles.
After an indeterminate amount of time (time has an odd way of either standing still or flying in places like E3) we literally stumbled upon Chris Stewart (aka Castewar from Barking Dog Studios, another Vancouver based developer) who was taking a rest from walking around too much. Seizing the opportunity to sit down and rest our sore feet and backs, we stopped and chatted a bit. Actually, I dont remember much of what we talked about since I was, quite frankly, very tired. I do remember however, sharing some E3 stories and some of us being all excited that Pioneer was handing out Akira posters downstairs in Kentia. Moving along, we swung by Squares area where they too, set up a theatre. Supposedly they were showing some footage from their upcoming Final Fantasy movie but again, the long lineup turned us off. I guess I should have known that lineups are common, and to be expected at events as large as E3.
Eventually we found ourselves back at the Microsoft area and while the others hung around some more with the Sigma crew, I wandered over to the MechCommander 2 console where I watched a member of the MC2 development team wreak havoc with a lance of 3 Atlases. On the whole it looked to be explosively fun and with the addition of actual 3D to the game, it has never looked better. I noticed some new features like having the ability to salvage mechs in the field as well as being able to call down a repair truck at any point in the battle (provided you have enough resources to pull it off, of course). This time around you will be able to command up to 16 battlemechs, and each pilot in the game has specialist abilities that can be of great assistance on the battlefield. There seemed to be a tiny bit of graphical slowdown in certain situations, and the shadows had a tendency to bounce around unnaturally (as if someone was waving a strobe light back and forth in front of the mechs) but these minor issues will hopefully be resolved in their final build.
Before we knew it however, the E3 security guards were busy shooing people out of the convention centre and we all had to reluctantly leave as the exhibits were shut down one by one. My description of E3 2001s first day would not be complete however, without a mention of JoWood Productions. Needless to say, my friends and I were quite pleasantly surprised at finding out about these folks, having never seen or heard of them before. They appear to have quite an interesting lineup for the PC, and especially noteworthy is an upcoming title called Natural Resistance: Day of Fate. It looks to be some sort of RTS that simulates modern or near-future warfare in what appeared to be an Eastern European locale. The staff at JoWood kindly demonstrated to us the raw power of NR:DoFs scenario editor where it appeared very easy to make your own combat situations. Admittedly, the game doesnt look very complete as we only saw some examples of small scale combat, but what we have seen looks pretty promising so far and will be definitely something to keep an eye on. Anyway, that basically sums up Day 1 of our E3 2001 experience. Stay tuned for part two.
E3 2001 Report Day 3
E3 2001 Report Day 2
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