remembering e3

Aldo speaks of E3. At least, what he remembers of it.

Well, between the Final Fantasy "Dear Friends" concert on Monday, my one day trip to E3 on Wednesday, and a six day work week schedule that had been going on for a last month and a half, I was very tired, and lacking concentration.

Playing video games for a living can be quite fun, and is very easy work. We joke around that trained monkeys could do our job. But it is still exhausting when you are working 10 hour days, looking for things that happen that shouldn't happen in a game, for six days a week, and only having one day off to recharge.

When that one day off happens to fall on the one day you can go to E3, it's amazing I can even remember what happened that day.

E3 was a bit more of the same. One comment overheard was "all the same things as last year except with a two in front of it". It was, as always, a vast bacchanal of audio and visual stimulation. The displays were loud, the video screens, bright, and the booth babes, as well endowed as ever. Not too much swag was collected this year, mainly because I only had part of one day to get the lay of the land, as I had prior engagements that same day, and that fact that just about anything that was worth seeing was behind a velvet rope, and needed tickets you had to have received within the first half hour of the show to watch. That kept the hands-on review of too many of the new games low (one day we will have press passes, oh yes, we will...).

The PSP, though lacking any playable versions at the show, did make a strong impression. Being able to see it without having to wait in a two hour plus line was a big plus. The DS, though academically a beautiful creation, seems like more of a knee-jerk response to Sony's foray into the handheld market than an actual product made and put out for the good of the consumer. It feels almost as if Nintendo saw Sony was going to put out something that could potentially threaten their position as the hand-held champion, and threw something together that wasn't really needed at this point.

As it stands, the rumors place the PSP at over two-hundred and fifty dollars (American). With Nintendo having their GBA SP at ninety-nine dollars, and their games at about thirty dollars each, they have very little to worry about. And now that they've announced the release of some of their cartidges that include cartoons, they are still set to counter the PSP. All they need now is to make an official blank cartidge, with enough space, and a way to rip whatever you want onto it, and they will be set for the time being.

That said, don't think Nintendo's out of the woods. The PSPs Sony had on display showed a vivid LCD display that could run full-length feature films, as well as play games that run as well as on the PS2. The biggest drawbacks for the PSP as it stands are the lack of a second analog stick, the two extra shoulder buttons, and protection for the LCD display. At first glance, it looks fragile. One hopes Sony will put a little more money into making it a bit sturdier, and having some way of protecting that vivid display. The price range being pitched around will scare off parents wanting to get a present for little Timmy and those of us barely making minimum wage (unless we're willing to starve for about a month). The size also doesn't lend itself to comfort. With no fold, it is a bit longer than a dollar bill, but stays about as thick as a GBA.

That's about all I remember about E3. Don't bother asking about any of the games, as many other internet outlets have said, one game just melded into the other, until you forgot any nuances in any of them.

—aldo