Also this issue:

firstlook
When Philadelphians think "art gallery," Old City and its First Friday booze-and-browse fest come to mind.
-A.D. Amorosi

Icepack
-A.D. Amorosi

June 5-11, 2003

naked city

Fear and Loathing in Los Angeles

LORD OF THE SWING: Gandalf exterminates an

Orcan army in <i>Return of the King</i>, one of the

buzz-games at E3 this year.

LORD OF THE SWING: Gandalf exterminates an Orcan army in Return of the King, one of the buzz-games at E3 this year.

The video-game industry’s annual E3 is too much, and not enough.

by Chris Newborg

Hunter S. Thompson should have bypassed Las Vegas and headed straight for the Convention Center in Los Angeles, for no place on earth can surpass the E3 expo’s three days and nights of nonstop sensory overload. For the uninitiated, E3 is the annual Electronics Entertainment Expo; this year marked the ninth anniversary, and all the major players in the video-game industry were gathered to display their latest wares and compete in one-upsmanship.

Unfortunately for the everyday player whose hands have been warped to fit the PS2 controller, E3 is not open to the general public. Still, with only industry and media types allowed in, this year's attendance was said to be well over 60,000 people.

E3 is enormous. The LA Convention Center covers more than 550,000 square feet and every square inch was taken up with things glowing, whirring and exploding. Some of the larger "booths" were more akin to concert stages, complete with fog machines, lasers and stacks of Marshall amps. Celebrities (and not-quites) like Snoop Dogg, Perry Farrell and Anna Nicole Smith dotted the landscape, as each company tried to attract the attention of the teeming, theoretically well-connected masses.

Sony was the only one of the three console manufacturers (the others being Nintendo and Microsoft, makers of the Xbox) to announce new hardware. The announcement that Sony is planning to enter the handheld gaming market likely rattled an already nervous Nintendo. The "PSP" looks to challenge the Game Boy Advance's dominance of the handheld market. Due in 2004, the PSP is a so-called "Walkman for the 21st century," capable of playing MPEG 4 video and packing a screen size of 480 by 272.

Microsoft meanwhile was still touting the Xbox, this time focusing on its newly developed connectivity with personal computers. Now it can share photos and mp3s, a necessary feature for those who live what they are calling the "digital lifestyle." It's a bold idea, or at least it was when Apple started running with it a few years ago.

Of course all the latest sports-related titles were on display, boasting updated rosters and new stadiums. One of the most impressive inclusions in some of the football titles (most notably NFL GameDay 2004) this year is voice recognition. Instead of fumbling (pun intended) through endless screens of plays and then pressing the correct corresponding buttons, now you can speak into a headset microphone for instant results. Now audibles at the line of scrimmage are a possibility. This is what the world's top minds are hard at work on.

Taking a cue from Hollywood, the predominant theme of this year's expo was the sequel. Tried-and-true titles were reincarnated for what game publishers hope will be a hot holiday season. Halo 2, the follow-up to last year's blockbuster Xbox title, was a star attraction. Lines of up to an hour and a half snaked along outside the small theater, just so rabid fans could watch the 10-minute demo not due for release until 2004.

Equally eye-catching was Electronic Arts' Return of the King, the latest entry in the Lord of the Rings hit series. Instead of the typical linear game play, this version allows players to actually choose from a multitude of different paths on their adventures. The battle scenes are just as grandly epic as those in last year's The Two Towers, but the developers have ratcheted it up with more places to go, orcs to kill, dragons to slay. Carpal tunnel here I come.

Spy-game sequels also made waves. Both Spy Hunter 2 and James Bond 007: Everything or Nothing made impressive showings and jockeyed to make a few holiday wish lists.

After grueling days floor-walking, schmoozing and test-gaming, E3 visitors were treated to nights of music, drinking and more schmoozing. Almost every company throws some sort of party to show appreciation to their employees and the industry in general. Sony's party, definitely one of the highlights, lavished its guests with tons of booze and food, and featured live performances by The Foo Fighters and George Clinton.

As the clock struck 4 p.m. on the last day of the expo, there was an audible groan. You couldn't help but wonder what you'd missed. Oddly, three 8-hour days just weren't enough to see it all. So many pixels unseen.

The sign over the exit said, "Thank you for coming, see you next year." There's always a sequel.