iDactyl
06-12-2011, 01:06 AM
Hey guys,
Recently over the past week I got the chance to go to E3. Some of you might remember the thread I made a while ago asking whether or not I should go to E3 or PVJ. Regardless, I think I made the right decision going to E3 :P
Enjoy the blog I wrote! V-log will be up soon. If you want to know when it comes, or if you want to be a fantastical person, you should probably follow me on tweeeeeeter.
http://twitter.com/iDactyl
Q&A
Q: How was teh MW3 demoz dood?
A: They had a playable demo available in the back of their exhibit, but you needed an appointment for that. Unfortunately, we did not get to play it. (However, I managed to sneak into one and see a bit of the game)
Q: Battlefield 3! Was it sick?
A: YES! We got the chance to speak with the lead developer of BF3 multiplayer and play a 20 minute alpha beta hands-on 16vs16 demo of the game. We played Rush on a huge map named Paris. The map was very big and very well made. As you proceeded through the different stages of the map, you traversed through a variety of landscapes. For example, we started off in a foresty-park-ish atmosphere before leading into a downtown city scape and then a underground subway/metro/train station that lead to an array of exploding buildings. One of the best things about the map, in my opinion, was that nearly everything was destructible - even the buildings. However, the demo we played was actually a early early early pre-pre-pre beta, so there were a lot of bugs and glithces (my game crashed twice). But that's understandable, seeing as Lars (the directer of multiplayer) said they still have 2-3 months of production left before they are done with the game.
Q: Are there any big names that DIDN'T attend E3?
A: Actually, yes. Bungie, 343, Rockstar North, and Valve didn't attend. That means no Halo, Grand Theft Auto, or DoTa. :(
Q: How did you get into E3?
A: Me and my buddies were filming a video for SteelSeries and they got us in.
Day 1 - The Beginning
I left Orlando at around 8:00 AM on Monday morning, and arrived at LAX about seven hours and two flights later. Shortly after I landed and met up with Victor "Markurs" Laranja and Max "Sor3" Sims (Viral Design members) we caught up with my cousin Michelle (who works as an actor in L.A.) and she drove us around a little bit. We saw some pretty cool landmarks, such as the famous Hollywood sign and the legendary Staples Center - which happened to be right next to the Los Angeles Convention Center, where E3 was being held. We took a quick tour of a multi-million dollar mansion my cousin was house-sitting, and then headed to our shitty hole-in-the-wall motel hotel. I'll digress; we only actually found out that we were going to attend E3 about three weeks before it started, and if you know absolutely anything about E3, you'll know that it takes up absolutely every single hotel room in the city. Think I'm exaggerating? Comfort Inn was the ONLY hotel that had a single room available within 10 miles of the venue. This was about it for Day 1 though, we were all incredibly tired and jetlagged so we headed to bed fairly early.
Day 2 - The madness begins.
Day two started off pretty simple. We headed downstairs and feasted on the complimentary breakfast that our hotel offered and ended up meeting some nice journalists from Dubai that were attending E3 on a press pass. We split a cab with them and parted ways once we got to the venue. Jaws dropped, eyes wide; it was an instance of complete and utter excitement. As soon as you stepped onto the pavement outside the front door you were greeted with an ice-cold NOS energy drink, courtesy of "super-fucking-perfect NOS girls" as Markurs would often call them. The NOS booth outside was very similar to the one you would see at an MLG event, except they had a live DJ, and two very nice NOS cars right outside the NOS booth.
http://i56.tinypic.com/263av0l.jpg
http://i53.tinypic.com/2cwl5yb.jpg
There were various booths/exhibits at the entrance, but NOS was really the only one of importance. The others mostly consisted of one or two guys handing out flyers/"VIP Passes" to strip clubs. Anywho, we eventually made our way inside and navigated to the Attendee Check-in booth. We were notified that we actually had exhibitor passes (WAY better than general admission passes - you can enter the venue when it's closed & go places that normal visitors cannot) so we had to go downstairs to the exhibitor check-in area. A few grammatical errors were made on Max/Sor3's pass, but were resolved and we were on our way into E3 soon after! By the time we headed upstairs to enter the show floor, it was about 10:00 AM (The floor didn't open until 12:00 PM, and most of the exhibits were still setting up). We walked around the South Hall for a couple minutes and took some pictures. A few minutes before the show floor opened we set up our cameras at the entrace, so we could see the thousands and thousands of people pooring into the venue. I'll post a picture below so you can see.
http://i53.tinypic.com/f266pv.jpg
Once everyone got into the show floor we realized things were crowded as hell, and that we couldn't leisurely walk around like we did earlier. As we walked past the Activision booth we caught a glimpse of about 900 people crowding into the area to watch the new MW3 trailer. Luckily, we got to watch the trailer when they were testing out the lights before it opened. Truly a sick exhibit - but no demo :( (This is Victor in the picture, not me :P)
http://i54.tinypic.com/11vicxv.jpg
We spent the rest of the day just roaming around the venue and trying out every game we could get our hands on. We didn't really like Ghost Recon: Future Soldier, but we all absolutely LOVED the new Driver game. It is absolutely sick and we'll all be picking it up in August when it comes out.
Day 3 - The madness continues
We grabbed some breakfast like usual and headed down to the convention center around 9:00 AM. We headed inside the venue as quick as possible so we could get in line for some of the major attractions before anyone else could. Victor and I went to the Wii U exhibit while Max went to Battlefield 3. We managed to get some decent footage of the new Wii console, so we ran as fast as we could to the Battlefield 3 exhibit (on the other side of the convention) in order to film Max playing the game before the whole event actually opened up and we got swamped by people. Unfortunately, we completely lost Max. However, we still managed to get in line at a reasonable spot that was worth waiting for. About 45 minutes later, we entered the demo. We were escorted into a small room with a 50" HD TV inside and two men wearing official EA Badges. One of the men was named Lars; the Director of Multiplayer for Battlefield 3. He gave us a ten minute briefing while the other guy took down our names and made us custom BF3 dogtags with our name on it (SICK!). After about 10 minutes, we were taken into the next room where there were 32 PC's and monitors set up, along with astros and mixamps all daisychained together. We played for a good 20 minutes before leaving, and it was absolutely SICK. All three of us loved the demo and would buy this game in a heartbeat. Everything just seemed to flow so damn well.
After our amazing BF3 experience, I roamed around a bit while Markurs and Sor3 got some grub. While I was walking past the Xbox exhibit, I saw a VERY familiar face. If any of you watch the show 'Chuck', you'd recognize him too. Standing before me, six foot 3 inches tall, was Zachary Levi - the star of the show Chuck. I walked up to him and snatched a handshake and a picture while talking to him for a good ten minutes. He was a really cool guy and happened to be into video games a lot more than I expected - in fact, he actually played a small voice-over role in Halo: Reach.
http://i56.tinypic.com/nl4r4i.jpg
After that wicked sighting, we stopped by the Sony Ericcson booth and talked to some familiar faces for awhile; Tsquared, Fearitself, Dmaq, and others. Dmaq talked to Victor and Max about doing some videos while I wandered around and tried to talk to Fwiz at the Machinima booth. Too bad the loser wasn't there :( We all rejoined and met up with one of our good friends and fellow editors, Vidol. The rest of the day is pretty straightforward - roaming around the venue and playing as many games as we could. At the end of the day, Vidol took us out to this apparently famous restaurant called Roscoes - a restaurant that served Waffles and Chicken as its specialty. To my surprise, it was actually very good. We filmed some random footage for ViralConnect and then headed to bed. Busy day up ahead! Final day of E3.
Day 4 - Professionalism
This was the last and final day of E3, and we were nowhere near ready to end this trip and go home. We got up around 7:00 A.M. and headed to the venue early. Markurs and Sor3 wanted to go interview some people before the event opened so they went inside while I got some starbucks. Ever seen a 55 person starbucks line? No? Well I have, and it's painfully annoying.
http://i55.tinypic.com/j6u1vq.jpg
While Vic and Max we're doing their thing, I decided to get in line and play with the new Wii U. It was a short line since it was fairly early, but still about a 45 minute wait. I got to play some Zelda game and Gamespot filmed me playing it for about 10 minutes. Cool stuff!
After that, I roamed around and ended up meeting Steven Spielberg! The guy is a legend and soooo nice. I saw a few more familiar faces throughout the day, such as Toby Turner, Philip Defranco, Fwiz, Hutch, etc....
My feet were super tired at that point (walking non-stop for 3 days straight takes its toll) so I ended up meeting up with JTBravo (the coach of Triggers Down) at the Sound Blaster booth, which I believe was his sponsor. We messed around and played some 1v1 matches in Halo: Reach and I ended up winning 2 of the 3 games we played. The owner of Sound Blaster was so impressed that he ended up giving me a free Sound Blaster headset! Totally sick.
After that, we played Driver for about two hours and then headed back to our hotel. We were incredibly tired and Markurs & Sor3 had a flight to catch in the early A.M. so they decided to call it an early night.
Before I end this blog, I feel inclined to say that Victor/Markurs is INCREDIBLE with women. He would walk up to a booth babe, talk to her for 5 minutes, and have her number. How? It's anyones guess. I'd just like you all to know that this man is a legend.
http://i54.tinypic.com/359j0c0.jpg
Hope you enjoyed this read, I'll post all my pictures/videos below
Also, if you haven't already, I'd really appreciate it if you followed me on twitter!
http://twitter.com/iDactyl
Recently over the past week I got the chance to go to E3. Some of you might remember the thread I made a while ago asking whether or not I should go to E3 or PVJ. Regardless, I think I made the right decision going to E3 :P
Enjoy the blog I wrote! V-log will be up soon. If you want to know when it comes, or if you want to be a fantastical person, you should probably follow me on tweeeeeeter.
http://twitter.com/iDactyl
Q&A
Q: How was teh MW3 demoz dood?
A: They had a playable demo available in the back of their exhibit, but you needed an appointment for that. Unfortunately, we did not get to play it. (However, I managed to sneak into one and see a bit of the game)
Q: Battlefield 3! Was it sick?
A: YES! We got the chance to speak with the lead developer of BF3 multiplayer and play a 20 minute alpha beta hands-on 16vs16 demo of the game. We played Rush on a huge map named Paris. The map was very big and very well made. As you proceeded through the different stages of the map, you traversed through a variety of landscapes. For example, we started off in a foresty-park-ish atmosphere before leading into a downtown city scape and then a underground subway/metro/train station that lead to an array of exploding buildings. One of the best things about the map, in my opinion, was that nearly everything was destructible - even the buildings. However, the demo we played was actually a early early early pre-pre-pre beta, so there were a lot of bugs and glithces (my game crashed twice). But that's understandable, seeing as Lars (the directer of multiplayer) said they still have 2-3 months of production left before they are done with the game.
Q: Are there any big names that DIDN'T attend E3?
A: Actually, yes. Bungie, 343, Rockstar North, and Valve didn't attend. That means no Halo, Grand Theft Auto, or DoTa. :(
Q: How did you get into E3?
A: Me and my buddies were filming a video for SteelSeries and they got us in.
Day 1 - The Beginning
I left Orlando at around 8:00 AM on Monday morning, and arrived at LAX about seven hours and two flights later. Shortly after I landed and met up with Victor "Markurs" Laranja and Max "Sor3" Sims (Viral Design members) we caught up with my cousin Michelle (who works as an actor in L.A.) and she drove us around a little bit. We saw some pretty cool landmarks, such as the famous Hollywood sign and the legendary Staples Center - which happened to be right next to the Los Angeles Convention Center, where E3 was being held. We took a quick tour of a multi-million dollar mansion my cousin was house-sitting, and then headed to our shitty hole-in-the-wall motel hotel. I'll digress; we only actually found out that we were going to attend E3 about three weeks before it started, and if you know absolutely anything about E3, you'll know that it takes up absolutely every single hotel room in the city. Think I'm exaggerating? Comfort Inn was the ONLY hotel that had a single room available within 10 miles of the venue. This was about it for Day 1 though, we were all incredibly tired and jetlagged so we headed to bed fairly early.
Day 2 - The madness begins.
Day two started off pretty simple. We headed downstairs and feasted on the complimentary breakfast that our hotel offered and ended up meeting some nice journalists from Dubai that were attending E3 on a press pass. We split a cab with them and parted ways once we got to the venue. Jaws dropped, eyes wide; it was an instance of complete and utter excitement. As soon as you stepped onto the pavement outside the front door you were greeted with an ice-cold NOS energy drink, courtesy of "super-fucking-perfect NOS girls" as Markurs would often call them. The NOS booth outside was very similar to the one you would see at an MLG event, except they had a live DJ, and two very nice NOS cars right outside the NOS booth.
http://i56.tinypic.com/263av0l.jpg
http://i53.tinypic.com/2cwl5yb.jpg
There were various booths/exhibits at the entrance, but NOS was really the only one of importance. The others mostly consisted of one or two guys handing out flyers/"VIP Passes" to strip clubs. Anywho, we eventually made our way inside and navigated to the Attendee Check-in booth. We were notified that we actually had exhibitor passes (WAY better than general admission passes - you can enter the venue when it's closed & go places that normal visitors cannot) so we had to go downstairs to the exhibitor check-in area. A few grammatical errors were made on Max/Sor3's pass, but were resolved and we were on our way into E3 soon after! By the time we headed upstairs to enter the show floor, it was about 10:00 AM (The floor didn't open until 12:00 PM, and most of the exhibits were still setting up). We walked around the South Hall for a couple minutes and took some pictures. A few minutes before the show floor opened we set up our cameras at the entrace, so we could see the thousands and thousands of people pooring into the venue. I'll post a picture below so you can see.
http://i53.tinypic.com/f266pv.jpg
Once everyone got into the show floor we realized things were crowded as hell, and that we couldn't leisurely walk around like we did earlier. As we walked past the Activision booth we caught a glimpse of about 900 people crowding into the area to watch the new MW3 trailer. Luckily, we got to watch the trailer when they were testing out the lights before it opened. Truly a sick exhibit - but no demo :( (This is Victor in the picture, not me :P)
http://i54.tinypic.com/11vicxv.jpg
We spent the rest of the day just roaming around the venue and trying out every game we could get our hands on. We didn't really like Ghost Recon: Future Soldier, but we all absolutely LOVED the new Driver game. It is absolutely sick and we'll all be picking it up in August when it comes out.
Day 3 - The madness continues
We grabbed some breakfast like usual and headed down to the convention center around 9:00 AM. We headed inside the venue as quick as possible so we could get in line for some of the major attractions before anyone else could. Victor and I went to the Wii U exhibit while Max went to Battlefield 3. We managed to get some decent footage of the new Wii console, so we ran as fast as we could to the Battlefield 3 exhibit (on the other side of the convention) in order to film Max playing the game before the whole event actually opened up and we got swamped by people. Unfortunately, we completely lost Max. However, we still managed to get in line at a reasonable spot that was worth waiting for. About 45 minutes later, we entered the demo. We were escorted into a small room with a 50" HD TV inside and two men wearing official EA Badges. One of the men was named Lars; the Director of Multiplayer for Battlefield 3. He gave us a ten minute briefing while the other guy took down our names and made us custom BF3 dogtags with our name on it (SICK!). After about 10 minutes, we were taken into the next room where there were 32 PC's and monitors set up, along with astros and mixamps all daisychained together. We played for a good 20 minutes before leaving, and it was absolutely SICK. All three of us loved the demo and would buy this game in a heartbeat. Everything just seemed to flow so damn well.
After our amazing BF3 experience, I roamed around a bit while Markurs and Sor3 got some grub. While I was walking past the Xbox exhibit, I saw a VERY familiar face. If any of you watch the show 'Chuck', you'd recognize him too. Standing before me, six foot 3 inches tall, was Zachary Levi - the star of the show Chuck. I walked up to him and snatched a handshake and a picture while talking to him for a good ten minutes. He was a really cool guy and happened to be into video games a lot more than I expected - in fact, he actually played a small voice-over role in Halo: Reach.
http://i56.tinypic.com/nl4r4i.jpg
After that wicked sighting, we stopped by the Sony Ericcson booth and talked to some familiar faces for awhile; Tsquared, Fearitself, Dmaq, and others. Dmaq talked to Victor and Max about doing some videos while I wandered around and tried to talk to Fwiz at the Machinima booth. Too bad the loser wasn't there :( We all rejoined and met up with one of our good friends and fellow editors, Vidol. The rest of the day is pretty straightforward - roaming around the venue and playing as many games as we could. At the end of the day, Vidol took us out to this apparently famous restaurant called Roscoes - a restaurant that served Waffles and Chicken as its specialty. To my surprise, it was actually very good. We filmed some random footage for ViralConnect and then headed to bed. Busy day up ahead! Final day of E3.
Day 4 - Professionalism
This was the last and final day of E3, and we were nowhere near ready to end this trip and go home. We got up around 7:00 A.M. and headed to the venue early. Markurs and Sor3 wanted to go interview some people before the event opened so they went inside while I got some starbucks. Ever seen a 55 person starbucks line? No? Well I have, and it's painfully annoying.
http://i55.tinypic.com/j6u1vq.jpg
While Vic and Max we're doing their thing, I decided to get in line and play with the new Wii U. It was a short line since it was fairly early, but still about a 45 minute wait. I got to play some Zelda game and Gamespot filmed me playing it for about 10 minutes. Cool stuff!
After that, I roamed around and ended up meeting Steven Spielberg! The guy is a legend and soooo nice. I saw a few more familiar faces throughout the day, such as Toby Turner, Philip Defranco, Fwiz, Hutch, etc....
My feet were super tired at that point (walking non-stop for 3 days straight takes its toll) so I ended up meeting up with JTBravo (the coach of Triggers Down) at the Sound Blaster booth, which I believe was his sponsor. We messed around and played some 1v1 matches in Halo: Reach and I ended up winning 2 of the 3 games we played. The owner of Sound Blaster was so impressed that he ended up giving me a free Sound Blaster headset! Totally sick.
After that, we played Driver for about two hours and then headed back to our hotel. We were incredibly tired and Markurs & Sor3 had a flight to catch in the early A.M. so they decided to call it an early night.
Before I end this blog, I feel inclined to say that Victor/Markurs is INCREDIBLE with women. He would walk up to a booth babe, talk to her for 5 minutes, and have her number. How? It's anyones guess. I'd just like you all to know that this man is a legend.
http://i54.tinypic.com/359j0c0.jpg
Hope you enjoyed this read, I'll post all my pictures/videos below
Also, if you haven't already, I'd really appreciate it if you followed me on twitter!
http://twitter.com/iDactyl