So here I am. A couple k miles away from home ditching rain and crappy temps for the smoggy, enormous, and warm city that is currently fostering to one of the wet dreams of many core gamers: E For All. (sorry for the crappy video and pics, all camera phone, you’ll live I promise!)



As we all know, there has been a huge change since last year with E3 resulting in the birth of E4A and unfortunately, it cost the public’s game convention direct appearances by both Sony and Microsoft. Thankfully, we still had Nintendo and about 30 of their top choice girls with Wiimotes with short black skirts and lovely legs, dozens of developers, and some indie games that will rock your socks!

I’ll admit that after following E3 from afar for a few years, I was hoping for the same hype and non-stop action, but was somewhat let down. Though when you walk into that convention center you have your nerdgasm for a moment, you realize that only about half of the center is actually being used for the convention. WTF? The food court was nearly as big as the rest of the convention. And I’ve got to say, after being screwed out of a Double Dash tournament because the lame ass panda running the tournament forgets erases you when he was supposed to erase someone else, I have my fair share of gripes about the event thus far.

The disappointments are trivial at best, however, and the majority of the convention is actually pretty bad ass. The first highlight I wanted to mention was the gorgeous indie game Braid of which debuted in this year’s E3 and hasn’t been referred to lately as anything other than ”gorgeous indie game Braid”. Well, basically…it was awesome!

I had a chance to go hands on with Braid (sorry, my embedding skillz are phail), as did anyone who attended the convention, and to be very generic, I fell in love what I saw. The best description I have if you haven’t heard of this game, is that it is like an old school Mario platformer, crossed with the time reversing skillz of Prince of Persia: Sands of Time, crossed with the arguably artistic beauty and puzzles of Okami. It is indeed gorgeous, and it is damn challenging and fun! The simple and intuitive controls, perfectly matched sound, and the humor and parody it brings to the table make this a must have. Cereal, if you can get access to ANY 360 with Live, you NEEEEEED it! Braid will be available in early 2008.

As you may have expected, Rockband was at E4A in force! They were hitting the crowd hard driving some of the longest lines at the show. Until today, I had only heard rumors, seen videos, and read articles about this game. If you are in the same boat as I was up until today, rest assured this game is un-effing-believable!



The perfection of this game is where other similar styled games have fallen short. The impeccable song lineup. Nearly every song is a recognizeable and widely accepted awesome song. From Bon Jovi to Weezer, and that was just the demo!!! I'm not sure if they are covers or not, but if they are, they did a phenomenal job. The music sounds awesome! The peripherals are definately something to write home about as well. The drums and mic are a must but if you were ever on the fence about picking up the guitar peripheral for this game or just using the good ol' GH controller, you may stop thinking. Though ultimately similar in design, the more realistic strumming required and the ability to take your mega fast fingers up to a second set of frets on the neck. The best part about it, is that you may suck terribly at this game. You may not know WTF you are doing, or are just so into it that you don't pick up onto your disapointing pitch problems, but you'll never know it. No matter who you are, you will start and stop playing Rock Band with the mentality that you are King Shmidt of the rock world. How can you resist this game especially after a healthy price cut? When this game hits in late november, I'll be on without a doubt. Will you?


Luckily, E4A was large enough that I didn’t get a chance to demo everything and see everything in one day. For now, these are the events that thrilled me the most and tomorrow I’m hoping to get a grip on a Wii remote and throw down some Mario Galaxy. Afterward I plan to move to the next booth and try MGS4, and in the evening I'll have the opportunity to take in Video Games Live!! I’ll keep you posted!