Recovering from LA and E for All: Parting impressions

10:29 PM on 10.23.2007   |   Dutch

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[Meeting Dutch along with VirtualGirl, Kayana and the girl who shut me down at E For All was a pleasure. Plenty of hands-on coverage and videos are on the way from us, but until then, check out Dutch's great recap of the entire event including the epic GayGamer party -- CTZ]  

E for All is over and for those of us not recovering from it, here is the story! For the first open to the public E3 runoff convention, I have to give E For All some credit; it wasn’t as bad as it could have been -- and I mean that in the best possible way. Every gaming event has a first and the first is usually the roughest one. What does that mean? It means that the only way to go is up from here. Let’s start with the bad news first and work our way up to the good. 

Size DOES matter. It isn’t just something that people with large sausages say, it’s the truth. The main thing E For All was lacking was substance. Most of those I spoke with, including some Dtoid staff, felt that there simply weren’t enough of the following: games to play, breakthrough announcements, booth babes, or swag, among many other things. For the few highly anticipated game demos that were available, the lines were still pretty long making it nearly impossible to see and do everything interesting at the convention in one day, though without playing anything you’d be finished in a few hours.

Many of the most powerful names in the industry were mysteriously absent or at least well hidden from the event. Missing names included Shigeru Miyamoto, Reggie Fils-Ames, Hideo Kojima, and Peter Moore, among others. It would be silly to think that they were capable of attending every event, but it would have been nice to see those names attending the first-ever event in support. Maybe we should have expected that since Sony and Microsoft backed completely out of the convention. The lack of big names made me feel as if they were writing it off to a failure. Hopefully this is not the case.

It didn’t feel like very many people attended the event, though reports have said that nearly 18,000 gamers walked through the front doors to the convention. Even though the head honchos of E For All seem satisfied with the turnout in their statements, it was definitely not nearly as packed and crazy as it could or should have been.

Again, in a convention that has just been born, this may be not all be terrible! It wasn’t a complete flop and if you had a chance to experience everything it was actually still a pretty great time! Let’s take a look at the highlights of e for all 2007.Rockband! The average person who attended E For All revisited the Rockband demo about 3.5 times throughout the four days. Of course I am just pulling that number out of my ass, but I know that I went on the main stage once, and hit up the headphones with my peeps three or four times before I felt satisfied with my level of rock-ness. I can remember bringing home Guitar Hero for my first time when it was released, looking over at Taiko, and then over at Karaoke Revolution and thinking “Man that would be sweet if they could make a game that would use everything” and now here it is, and done with such expertise. This game is going to be a killer this holiday!

Metal Gear Solid 4! With the longest lines at the convention and the longest wait in between groups (20 minutes per group) I was expecting gold to begin with. And not to be disappointed, the newest installment to the Metal Gear series looks GORGEOUS. Though personally I was not a fan of the control changes, active camo, or a few of the other changes that they made to the gameplay, the core of the game is still intact and on fire! Look forward to this Konami treasure when it hits shelves in 2008.Brawl! It is back and better than ever. Never before has this game been so easy to pick up and play. Though it doesn’t have motion controls from what I could tell, it is one of the easiest games to pick up, play, and beat the hell out of each other, even if you don’t know what you are doing. I only wish they somehow incorporated a drinking game into this. Nintendo, what were you thinking!?Guitar Hero 3. Well, other than kicking Fatal1ty’s ass in battle mode causing him to retreat back to his lonely Quake 4 setup (the highlight of my trip!) GH3 is rising to meet and exceed my expectations of the game. I had been expecting crap, quite honestly, and what they have given us is a wonderful, fresh improvement on the game with a much better song line-up and new and fantastic gameplay changes such as the aforementioned Battle Mode. With the price hike on this game I am still reluctant to purchase it right away, but if you can rip off some little unexpecting kid, that would be completely worth your time. Steal it from a kid on release day (pics or it didn’t happen)! VGL!! Though Video Games Live was not an actual part of E For All, it’s 2008 debut was nothing short of impressive. The music is exceptionally well written and performed in all of it’s videogame goodness with visuals and nostalgia that will make you cream your pants (or skirts for you fembots) after the second song. The concert also featured tons of great industry professionals such as Nolan Bushnell, Koji Igarashi, Akira Yamaoka, Dee Baker, and Christopher Tin among several others each of whom were available after the show to sign autographs and chat with the fans. GAYGAMER.NET PARTY!!!!! What can I say, most fun at a gay bar that I’ve had since the last time I was gay. The few of us robots met up at Akbar in L.A. to hang out with the Gaygamer crew and we tore it up! We were there from about 8:30pm to 2:00am and every minute was in the words of Chad “AMAZING!!!” Besides whoopin on the one pro gamer who dared to stray away from the game he rightfully owns, this was the best part of my trip.

So to sum it up, E For All was certainly not a replacement from last year’s E3, but for a convention that realistically is still in its infancy, hopefully this did not deter next year’s convention. Though nothing groundbreaking happened, it was still a ton of fun and a chance for us to get our hands dirty with several games that are steaming our way this holiday season and early next year. Disappointing? A little, but I’ll save the depression for next year if it doesn’t get better.

Also, cocks.