[Editor’s note: During E3, Destructoid blackmailed recruited Community member Dexter345 to be our Intern B*tch 2008. Now that he’s finally healed up from all of the abuse we inflicted upon him, he blogged about all of the amazing things he got to experience at E3. — CTZ]
I know E3’s been over for a long time now, but it’s been hectic in the world of the Intern B*tch, and I’m just now getting to write this. Certainly, there were jokes made about the ridiculous jobs I was given as Intern B*tch, but they couldn’t be further from the truth. And yet, the truth itself is fairly ridiculous. I’ve been told that nobody will believe most of these stories. Yet, I feel compelled to tell them anyway.
During the first day of E3, I didn’t take off my shoes for a full 24 hours. I didn’t realize it until it had happened, but it’s true. I woke up extra early (six in the morning) to make sure I could get on the train and be in downtown Los Angeles in time for the Microsoft conference. For the conference, I got to sit up in the front row, along with Cowzilla.
After the conference I had lunch on Microsoft. Aaron Greenberg was sitting directly to my left, with Marc Whitten sitting across from me. We talked about the new look of the 360 dashboard, and ate some delicious food.
Afterward, I found myself at the EA press conference, up in the front row again. It was actually a pretty good conference, with Dead Space and Spore stuff shown. Will Wright is my hero. After the conference, I got to take a picture with Peter Moore. Oh yeah, and they gave me a free copy of the Spore Creature Creator, which my computer sadly cannot run.
That evening, the place to be was the Gears of War 2 party. It was super exclusive, but by the hand of Ron Workman, I was able to get in. I hardly played any Gears 2, but what I did play was pretty good. I met Cliff Bleszinski there, and he asked me to rub his feet, as an official Intern Bitch duty. I would have done it, too, if he had let me.
Later on in the night, I had a shot of tequila with John Di Maggio. It’s very weird to have the voice of Marcus Fenix/Bender right next to you, ordering you a drink. I’d like to say I took it in stride, but I’ll admit that it was probably the drunk in me thinking that. Also at the party were some of the guys from the show Chuck. We hung out with them later on in the evening.
After the Gears 2 party started winding down, we decided to retire to our beds. My bed, of course, is an hour’s train ride away from downtown Los Angeles, so while Workman got ready to sleep on Cowzilla’s hotel room floor, I attempted to stay up playing Apollo Justice. I woke up at about five in the morning with my mouth open and my DS still on, perfect time to catch the train home.
It was then that I intended to write this blog, but while on the way home, my laptop decided to crap itself. If you thought it was bad previously, well, it got worse. I shrugged it off and finally got home and into my real bed, shoes off, by 6:30 AM Tuesday morning.
Needless to say, I missed the Nintendo press conference. After hearing about it from others though, I guess I’m glad. While waiting for other Dtoiders, I decided to play some DS outside of Nintendo’s meeting rooms. Shortly afterward, Reggie passes by, and notices I’m playing my DS. He asks how I’m doing, and I reply. I never imagined I’d share a few words with the meat-man himself.
Just after he walked by, Iwata and Miyamoto do. I unfortunately didn’t get to share any words or get any pictures, but upon seeing me with my DS, Miyamoto gave me a smile and a nod. Rev Anthony passed by just afterward, and I let him know that Miyamoto just walked by. He rushed after them in a fanboy blaze.
On Tuesday evening, there was another Microsoft party at the same place as the Gears 2 one, this time focusing on Fable 2 and Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts. I played a bit of the gambling mini-games from Fable 2, and two of the three seem interesting enough. I also played a bit of Banjo, and it was cool in a not-much-like-the-old-games kind of way. It reminded me of the Gummi Ships from Kingdom Hearts, which is GREAT, in my opinion.
I called it a night fairly early on Tuesday, partly to catch up on lost sleep from the night before, and partly because I knew I’d have to prepare for the night to come.
On Wednesday, I had the displeasure of sitting through Konami’s press conference. Aside from the Castlevania: Order of Ecclesia stuff, it was a poor showing. The coup de grace of badness came during the Rock Revolution presentation. They started out with a cover performance of the Ramones’s “Blitzkrieg Bop.” Why they would choose to present a song that was included in last year’s Rock Band is beyond me, but then immediately afterward they had the audacity/stupidity to play the exact same song, but in Rock Revolution. And the kicker? The guitarist failed the song halfway through. I was glad.
After the Konami conference, we went to the Sega meeting rooms, where we were shown stuff on Bayonetta and MadWorld. I was actually pretty impressed. I’ve not really been a fan of anything Sega has done outside of Super Monkey Ball on the GameCube, but I’m actually keeping an eye on both of those titles.
After Sega, we went to the Konami meeting room. I was pretty beat by this point so I decided to just sit on their couches and check out their DS games. After about five minutes I look up and notice that Koji Igarashi, with his hat and whip, was sitting across from me, napping. We wanted to get pictures of me napping next to him, but he woke up. Another thing I did (read: another mistake I made) was to try out the drums for Rock Revolution. Just to compound how poorly Konami is doing selling this game, they only had Beginner and Easy difficulties available, and only a few songs. The moral of the story is that I’m not going to buy Rock Revolution, ever. Also, I want to have Iga’s baby.
This was all just buildup to the big finale for me. Wednesday night was the most unbelievable, most awesome, and dare I say most epic night I had. We were invited to a fairly exclusive party put on by Michael Pachter, who you may remember as being “that guy who makes predictions about things sometimes”. It was for this reason that I was dressed up nicely throughout the entire day, in my best suit. I got to meet Pachter and now I actually understand what he does and why he gets paid for it. Oh yeah, and I met him while eating sushi and drinking martinis on top of a building. After this, we were on our way to the Rock Band bash.
By now you’ve certainly heard that The Who played at the Rock Band bash. What you might not have heard was that I was there, three rows from the front. Now to be honest, I wasn’t a huge Who fan before, but the men really know how to put on a good concert. And they know their audience, as they ended their set with “Won’t Get Fooled Again”. Everybody in the theater sang along.
After The Who, it seemed like things couldn’t get any better. It was right about that time that I was ushered into a limousine, sitting next to Mark Rein, so that we could be dropped off where our ride was. Who/what was our ride, and where were we going? Well, it was Michael Pachter himself, in his shiny Porsche, to the Ubisoft party.
Let me just mention that one more time. I got out of a limousine full of industry folk, to get into the back of a Porsche driven by Michael Pachter.
The Ubisoft party was being held in Hollywood. They had some decent hors d’oeuvres, but the real highlight was that they were literally throwing out games for free. I snagged Assassin’s Creed for the 360, but then traded it to Lawrence from All Games Radio for a PS3 version, since he only has a 360 and I’m a nice guy. I saw some more industry players, your Bleszinskis and your Greenbergs, but late into the night, all I was doing was talking with Mr. Workman himself.
And I don’t know if this next part was due to alcohol or not (I hear he drinks), but at the Ubi party, Ron Workman said that he would hire me as a full time personal assistant, for well more than I’m making now as a graduate student. Part of me wanted so badly to accept right then and there, but I had to respectfully decline. It was a real existential crisis for a few moments in time.
After the Ubi party, we took a cab back to Los Angeles and slept on Cowzilla’s floor again. This time, I had planned to at least, so I at least took off my jacket and dress shoes for the first time that day. And again, I woke up around five in order to catch the train home. Thus ending my first E3 experience.
It was an amazing piece of my life that I will remember for the rest of it. I will forever be grateful to Niero and Workman for allowing me to do it, and to post on the front page of Destructoid for it. Now, go ahead and feel free to believe what you want to believe.
