Prior to this year's show, I had only heard great things about the <B>Electronic Entertainment Expo</B>. Soon after last year's show was over, I regretted that I didn't attend. Now that I have been to an E3, all I can say is that I'm going every year regardless. It was a gamer's heaven. E3 is all about playing games that nobody else gets to play until 4-6 months later.
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<B>Sega</B> had a huge showing of their <B>Dreamcast</B> system software. It looks like they're going to hit the US stores with a full head of steam. With games like <B>Marvel vs. Capcom</B>, <B>Soul Calibur</B>, <B>Virtua Fighter 3tb</B> and <B>Mortal Kombat Gold</B>, the <B>Dreamcast</B> is going to be the fighting game player's dream system. You're definately going to want to pick up the extremely sturdy arcade stick controller when you pick up a <B>Dreamcast</B>. (the bottom trigger buttons on the standard controller drove me nuts) I have to admit, <B>Soul Calibur</B> looked very smooth on the <B>Dreamcast</B> hardware.
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<B>Sony's</B> section was a little tame, with the exception of the huge <B>PlayStation 2</B> pyramid. They had 3-4 flat panel TVs running those infamous technical demos, floating around the Internet in video form. They were nothing short of spectacular in person. Everything shown on the <B>Next-Generation PlayStation</B> was extremely detailed and running at such a high frame rate. The facial expressions demo made my jaw drop. <B>Grand Turismo 2</B> was also on display for <B>PlayStation</B> looking very sharp with a myriad of new cars and tracks.
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<B>Nintendo</B> showed off <B>Perfect Dark</B>, Rare's unoffical "sequel" to <B>Goldeneye</B>. The controls still felt very Goldeneye-esque; however, the graphics were several notches above it's predecessor. <B>Donkey Kong 64</B> was there. I have to admit that I left the DK series after <B>DK Country</B>, I was pretty impressed with <B>DK64</B>. Although it doesn't match <B>Banjo-Kazooie</B> in graphics, <B>DK64</B> seems like a more enjoyable game with all of the really cool bonus mini-games.
<B>Nintendo</B> announced their plans for their next-generation hardware (code-named Dolphin) a day before the show. The numbers being thrown around, an IBM 400mhz copper CPU (Gekko) and a 200mhz ArtX graphics processor, are very impressive. Check out <A HREF="http://e3news.gamespot.com/e3news/e3newsstory/0,1298,1065,00.html">E3News.com's story</A> on the new hardware. Oh, there was plenty of <B>Pokemon</B> for everyone to check out. <B>Nintendo</B> had both <B>Pokemon Stadium</B> and <B>Pokemon Snap</B> playable. After about 10 minutes of playing <B>Pokemon Snap</B>, I still don't get why anyone would want to buy that game. Also in <B>Nintendo</B>'s corner was <B>Star Wars: Episode I Racer</B>. While the area was too crowded to get a chance to play it, I did get to see a really cool life-size Darth Maul mannequin.
<BR><BR>
There was so much to see and do at E3. Three days wasn't enough to see everything. I didn't even get a chance to make it over to Kentia Hall to check out what those companies had to offer. Although I didn't get to see everything, of what I did see was well organized and well run. If there was something I had to complain about it would be the food prices at the Convention Center. ($2.75 for a medium soda?) With that aside, I had a blast at E3 and can't wait for next year's show to come around.
<BR><BR>
If everything goes as planned, I should have my full impressions of both <B>MK:SF</B> and <B>MK Gold</B> sometime Friday.
<BR><BR>
<B>Sega</B> had a huge showing of their <B>Dreamcast</B> system software. It looks like they're going to hit the US stores with a full head of steam. With games like <B>Marvel vs. Capcom</B>, <B>Soul Calibur</B>, <B>Virtua Fighter 3tb</B> and <B>Mortal Kombat Gold</B>, the <B>Dreamcast</B> is going to be the fighting game player's dream system. You're definately going to want to pick up the extremely sturdy arcade stick controller when you pick up a <B>Dreamcast</B>. (the bottom trigger buttons on the standard controller drove me nuts) I have to admit, <B>Soul Calibur</B> looked very smooth on the <B>Dreamcast</B> hardware.
<BR><BR>
<B>Sony's</B> section was a little tame, with the exception of the huge <B>PlayStation 2</B> pyramid. They had 3-4 flat panel TVs running those infamous technical demos, floating around the Internet in video form. They were nothing short of spectacular in person. Everything shown on the <B>Next-Generation PlayStation</B> was extremely detailed and running at such a high frame rate. The facial expressions demo made my jaw drop. <B>Grand Turismo 2</B> was also on display for <B>PlayStation</B> looking very sharp with a myriad of new cars and tracks.
<BR><BR>
<B>Nintendo</B> showed off <B>Perfect Dark</B>, Rare's unoffical "sequel" to <B>Goldeneye</B>. The controls still felt very Goldeneye-esque; however, the graphics were several notches above it's predecessor. <B>Donkey Kong 64</B> was there. I have to admit that I left the DK series after <B>DK Country</B>, I was pretty impressed with <B>DK64</B>. Although it doesn't match <B>Banjo-Kazooie</B> in graphics, <B>DK64</B> seems like a more enjoyable game with all of the really cool bonus mini-games.
<B>Nintendo</B> announced their plans for their next-generation hardware (code-named Dolphin) a day before the show. The numbers being thrown around, an IBM 400mhz copper CPU (Gekko) and a 200mhz ArtX graphics processor, are very impressive. Check out <A HREF="http://e3news.gamespot.com/e3news/e3newsstory/0,1298,1065,00.html">E3News.com's story</A> on the new hardware. Oh, there was plenty of <B>Pokemon</B> for everyone to check out. <B>Nintendo</B> had both <B>Pokemon Stadium</B> and <B>Pokemon Snap</B> playable. After about 10 minutes of playing <B>Pokemon Snap</B>, I still don't get why anyone would want to buy that game. Also in <B>Nintendo</B>'s corner was <B>Star Wars: Episode I Racer</B>. While the area was too crowded to get a chance to play it, I did get to see a really cool life-size Darth Maul mannequin.
<BR><BR>
There was so much to see and do at E3. Three days wasn't enough to see everything. I didn't even get a chance to make it over to Kentia Hall to check out what those companies had to offer. Although I didn't get to see everything, of what I did see was well organized and well run. If there was something I had to complain about it would be the food prices at the Convention Center. ($2.75 for a medium soda?) With that aside, I had a blast at E3 and can't wait for next year's show to come around.
<BR><BR>
If everything goes as planned, I should have my full impressions of both <B>MK:SF</B> and <B>MK Gold</B> sometime Friday.