Wowzers!

Well, I was as giddy as a school girl when I got there, and I left as happy as a clam. How one transfigures from school girl to clam is beyond me but lo and behold; it happened. So before I get into the grimy deets, I’m just going to toss out a list of all the Swag I got.

• A bag with some Japanese key chains, and two DS lite/ DSi covers
• A Frisbee from Wii Sports Resort
• A DJ Hero T-Shirt
• A Tetris 25 Years Baby-doll T-Shirt (haha I know right)
• A sweet flashlight pen
• A little game controller key chain
• Two iPod covers
• And A lot of magazines and flyers and stuff.

Good times right? Ok so I’ll give you the play by play that you’ve been so eagerly awaiting.

We ended up getting to the convention center about 10:30, giving my Dad and myself an hour and a half till show time. We got our badges, or rather our badge holders, and then proceeded to amble about for a while. Outside was a huge pile of junk promoting Rabbids Go Home. It was…. Interesting. Looking back inside there were huge posters EVERYWHERE. It was awesome. Then with an hour and change left, my Dad and I went in search of food. We ended up walking out to LA Live, and looking for restaurants there. We walked by the Staples Center, and then just around. Without finding anything good to do, we went back to E3, but this time we went in the West Entrance. But on our way in was The Stay Puft Marshmellow Man, and the Ecto-1 from Ghostbusters. So cool. Then we got some food at the mad expensive café inside, and then we made our way back to the South Hall. At this point there was about half an hour left till show time. My Dad went off to grab his Laptop and work, and I eagerly awaited my entrance into the South Hall.

BOOM SHOWTIME. Everyone BUSTED down the doors, and straight ahead was the EA booth. It had PS3 and 360 copies of all its games. I played a little Madden 10, and then watched a little bit of Brutal Legend. Both looked amazing. From there I popped out and was right in the Microsoft section. There was a theater for presentations (tell you about those later) and a section cordoned off for exclusive hands-on Halo ODST Firefight game play. I wanted to get in there so bad, but I figured I’d go look at everything and come back if I had time. Unfortunately I didn’t L.

From there I played Dissidia: Final Fantasy. Then I sat and watched all of Square Enix’s trailers on their HUGE screen, and oogled their pricy collection of collectables. After that I shot over to Warner Bros. Interactive, and stared at their Batmobile for a little bit. MMmmmm…Yeah. I got a look at some people playing Lego Rock Band, and my first look at Batman: Arkham Asylam. Lego Rock Band looked well… Like Rock Band, with Lego Characters. Not much to elaborate on there. Batman looked like what I’d seen before in trailers and game play videos but once again I felt like I had to see everything before I stopped to smell the flowers.

After that we went over to look at the Alienware booth. It was almost 1PM now, and when we were out and about earlier a strange lady in a black suit had informed us “Alienware Booth. 1PM.” With this deluge of information, of course we figured that would be the place to be. We got there and it was a lot smaller than the other exhibits we’d been to so far. Pretty much just a small tent, with an area in the back with some desktops set up. My Dad asked what the upcoming announcement was going to be about. Something about a brand spankin’ new desktop they were coming out with. I knew I wouldn’t get all the tech specs then, so we decided to read the Reader’s Digest version when we got back. Turns out it’s a wicked tricked out computer (duh) that costs about $5600. Don’t get me wrong, I love computers. But I really don’t game on computers much, sooo…. That’s really my opinion on that.

From there we browsed around some more. Picked up some swag at the Gelaskins booth, saw some Ninja Turtles, and a giant robot from Alien(?). But then my first big surprise came. While meandering around the outer rim of the Microsoft exhibit, I found some hidden demos of Batman, Brutal Legend, and then…What?...No…It couldn’t possibly… LEFT 4 DEAD 2. Valve just came out with L4D this past year, and now I’m seeing a sequel? I didn’t even know one was in the works! Anyway, I went over and took a look at it, and ended up getting to take ‘er for a spin. It played almost exactly like the original, but with a few additions. I’m not positive, but it felt like the pistol was a little stronger, and the graphics definitely got an upgrade. I also noticed the addition of a few new Special Zombies, one called the “Charger” which I didn’t quite get a good look at, and the addition of Melee weapons. Stacking on top of my primary weapon (meaning if you shoot you lose the melee weapon) I picked up a fireman’s axe as I played. It was good for hitting the occasional zombie, but wasn’t as efficient as a nice spray from the shotty. A Valve representative ended up sitting on my shoulder and we talked as I played. He told me the Melee weapons were more for Special Zombies, as they did a lot of damage. Sadly though, I finished and got the boot. (I’m gonna go back tomorrow! :D) However I did manage to glean a Nov. 19^th release date. BOO YAH.

I think I’ll leave it there for this blog post. It’s already as mammoth as I can make it right now. At that was only noon to 2. At 2PM I opened a whole ‘nother can of worms. Stay tuned.