Coming soon (dinner, a few calls, and a few other things first...)

Ok, my pizza just came in (if you're asking "pizza again?", forget it. My diet consists of at least 75% Italian, or Italian-like food [not sure what to call "American" pizza, so I'll call it Italian-like]).
Ok, here I go again, and I'll TRY to keep things shorter. (NOTE: I just finished, and noticed that I apparently lied. This is LONG, so you'd better be looking for something long, or you'd better be bored. Also note the fact that I am in no way, nor do I claim to be, a decent writer. I don't edit, I don't think things through, I just type. So if it seems...well...odd, that's normal. ).
Day Two
DAMN!!!! Ok, that's twice in a row I sleep a bit later than I wanted to, and missed out the beginning of the convention. No way I'm going to sleep, and I think the reason I'm so screwed up here is this damn Pacific Daylight Time.
So I make my way over WITHOUT getting lost ( ), and arrive at the LACC.
Part I
As last time, Nintendo's "booth" was my first stop. But this time, instead of filming the stuff, I decided to have some fun. And I DID (for the most part). With a gridlocked floor, and nowhere to go, I ducked into one of the "private" booths, which isn't really private, but most people don't notice it. And it was nice too, completely dark (giving the HUGE digital display an extra bit of clarity), air conditioned, and with a nice speaker setup. There was a game of Smash Bros. 2 going, and with only three people there, I joined in.
Ok, let me say this first. REGARDLESS of my impressions at E3...REGARDLESS of what I read in the next few months, REGARDLESS of ANYTHING, I WILL be getting my Game Cube AND X-Box on their respective launch dates. Now, back to the article.
THe gameplay, and even the levels (in a sense) havn't exactly changed from the first game, except for the fact that everything is in 3D. And like I said yesterday, the gameplay which is practically the same, KICKS ASS. DAMN, I can see myself losing a LOT of time this fall semester in some 4 player clashes. My first game, as Pikachu (I'm NOT a Pokemon fan, but I'm better with him than any of the others), came in second in a 20 minute free-for-all, losing to Captain Falcon by only three points. After that, it was an occasional win, and an occasional loss. But either way, IT WAS FUN, and trust me, even if you only somewhat liked the first game, you will love this one.
Oh, and with the GC on a tiny little stand, this thing is SMALL. I don't know if any of you have seen this in actual size, but its DAMN small. Heh, I wonder if Nintendo will release a portable power pack for it, that'll let you use it on the road like a Game Boy.
Ok, off to Luigi's Mansion. You know what? My thoughts are about the exact same as yesterday's. From what I SAW, and what I PLAYED, this game isn't as good as I expected it to be. Now granted, the final game might be better, and maybe I'll enjoy it more if I play for more than 10 minutes, but I still stand that this game isn't all that great. Next!
Browsing through the merchandise section, showed a few interesting things, but nothing really "new" to me other than the fact that Game Cube games will come in DVD snap cases (even though they're smaller discs). Guess they want to "compete" with MS and Sony on this one.
Okay, after going around for a while, playing a few games here and there, I left Nintendo's area.

Part II
I went over to the area where Rockstar and a few other companies were. MAX PAYNE!!! For those of you who know, I am a BIG John Woo fan, and most kinds of over-the-top violence fit in just fine with me. Let me say, that even though these graphics were VERY aliased (it is the PS2 version you know...), it still looked VERY good. The nearby demos for both Mafia and Hidden & Dangerous 2 looked pretty good too (lets hope they make H&D what it SHOULD have been in the first place).
Part III
Huh? Tecmo? Oh yeah, I guess I should check out what they've got. There was some fuzzy character dancing around (no clue what it was), and before I know it, I'm in the front of a line for a DOA2: Hardcore tournament. Cool! All I wanted was a picture of the little squirt on the stage. So, the tournament starts (2 on 2), and guess what, MY CONTROLLER DOESN'T WORK. Actually, that's not true. The directional pad/analog stick worked just fine. THE DAMN BUTTONS DIDN'T WORK. So when I was tagged in, all Kasumi could do is kinda walk around, trying not to get her ass kicked TOO quickly. Either way, my partner took care of BOTH our opponents (no thanks to my controller), and we both got a DOA2 shirt (the other team got hats). And what's this? As soon as I'm done, some guy comes running over with another dual shock controller, and replaces the one that "didn't work last time". Thanks a lot guyz, for making me look like a total wuss in front of 300 people.
Then they showed a 5 minute video from Dead or Alive 3, showing some old AND new stuff. I tried to keep the camera as steady as possible, but I wasn't in a good spot AND this thing gets heavier by the second (especially with all of the attachments I've got on it). Why didn't I just take a palm-sized one...?
After the tourny, "Tina" and "Lei Fang" came out and posed for some pics. Somehow, I ended up at the END of that line, and said "screw this" and just took some pics and left.

Part IV
Hm...this is the part where I go from booth to booth asking for PR/Legal reps that I can talk to relating to CHV. Got a few business cards, and ran out of my own (only brought like 20 of them). They wouldn't let me into the Sega booth, apparently its for members of the press ONLY, and ONLY with an appointment, which are all filled up. BUT...with a little talking and dealing, I've got one set up for 12:30 tomorrow, so hopefully they'll let me get some nice stuff of Shenmue 2.

Part V
So I make my way over to the MS/XBox booth with the same questions. And what does it seem like MS is doing? Giving me the cold shoulder, just like they did before. They send me from one person, to another, from one booth to another. And guess where I land up in? An X-Box developers conference (not sure exactly HOW I got there, but I'm not complaining). Apparently, the XBoxes on the show floor are only basic SDK versions, running at less than 50% of the machine's expected performance. The one they had in the room, running a bit better (but apparently still NOT up to full speed, maybe 65%), kinda blew me away (and as you all know, that's HARD).
I also wish I had brought along a camera with analog INputs, since they offered me some direct feeds (nothing worse than having to turn that down and stick with filming a monitor).
So they start up with Halo, and the graphics in this build of the game were a bit better. The textures weren't as bland as they were on the show floor, and for the most part, things were running SMOOTH. The AI was fairly impressive, with both you AND the opponents working together as a team. Mow down three out of four enemies, and the fourth one takes off like a screaming child. Toss a gernade at them, and they dive for cover behind a rock. Come at them with a wimpy pistol, and they'll call up reinforcements with BIG guns.
Our character then hopped in a jeep that was dropped by an airship, complete with a chain gun in the back. But, with another seat open, we drive back to our squad, where one guy is EAGER to join in (driving is always easier than walking). We then drive up to an enemy stronghold, and with the machine gunner firing from the back, and our passenger firing from the front, we get out and attack from behind. Perfect, we wiped them out quite easily.
At one point during that time, they "paused" the game, and took me on a "virtual tour" of the scene. Imagine something Matrix-like, with a freeze frame, only with unlimited time to see what you want. Our character is in a realistic stance, holding his pistol with both hands, using the weight of his body to support the force from the gun. Some of the enemies were either rasing their sheilds, or running for cover from our character's fire. A gernade that was still in the air had caused about four characters to scramble out of the way, with one person (firing at the jeep) unaware of what was about to hit him from behind (it hadn't hit the floor yet). Our "passenger" was sitting in the front of the jeep, one leg against the dashboard for support, with his eye right in the sights. One of his bullets was just leaving the gun, and the fully rendered shell was in the process of being ejected. Our chain gunner from behind was unleashing HELL on our enemies, with more bullets and shells flying in the air than you could believe. We resumed the game, and won that skirmish too. The jeep was at the top of the hill, and the shells that landed just over the edge were slowly rolling down the hill, with some of them stopping as they hit a tree or rock. We then move the "camera" to the edge of the hill, and let our gunner fire away. The shells, land and bounce just as you'd expect them to, with some landing on the floor below, others either bouncing off of, or accumulating in the back of the jeep.
We hop back in the jeep, and even I noticed how they got the physics of this thing DOWN. It responded as it should, depending on the surface we were driving on. Yadda yadda yadda, we entered a new area. At this point, there was a LONG shaft that didn't seem to end. We fire once at the wall, and see how fast it is for the weapon to travel. We then fire down the shaft, and waaaaait as it goes down, and eventually gets lost in the fog below. However, in addition to the echoed sound of the projectile traveling down the shaft, we faintly hear it hit the floor (or whatever) below.
We then backtrack about half an hour, and guess what? EVERYTHING IS STILL THERE. Every bullet hit, every dead body, every SHELL was in the EXACT same place as it was before. These items will NEVER disappear for the duration of the game. This is apparently one of the uses of the hard drive, as well as NO loading times (trust me, NO means NO). After playing the game for a while longer, we move on to Amped.

Yes, this title didn't really impress me too much, and YES, this title has a long way to go to make people forget about the "production designs" that they passed off as screenshots. BUT, at the very least, the terrain looked very nice, and the physics were a lot closer to real life (as opposed to SSX where you can just basically fly and do whatever you want ). Next!

Ah yes...Project Gotham. Don't laugh, but I was expecting them to show me a Batman game, since I had heard nothing about this title before.
SWEET. This game was VERY sweet, or at least visually. And that's with the fact that this game wasn't too close to being finished, and that this was only a playable tech demo.
Anyways, it played nice, it handled nice, and it looked nice. The textures and various effects (reflections, transparencies, etc.) were all used to make this look SWEET. And they did something no game has really done before. THEY INCLUDED THE ADS. Let me put it this way. We've all played Triple Play, and notice how things like a "Chork Lite" sign instead of a Citgo sign can really detract from a game? Well, they went ahead and got EVERYONE'S permission to use their logos, including EVERYONE in Times Square. That's right. Every billboard, display, and storefront is ACURATELY textured to look just like Times Square. This didn't look like New York in a game, this was NEW YORK. There were also a million little touches, such as individual reflections of the car, billboards, or whatever in the various puddles in the road. The car, for this demo, a Ferrarri, had a million reflections of the surroundings, not just some basic reflection like most games.
And DAMN, this car was modelled NICE. EVERYTHING is in polygon form. No texture for the weel, it IS a polygonal wheel, each with its own textures for the tire, the wheel itsself, etc. Even the BRAKES are their own 3d object, animated depending on how you apply them. There's a million other things, but I don't want to make this article TOO long (note: TOO LATE! ).

Part VI
More wandering around, and a few displays of games like Return to Castle Wolfenstein going. Unfortunately, I didn't feel like standing on that long line to play it, so I can't give a hands on impression.

And yadda yadda yadda, before I know it, its over, and I'm left outside the LACC yet again. I know I skipped some parts, and went in to too much detail about others, but that's my first impression for day two of E3 2001.
Once again, this is Jim (a.k.a. Ed) signing off from LA and E3 2001. See ya all tomorrow!
~

^*BUMP*^

Man, E3 sounds really intense, yet really exciting at the same time.
I'd go, but the fact that I'm not a member of the press AND I'd have to pay for the international plane ticket there COULD hinder my plans.