![Click here to return to The BAT Cave home page!](/home_page/bat_boy_icon.png) The BAT Cave
![Click here if you have no idea what this site is about!](/home_page/bartok_icon.png) Huh? What?
|
E3 2009
This E3 report was written by Brent Allen Thale on June 5, 2009. Please do not use these pictures for any commercial purpose or post them on any web site without
written consent from Brent A. Thale, the copyright holder.
Follow me on Twitter for con Tweets and more photos!
The spectacular Electronic Entertainment Expo, also
known as E3, returned to sunny Los Angeles, California in June 2009 after
a two-year demotion to a low-key invitation-only event. It was a lot of
fun, pretty much exactly as I remembered it from my last trip in 2005: noisy, crowded, with all the latest
video games, and of course the E3 trademark of dozens of attractive models
known as "booth babes" whose job it is to direct attention to
companies' presentations.
The
big trends I noticed this year were the rise of the
Nintendo Wii, exercise games, and music games. There were plenty of
classic hardcore gamer-type games as well, but what I noticed the most were alternative-controller type games
that allow for some neat new ideas like exercise, dancing, music, cheerleading, and even DJ disc
spinning!
Electronic Arts had a very strong showing, with their
usual giant booth right at the front of
the big South Hall. EA also had many prime advertising spots, including placing
"Brütal Legend" on the front of the convention center which I'm sure must have
cost a fortune. Mass Effect 2, Dragon Age, and
Battlefield 1943 all had giant posters on display as well,
with promos for many other EA games running on a huge video screen just
inside the entrance.
![EA Active boxing!](DSC_8707_thumb.jpg)
EA featured
a brand-new exercise game called "EA Sports Active" that seems to be doing
really well, it uses the
Wii controllers plus a custom resistance band to allow a wide range of exercises,
it looked really fun. Demonstrating the product was an intrepid
model with seemingly boundless endurance, she was tirelessly doing exercises every time
I passed by her kiosk, and she worked up a vigorous but not
unattractive sweat.
![The EA booth!](IMG_1331_thumb.jpg)
![A Nintendo demo!](DSC_8373_thumb.jpg)
Nintendo also had an impressive mega-booth. Their innovative Wii platform brought their company back from near irrelevance
five years ago to a dominant position today. They were showing
new versions of Wii Fit, many many DS games, and new versions of the
Mario sidescrollers.![Wii Sports Resort!](IMG_1440_thumb.jpg)
E3 often attracts
celebrities who are either fans of games or promoting games. I personally
saw fitness guru Daisy Fuentes and boxing legend Sugar Ray Leonard which was
kind of neat. Sugar Ray actually played a game of Fight Night Round
4, and then his "Ring Girls" dispensed Pizza Hut pizza to the cheering crowd!
The lighting conditions inside the convention center
are really tough, it's mostly very dark with harsh overhead lighting and
lots of colored spotlights, which makes a photographer's life pretty
difficult. To combat that problem I was trying out the new Nikon D700
digital SLR camera, it is incredibly sensitive to light and can shoot
decent quality images even at ISO 6400, which is amazing since only a
few years ago ISO
1600 was barely acceptable quality. Also new for this year was my LitePanels
MicroPro light, which is actually a continuous video light but it works
quite well for this type of close-in shooting in dark conditions, I was very pleased
with its performance.
The wide shots were taken with my old Canon 20D.
![Military beef!](DSC_8689_thumb.jpg)
![Section 8!](DSC_8138_thumb.jpg)
My former
employer TimeGate Studios had a nice showing of their upcoming "Section 8"
game. They had 12 playable terminals and 20 bots playing a
32-player Xbox 360 networked game which was pretty cool. They also had a
great male soldier model wearing a futuristic suit of armor
and an appropriately earnest military expression.
![The house band!](DSC_8056_thumb.jpg)
Music games have leveraged the classic karaoke
experience into something really new using custom instrument-like
peripherals. MTV/Harmonix and Activision had big ongoing demos of Rock
Band and Guitar Hero that drew lots of attention. MTV had a booth right at
the front of the convention center that challenged people to top their
house band's high score. Activision showed their new DJ Hero and
expansions to Guitar Hero that have Rock Band-like complete band sets.
![Dirty girls!](DSC_8333_thumb.jpg)
Some noticeable absences from this year's show were
Blizzard with their World of Warcraft megahit and the PC hardware makers
like ATI and NVidia. Blizzard has a devoted core audience that gives them
enough momentum to have their own Blizzcon convention so I guess they skip
E3 entirely now.
The PC graphics guys
seem to be hurting financially so I assume
they skipped the show to control costs, although Alienware and Intel
were there showing off powerful new gaming PC's. There were also quite a few
peripheral device makers and companies that made accessories for PC's, consoles, and
handhelds.
![A G4 closeup!](DSC_8199_thumb.jpg)
Since I was
primarily looking for interesting photos it's hard for me to say
what the "Game of the Show" was. There were many strong games on
display, and a lot of upcoming games had very cool trailers
(like Star Wars: The Old Republic, Assassin's Creed 2, and Dante's Inferno). Sony's God
of War III had playable demos and it looked good as well.
In the weeks preceding the show there was some press about Japanese companies avoiding E3 because of the economy and also fear of catching "swine flu"
in the crowded convention hall. Although I was often close enough to people to detect their favorite flavor of breath mint, I seem to have survived
and there were many major Japanese companies in attendance, like Square Enix, Namco, Koei, and Nintendo. I did see a few people wearing surgical
masks to avoid infection but that seemed like ridiculous overkill to me.
For a
photographer, the pretty models at the show are like an all-you-can-eat
completely free candy store. So many beautiful girls who can
smile on cue and are more than
happy to have their picture taken. I'm pleased to say all the girls were very
professional and patient, and I didn't get snapped at once in quite
a few photo requests.
The larger companies like Microsoft, EA, and Activision tend to avoid using models to promote their products, but other notable companies like Ubisoft and
THQ had quite a few girls demoing games and roping passersby. Even Nintendo had many conservatively dressed clean-cut female presenters, and
while very attractive I would not consider them "booth babes" since they were really well-trained demoers who were actively involved in presenting products.
Some people seem offended by this somewhat overtly sexual "exploitation" of women at the show, but it seems all in good fun to me and I hope
they aren't forced to discontinue having models at the show for the sake of political correctness. According to the girls they make good money
appearing at conventions like E3 and the work really isn't that hard, why take that away from them?
Overall it was a neat show, very old-school E3 which is a good thing, I think. Some people say it was a little smaller and quieter than in past years (I'm told there were 41,000
attendees and 216 exhibitors), but it was great fun and there were tons of good games that appealed to wide audiences and broad ranges of people. There were hardcore
games, games for women, casual games, music games, exercise games, handheld games, online games... something for everyone. This classic E3 format
better serves the game community and gets lots of coverage in mainstream media which is good for everyone in the games business. I'm eagerly anticipating
next year's show already!
|