The Obligatory

Finally.

But it was a lot of fun this year, and I was able to get a tiny bit more time to run around the Convention and see some choice games.

I met up with some members of Team Cinematech in the early morning on Friday to line up outside the Convention doors, with the idea of bolting to the Nintendo booth to get in to play the Wii. We'd tried earlier in the week to use our magic Press Badges, but they said they weren't letting people in that way this year. Bastards.

So when the doors opened at 9AM, E3 devolved into an honest-to-God mob scene. People rushed the entrances. We were at the front of the line, but were not moving on our own accord. We were being moved by the crowd.

On the Nintendo site, one of the Nintendo of America reps had the foresight to record this stampede. It's a cell phone video, so it's pretty blurry, but I looked and yes - I am in there.



That's me, using my strong hiking legs to blow past my fellow nerds. Jeremy's in there, too. He runs by a few seconds earlier, with his arms raised and cheering wildly.



The best kind of nerd is an unashamed nerd.

Once inside, people scattered in every direction, trying to find the fastest path to the Wii line ... but due to Exhibitors already being in line and confusing directions from the Nintendo staff, we ended up getting screwed. Fortunately for us, our Media Badges (and Jeremy's +10 Charisma bonus) got us into the secretive Wii chamber.

Let me sum it up thusly: it is amazing.

The control schemes and gameplay opportunities this new system open up are nearly limitless. We saw a demo of a drum set simulator and a symphony-conducting game that used drastically different controls, yet were equally simple and intuitive.

I, myself, personally played WarioWare, Red Steel, and the new Zelda with the Wii Controllers. All of the games were very, very easy to pick up, and were accurately controllable with the Wii-mote. Of course, the Wii opens up the WarioWare series to get even weirder than it already is ... and controlling Link in "Twilight Princess" was an incredibly fluid experience. My friends checked out Mario Galaxy, Excite Truck, and some of the Wii sports games like Tennis and Baseball and gave them all great reviews, too.

The controller itself is much lighter than I expected, and the built-in speaker and rumble packs worked flawlessly. The Wii is a win. A giant win. The Nintendo site's got a bunch of gameplay and controller videos, which will help you get a better idea of what this thing is capable of.

Everyone at E3 couldn't stop talking about the new system, and people were willing to wait in four hour lines to get the chance to get in and play with it for themselves. Sony's booth was relatively empty, and you could literally walk right up and into their exclusive PS3 area. Microsoft, I don't know ... 'cause honestly the only thing I want to play on the 360 is Splinter Cell: Double Agent ... and the Ubisoft Booth was nicer. (Did I mention the demo of Splinter Cell had you swimming beneath a glacier, pulling a guard through the ice and into the water, and stabbing him? That's why that game is fucking awesome, BTW.)

Oh, and all I saw of Ubisoft's Assassin's Creed was a video, but that was enough to get me excited for that game, too. Stealth gameplay and interactive environments aside, they had me at "historically-accurate Crusdader State cities."

I'll try to get our web team to post videos of my E3 skits soon ... or see if they pop up on YouTube. 'Til then, pre-order your Wii.

I'm glad you dug the Wii as much as I hoped someone I knew there would. That Warioware game sold me as soon as I heard about it.

Ah, the classic Deuce high-step run. I can see the faces of crushed geeks beneath your footsteps.

Sooo psyched for the Wii now. Hopefully I will have the money to waste on it when it comes out.