05/01/00

Fat asks "WHY?"  E3 edition

First off, WHY is it we haven't heard anything outta Brad's Soapbox lately? You okay, bud? We all miss your witty comments around here. The forum's up and articles can be posted. I know I haven't done too much myself lately, but I'm trying to change that...

WHY is it that you pay a ton of money for round-trip plane tickets, yet the seats are cramped and uncomfortable, the food is worse than any TV Dinner you could think of, and you have to pay 5 bucks to use a cheap set of headphones just so you can hear a lousy, chopped up crappy movie in MONO? Supernova isn't worth $5 uncut, let alone edited to hell.

WHY did all of these "Gaming professionals" on the plane act like they never saw a Neo-Geo Pocket before? I had to pass the time SOMEHOW....

WHY did a lot of the Programmers and press people we talked say they preferred Atlanta over LA for E3? Atlanta's incredibly hot and humid, and there's almost nothing to do in the city after 7:00. They DID have the CNN center right across from the center though, where the food was a lot cheaper. I have to say I prefer LA. The weather was great, the nightlife is bustling and booming (Hollywood Boulevard is SCUMMY, though) and the place just seems a bit friendlier (though VERY expensive).

WHY is it that I have such a hard time recognizing faces on sight? After I read Pat's E3 experience (with the Nintendo great, Mr. Miyamoto himself, read it on the E3 forum if it's still there), I thought back to figure out if I had any similar experiences with E3. Let's see...there was a time at the Sega booth I was playing the Shenmue battle mini-game, where you had to beat up 40 guys in under 3 minutes. I had finally defeated the game (I was mostly getting 30-37 guys then running out of time), then I looked over to my left to see an older Japanese gentlemen (In sort of a loud colored suit). He nodded at me. I nodded back, and moved on. I didn't really think anything of the experience 'till I read Pat's piece. So, after that I did a little bit of web-searching to find that the person I saw was none other than Yu Suzuki himself (Mr. VF, Daytona, Shenmue, Outrun, and a ton of other great games)! He was doing an interview-type thing on the Sega stage which I missed, or else I would've recognized him, and I didn't bother to read his nametag (I did see Yuji Naka's, the main designer of NiGHTS, Sonic and Phantasy Star Online. Didn't talk to him though). I've been beating myself up over this ever since I realized it, but in hindsight, it might be a good thing I didn't recognize him, as I would probably have made an ass of myself if I had.

WHY do these game companies at E3 make you jump up and down like a monkey, yell at the top of your lungs, say idiotic catch phrases and make you dance like a total idiot just for a cheap crappy T-shirt? Why are all of us WILLING to do all these things just for said-T Shirt? Hell, Gravis was actually giving away CONTROLLERS, but you had to do a cheer with their male/female cheerleading squad, and they were just TOO freaky for me....BTW, Geeky and I would like to extend our thanks to our other E3 compatriot, Bryce. He kicked a lot of ass and took some hits to get us all a bunch of T-Shirts and some hats too.

WHY did Coolio get so pissed off at the Soundboy booth when I yelled "Weird Al forever"?

WHY do I get the feeling that Sony's party was as somber as their E3 booth was? I heard Sega's rocked (didn't get to go 'cause we never found our Sega connection at the show. Oh well).

WHY were the Nintendo chicks so snobby sometimes? Just 'cause you didn't have a whole lot o' games doesn't mean ya gotta take it out on me!

WHY was everyone (including me) so taken with Samba de Amigo? This ridiculous looking moracca game had funky (but damn cool) graphics, and some god-awful songs (I HATE TUBTHUMPING!!), but I just couldn't stay away from it!

ARRRGH!!! WHY is it that I pick up a FEW sample Official Dreamcast magazines at E3 just to make sure I get a working Demo disk, and NONE OF THE %(#*%#' DISKS WORK??! At least the web-browser disk I got works, and I didn't PAY anything for the magazines (except air-fare, hotel room, cab-fare, etc), but DAMMIT! It's bad enough those idiots screwed up my subscription (they finally stopped billing me and took payment out of my credit card like I WANTED them to, but they haven't sent me a freakin' magazine since!) I just can't get no satisfaction...

With all of the great games coming out this year, WHY is it that the games I'm looking most forward to playing are some older ones for the PSX using Bleem for Dreamcast?

WHY do all of the "good" Dead or Alive 2 players play Jann-Lee so much? He's so easy to counter. My Gen-Fu was whompin' more Bruce-Lee wannabees than I could count.

WHY do I get the feeling that Ack-Lame's next ECW wrestling game will be a hot seller just like the last one, DESPITE the fact that it's just another pile of festering panda crap with the same engine? Remember kids, we won't see better ECW games until we stop buying the bad ones...

WHY will Ack-Lame plague the world with not 1, not 2, but 3 god-awful games starring the Olsen Twins for assorted consoles? Is it just me, or do those girls STILL look like those frizzy-haired troll toys that were hot a few years back?

WHY is the old original Pac-Man STILL a fun game after all these years? Out of all the stuff I could've played at the show, I spent a good amount of time eatin' dots and chasin' ghosts.

WHY does the game industry suddenly have a fetish for video games characters' posteriors? Never have I seen so many games in 3rd person views where I spend all of my time staring at somebody's rear end. Curse Lara Croft for starting this, then continuing it in sequel after awful sequel.

WHY did Microsoft even BOTHER to say anything about the X-box this year? They're in the same kind of position of Nintendo's in, where they have enough followers that'll buy whatever they have, sight unseen. I think they'd have made a bigger splash (like Nintendo will), introducing their system when it's really READY. Actually, Sony should've followed that advice as well....

WHY has Duke Nukem's legacy been utterly destroyed with game after game of crappy N64 and Playstation knockoffs? What about Duke Nukem forever? The only thing "Forever" about it is how far it's release date seems to slip.

WHY did Sony show a game like Gunslinger? That game was slow, choppy, boring and obviously nowhere NEAR ready to show to ANYONE. It looked like a bad PC game. At least EA's Bond game (also very choppy) was shown with the absolute understanding that it was a work in progress. Gunslinger obviously is, but that wasn't really indicated anywhere. There wasn't ANYTHING in Sega's or Nintendo's booth that looked that bad.

WHY couldn't Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty be at the show in SOME kind of playable form (maybe it was behind closed doors, but not on the floor). A playable version of that 1 GAME could've changed Sony's showing completely.

WHY didn't Square do just a little bit more research on what their competition was up to? Their Play Online system movie was interesting (though really stupid from a plot and acting standpoint), and showed what it might be like to have a party of adventurers play online on PS2, (and cross-platform on computers as well, from what the movie showed) but their system is slated for 2001, and Sega's Phantasy Star Online, if everything works smoothly, should be doing the same thing this Summer. Square's Playstation Lineup looked great. But the PS2 stuff, like everyone else's, is shaky at best.

WHY didn't anybody think of going to good ol' Kinko's for Internet access like Geeky and I did? Sure, it costs about 12 bucks for a full hour, but if you gather your thoughts, you can get in and out in about 25 minutes. No ludicrous lines like at the expo, and no nasty 'net breakdowns either.

WHY does a great time like what I had at E3 seem to pass so fast? I hope more of you can come next year....

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