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Games, Game Reviews

Wii Music (Wii) E3 2008 Preview

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Developer/Publisher: Nintendo

At E3 2008, there were about four WiiMusic booths set up in the Nintendo area. WiiMusic, if you didn’t know, is basically a game where you can play songs with your friends. Except, there’s no score, no points, no punishment for being off beat, you just “play” your instrument using the WiiMote in a couple of ways. After you go through a song, you get to watch the performance again. Miis are the characters that are in the game, just like other games in the WiiBlank series.

Although WiiMusic is pretty pathetic when compared directly to Rock Band 2 (it was the loudest thing at the whole show), there is a little bit of enjoyment still to be had. It took me a little bit of instruction from the Nintendo employees as to how to actually play the game, and how to play each particular instrument. There are a vast majority of different instruments that range from trumpet, piano, organ, bagpipes, and the triangle to weirder instruments like the jaw harp, the aptly named “Dog Suit,” and beatboxing.

Categories of instruments dictate different methods of play. For wind instruments, if you tilt the controller up and down, the pitch changes. You press the 1 and 2 buttons to change the notes. For percussion instruments, you move your hands up and down in a drumming-fashion to make different beats. You can also hold onto different buttons while waving your arms around to create different sounds. The guitar is played like an air guitar, except you have a Wii controller and Nunchuk in your hands.

When you are actually performing, there is a metronome to help you keep to the beat, but you can basically go crazy and not go with it at all. The result, at least while playing Yankee Doodle, was that it sounded nothing like the song at all.

In the end, the game itself is pretty barebones. The current songs are pretty lame, since they’re all folk songs or the like. Although there are supposedly “60” songs planned to be included, they’re all going to be lyric-less MIDI-quality songs that sound nothing like their originals. To get an idea of what pedigree of songs will actually end up being in the game, think “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star,” “Yankee Doodle,” “Super Mario Bros.” theme song, “From The New World,” and “Turkey in the Straw” since those were the songs actually featured in the playable demo. Other songs that are known of are the Legend of Zelda overworld theme, “The Overture” (from an opera called Carmen), and an F-Zero song which was played at the Nintendo conference. I can only hope that “Itsy Bitsy Spider” and “Pop Goes the Weasel” are included in some fashion when the product finally comes out at retail.

The whole idea around the game appears to be creating performances and sharing them with your friends. You can play a performance over and over, providing the instrument for up to 6 different parts of a band. The Nintendo employees at the booth didn’t appear to actually know HOW you’d be able to “share” the performances with your friends – whether it was in video form or save file over the WiFiConnect 24. If you’re supposed to share with your friends so that they add their performances to yours, it will most certainly have to be some sort of save file.

There is also a drum simulator thing where you can use the WiiFit Balance Board as drum pedals, while you wave your arms around with the Wii controllers. There are no beats to play to, there are no other bandmates. It’s just you and an audience of Miis. There is literally nothing to do in the mode. Too often did I walk past the Nintendo booth and see a forlorn Nintendo employee drumming with WiiMusic having the worst time in their respective lives playing out in front of them. Not only that, the Rock Band booths behind them were so loud that they probably couldn’t even hear what they were doing. Eventually it seemed like they’d actually try to play drums to the music Rock Band was playing – it just seemed sad because the feature of actually having music playing while you’re drumming is lost in the mission for simplicity and appealing to the casual market. You have to ask yourself if someone would ever want to casually play this portion of WiiMusic for any more than 5 minutes before never returning it.

Unlike WiiPlay and WiiFit, WiiMusic isn’t going to come with a peripheral. Even the next Wii-titled game out next year, WiiSports Resort, comes with a peripheral. It’s questionable as to whether or not WiiMusic will have the same sort of appeal as its other siblings on account of that. In addition, the game itself just doesn’t have a real point to it. There are no points, there’s no sense of progression, all it is sitting around and listening to crappy computer instruments pretending to be real instruments. I don’t know how that is supposed to be enjoyable, especially with games like Guitar Hero and Rock Band already out on the market and already appealing to the same demographics WiiMusic aims to sell to. Unless WiiMusic has some sort of feature that will validate its purchase (let alone its existence) that we don’t know about, it will be a huge disappointment.

Games, Game Reviews

Dragon Age: Origins (PC) E3 2008 Preview

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Developer: BioWare Corp | Publisher: Electronic Arts

I partook in a presentation for Dragon Age: Origins that was given at E3 2008. Giving the presentation was BioWare’s Dan Tudge, who is the project director for the game. He didn’t give us a lecture about the game before we actually got to see anything; we jumped right in with another BioWare employee showing us the game, with Dan explaining as we went along.

Dragon Age: Origins is BioWare’s spiritual successor to Baldur’s Gate. The game itself actually melds Knights of the Old Republic with Baldur’s Gate, from what I saw. As experienced in Knights of the Old Republic, you are able to pause the game and give orders, as well as make decisions during the story scenes that can impact the way the story is told to you. The Baldur’s Gate influence obviously comes from the actual theme of the game – you’re fighting in a medieval-style game with many types of ogres and stuff like that. Maybe even a dragon comes along sometime, not that I saw in the demonstration, however. From the ground up, the game is built as a fantasy game for core RPG fans.

Similar to other recent PC RPGs, there is a bar along the bottom that you can select for certain attacks. This comes in handy when you pause the game and give orders to your allies and your own character. Seemingly, you can change your main party character, although I might be confused to that fact, since I didn’t actually see them change it. Hit points and mana seem to recharge as time goes on, not particularly needing someone to heal outside of battle, though it becomes vital to have someone healing as battles get more intense.

The battle system is party-based tactical. You can have a single member or up to four at one time. When I asked how many party members you could have, they said “what we’ve shown is four.” This sort of implies it might be possible to have more than four party members, as they said multiple times that the game is “scalable” combat. If this means you can have a whole army under your command, then it’d be an interesting thing to see, but I wouldn’t bet on it.

Obviously a big part of these sorts of RPGs is loot and the inventory system. There will be loot — that much is certain. As for the inventory system, it is said to be more like Baldur’s Gate than Mass Effect, which supposedly had complaints about its inventory system. The inventory and equipment system was shown briefly.

As party members go through more and more battles, we see blood and gore that was sprayed by defeated enemies still left on characters. I don’t know if it goes away eventually or if it is replaced by new blood, but Dan Tudge was apt to point out that the characters do show signs of being in earlier battles

BioWare is determined on establishing Dragon Age as a new franchise. The “Origins” subtitle is symbolic to BioWare because they are going back to their own “origins” by creating this new game franchise. On top of that, Dragon Age: Origins is meant to be the first in the series, so its meant to give background information that the later games fall back on. They’ve been working on the game since 2004, so they are definitely planning for the game to be out in 2009 for the PC only.

Games, Game Reviews

Fallout 3 (Xbox 360) E3 2008 Preview

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Developer/Publisher: Bethesda Softworks

The Xbox 360 version of Fallout 3 made an appearance at E3 2008 in Bethesda’s meeting room. Gamersmark, along with a select few others, was given the opportunity to play for exactly 30 minutes. While a half hour isn’t exactly a long time to be playing a game of this size, it definitely does let you get enough of a taste and a feel for what the game will offer.

Fallout 3 takes a first person shooter approach to the RPG genre. This approach is unique since we don’t see many AAA games that combine those genres. As such, it is really vital to use the Vault-Tec Assisted Targeting System, better known as the VATS, which essentially makes the game into a 3D-Tactical RPG. The VATS is very important to use as most of the enemies you encounter will be hard to shoot in a normal FPS way. Using the VATS depletes an AP counter in the bottom right-hand corner. When you run out of AP, you’re able to shoot the enemy using your traditional FPS skills until it recharges. Couple this with a chance that the shot you make doesn’t even go straight, on account of your weaponry slowly degrading with use, and the VATS becomes a necessary element of gameplay. We definitely found it difficult to shoot when outside of the VATS.

The gameplay pauses and allows you to choose your target carefully while using the VATS. A percentage will appear for the different body part you want to shoot at and tell you what the chances of hitting it is. You might want to disable an opponent by shooting out their legs so they can’t run away or shoot them right in the head if they’re about to beat you with a baseball bat. Depending on how much AP you have, you can tell your character to shoot up to four different times – this may change if they let you get more AP or if shooting with different weapons costs more AP.

The only weapons we were able to find and use were a couple of different pistols. The shooting was pretty fun though, as every time you use the VATS system it goes into a cinematic slow-mo shooting sequence. The camera follows the bullet as it shoots through your gun and into your enemy. When you shoot normally, you won’t see any of that. We’re not sure if there is a way to turn it off, either. Visually, reloading seems a little funky – we couldn’t really see what was going on too well for the pistols we used. You also have a flashlight at your disposal at all times, since it is attached to your Vaul-Tec console.

While we weren’t able to explore the world in-depth, the game itself looked expansive while we ran around the desolate area that was once a city. There are tons of dead trees, rocks, burned out cars and radioactive water. You could technically call the game a post-apocalypitc Oblivion. The content itself, however, is all about Fallout, so it should be pleasant for series fans once they adapt to the new way to play the game. We were also able to venture into Springvale Elementary and explore the burned-out and barely recognizable remains of the school.

There weren’t any noticeable frame rate drops while playing, which is a pretty big change from Oblivion. The graphics are okay, and the sound is also enjoyable. Some textures aren’t exactly that great, but the scale of the game is quite large, excusing some of the graphical inconsistencies. Looking out over the expanse of the desolate wasteland is something lends a feeling of awe, similar to the first time we walked around the world of Oblivion.

There are a lot more features in Fallout 3 that we didn’t get to experience. Perks, repairing weaponry, finding gear, choosing whether or not to be good or evil; there are so many things that the game will offer. Fallout 3 will definitely appeal to anyone who liked Oblivion, or want to experience something in the Fallout universe.

 

Games, Game Reviews

Resistance 2 (PS3) E3 2008 Preview

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Developer: Insomniac Games | Publisher: Sony Computer Entertainment

At E3 2008, I had the opportunity to extensively play the multiplayer mode in Resistance 2. The demo was a 60-man multiplayer game, full of Sony and Insomniac Games employees. The single player demo was only available in a limited-access Sony meeting room.

The map we played on was pretty large and looked like a destroyed mountain town. There were cars strewn about, large holes and vastly different areas to see. There was a lumberyard as well as cabin houses surrounded by lots of trees and water.

The gameplay itself is largely intact from the original Resistance. There are a few things however that felt downgraded – at least from what the demo gives the impression of so far. The Chimera themselves seem to play more like the Human characters now. The Human side basically has the same benefits as the Chimera. All characters are able to use one of several special Chimera abilities called “Berserk.” Berserk powers are different depending on which side you’re on, but you are able to choose your weapon load-out and powers from the get-go. Berserk powers include things like invisibility (while not firing), increased health recovery, more ammo dropped and the like. A Chimera player starts out with one hedgehog grenade this time as well. While this evens the playing field, it feels like it sort of goes against what the first Resistance tried to accomplish.

Some weapons are a little different as well. A few of them got a face-lift, like the Auger and Bullseye. The M5A2 and Rossmore look the same, though. There are also one or two new weapons that are new, namely the Marksman, and the HE Magnum. The Wraith is also allowed for use in multiplayer, which was only available after you completed your primary run-through of Resistance: Fall of Man.

Oddly, I didn’t notice any rocket launchers. It could have just been the game mode, but it seems logical that the Wraith is replacing it. Or perhaps you just don’t start out with a rocket launcher and must find it on the map before you can use it. The Auger makes a bubble shield now instead of a door-shield, which seems weird, but it makes it easier for shooting through at different angles. The handgun is hard to aim precisely with, though adjusting the sensitivity might fix that. The new shotgun feels worthless; even if you’re at point blank range, you’ll have a hard time trying to kill someone.

Something I find very disappointing in contrast to the original Resistance is that you can only hold on to two weapons at a time, meaning you have to switch weapons lying on the floor for the one you’re currently holding. I enjoyed being able to use any weapon I found on the ground, as it was different than what most popular shooters nowadays like to do.

The game seems to emphasize strategy less than the original in this build. I’m hoping that element of the multiplayer isn’t lost when all is said and done. The map we played was just a big open map with a few interesting elements, but in the end it felt like a run-of-the-mill FPS map to me, which is also sort of disappointing considering the first game’s maps all had something unique about them.

Resistance 2 looks good for a third-generation PS3 title. The most obvious comparison I could make was against Killzone 2, which was right around the corner, though the games have vastly differing art styles. Here’s hoping that the single-player mode has some nice things in store as far as level design and character design.

During my play time, I had an unusual seven-kill spree. I was quite an avid Resistance player when I first purchased my PS3, and I’m definitely looking forward to playing Resistance 2’s multiplayer. However, Resistance 2’s single player will be the most compelling aspect when it comes to retail.

The demo didn’t let me customize controls, but one of the exhibitors said they’re still going to add more stuff to the options menu. Pressing R3 for melee was less comfortable than pressing X. You can also now shake the controller to perform a melee attack, which is a fine use for the Sixaxis motion control.

People who liked the first Resistance will probably like Resistance 2. It might appeal to more people because it aligned itself closer to the elements of today’s popular shooters. Since the single-player mode aims to continue the story-line, we can expect to at least learn a little bit more about the world that is created in the Resistance games.

Games, Game Reviews

Warhawk (PS3) E3 2006 Preview

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Developer: Incognito Entertainment/SCE Santa Monica | Publisher: Sony Computer Entertainment

Warhawk has created a tremendous buzz at this E3, especially since it was the only game on the floor to use Sony’s newest feature in the PS3 controller — the motion sensitivity. Regardless of what preconceptions you might have about Warhawk and the motion sensing, it ends up being a mixed bag when it comes to its actual execution.

The game itself looks pretty spectacular. I was impressed with the visuals at their current stage, especially seeing it on a full 1080p HDTV. There weren’t very many “jaggies” at all. Basically the whole demo encompassed you destroying tons of planes and a couple of cruisers allowing you to see how the game basically worked.

Of course, the biggest focus in this game at the show was how well it utilized the motion sensing. There were rumblings online about how the developers at Incognito only had about two weeks to integrate the motion sensing use and only used two of the axis’ – even so the motion sensing was very intuitive. Some people say there was a lag between your hand moving and the plane, but I felt like it was pretty much how it should have been. You can’t expect a huge metal plane to maneuver as fast as two hands with a plastic controller – there should be some sort of realism, right?

The demo offered either Hover Mode or Flight Mode and used the motion sensing to fly around and target enemies – pressing Square to shoot at them. The targeting was alright, but it was the weak point of the demo. Hopefully it will be improved by the final version, but it was definitely playable as it was. To do a barrel roll, you would press one of the shoulder buttons and tip the controller all the way to that direction. Otherwise you’ll just make a very sharp turn if you don’t press the button.

I had fun with the Warhawk demo, and it was definitely a great way to show off the motion controlling even though it wasn’t perfect and needed to be tweaked a little bit more. This resurrected franchise from the PSOne days should definitely come to be an excellent revival.

 

Games, Game Reviews

Motorstorm (PS3) E3 2006 Preview

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Developer: Evolution Studios | Publisher: Sony Computer Entertainment

To my surprise, Motorstorm was on the show floor at Sony’s booth. The problem was it was sort of hidden, which is a shame because it was awesome. Can’t-possibly-be-legal dirt battle racing doesn’t get much better than Motorstorm. Racing to the finish is the obvious goal of the game, but how you get there is different from anything I’ve ever seen or experienced. As you race through the course, you leave tracks in the dirt, degrading its quality and making it that much slippier – more than it may already be. Coupled with some amazing A.I., Motorstorm is quite literally a blast.

Each vehicle has its own strengths when it comes to the kind of track and what route you decide to take. In the demo, I played as the buggy and its strength was leaned towards dry land racing as opposed to wet terrain or mud. Unfortunately for me, I didn’t know that until after and ended up losing pretty badly. The opponent A.I. is very impressive as well, as they will try everything in their power to exploit your weakness — nothing short of ramming into you or making you slam into a wall or a huge rock. As you make your way through the track, your car becomes dirtier and dirtier, and you even see the mud fly out from beneath the wheels. Attention to detail like this made Motorstorm look really cool. As for the motion blur, it’s integrated nicely, even though it might be happening at speeds that shouldn’t really have it. The blur increases as you go faster. When you crash, your vehicle might break apart, allowing you to watch the parts fly off in slow motion. These effects add to the immersion and make the game more fun; especially on the huge HDTV they had it hooked up on.

I had the opportunity to ask the producer how he thought they might be able to use the recently added motion sensing capabilities in the PS3 controller to the game, and he said they might make it so if you flick the controller in a certain direction, your driver would lash out at a vehicle next to you, which sounds pretty cool, but as of E3 it wasn’t in the game. I am personally excited for Motorstorm. I think it’ll turn out to be a great game when all is said and done.

Games, Game Reviews

Full Auto 2: Battlelines (PS3) E3 2006 Preview

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Developer: Pseudo Interactive | Publisher: SEGA ||

Virtua Fighter 5 isn’t the only Sega game to get excited about for the PS3. Full Auto 2 is coming exclusively to the PS3. Strap on your excitement helmet and get ready for some good old fashioned cars-retrofitted-with-machine-guns-and-rockets action! With potentially fantastic elements, Full Auto 2 look like it’ll end up being quite fun. The game has interactive environments and super glossy (not to mention expensive) civilian-type cars with weaponry, so it’s up to you to be Mr. Full Auto and kill everyone and everything you can.

The E3 demo was just the multiplayer battle mode, so after you died, you respawned, and proceeded to rack up as many points as you can by blowing up your opponents. It was pretty fun; I ended up playing a few games in about half an hour, completely oblivious to the Virtua Fighter 5 action going on in the same booth. I had the opportunity to ask one of the level designers about what they might use the motion control for. He said he wasn’t sure about it being used for steering (since people would lay down while playing sometimes) but rather for aiming with the weaponry. As it was right now, the aiming requires you to move the car because the crosshairs are right in the middle of the screen.

Regardless, Full Auto 2 is a pretty fun multiplayer game as it stands now, and should be better by the time the game is ready to ship.

Games, Game Reviews

SingStar (PS2) E3 2006 Preview

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Developer: SCE London Studio | Publisher: Sony Computer Entertainment

While at E3 this year, I was able to try out Sony’s Singstar for the PS2. At first I was a little hesitant to pick up the surprisingly well-made microphone, and just stood by watching other people sing. But when nobody was playing anymore, I decided to give it a try. While I played, one of the representatives from Sony that was demonstrating the game played with me the whole time. SingStar has been a very popular game in Europe, so its surprising that it took so long for the game to come over – it was instantly apparent to me why it’s so popular as soon as I started playing.

The most impressive thing about the game is the user interface. It’s very clean and very intuitive, and I actually like shuffling through album covers while looking for songs to sing. There is a very generous mix of rock and pop music, and it was interesting to see Nirvana, The Darkness, and Franz Ferdinand (to name a few) in the song list. Just as Guitar Hero helps you better appreciate what a guitarist can do, SingStar will make you appreciate how well someone can sing or perform certain lyrics. The “do do do” and “lucky lucky” interludes Franz Ferdinand’s “Do You Want To” come to mind as being very tricky to get the words right. The high notes in “I Believe In a Thing Called Love” by the Darkness also come to mind as being incredibly challenging.

The game shows you the music video while you sing. This gives players something to watch during solos and other non-singing parts, so you’re not completely bored. When you are supposed to sing, the lyrics show up at the bottom of the screen with the word you’re singing highlighted. Depending on how close you are to getting the correct note/pitch, you get points. Playing alone probably won’t be as fun as it would be playing with someone else, just because it’s fun being able to compete and see who sings better. Lines show up on the screen corresponding to how the actual song is sung. As you sing into the microphone, another line will appear, graphically depicting if you are higher or lower than the note you should be at. The closer you are to the song’s own line, the more points you get. If you hit notes correctly at certain points of a song’s line that are sparkling, you’ll get a “Golden Note” which counts for bonus points. It’s a very simple game – one that can teach you how to sing your favorite songs.

I had fun playing SingStar on PS2. A version is coming to the PS3 that will allow players to download songs, but the multiple PS2 versions will be pre-chosen packages. Even though the PS3 version was on the floor, I wasn’t able to try that one out because there were a lot more people packed into the PS3 section cracking jokes about “600 dollars” than I would have cared to show off my singing abilities to.

 

Games, Game Reviews

Guitar Hero II (PS2) E3 2006 Preview

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Developer: Harmonix Music Studios | Publisher: RedOctane

Guitar Hero II, you say? New songs, you say? Sold! Guitar Hero II is basically Guitar Hero with different songs. So far the game seems better, but how? Well, the multiplayer mode has become more worthwhile – much more worthwhile. The single player mode’s highlights are basically being able to play the new songs, so multiplayer is a different kind of special.

As opposed to the first Guitar Hero, songs in the sequel are recorded with two “tracks” – one for the lead guitar and one for rhythm guitar. If there is only one guitar, bass will be used for the second track. Needless to say this an improvement over the first game since it made you share the same track. However, that doesn’t mean they removed the previous mode — both the new and the old style of play are here. There is nothing gameplay-wise that was in the first game that isn’t in Guitar Hero II.

I played the game at E3, and was able to experience a new song first hand. For some reason I wasn’t doing all that good, maybe because I was really close to the screen or maybe because my timing was off that day. There looked to be new venues and new characters, which is good if only just to show more of a change between the two Guitar Hero games, but the main addition will be new songs that are going to be included.

As it is, Guitar Hero is a great game and getting a new set of songs to play is exciting to wait for. There’s nothing new about the guitar for Guitar Hero II, so you’ll be able to use your guitar controller already. Fifty songs or so are said to be in the new Guitar Hero, so it’ll be exciting to see more of the songs revealed as the game comes closer to shipping.

The list of songs that have been revealed so far is as follows:

Drist – Arterial Black (original track)
Primus – John The Fisherman (original track)
The Reverend Horton Heat – Psychobilly Freakout
KISS – Strutter
Black Sabbath – War Pigs
The Butthole Surfers – Who Was in My Room Last Night
The Kinks, as performed by Van Halen – You Really Got Me
Rush – YYZ

Games, Game Reviews

Mobile Suit Gundam: Crossfire (PS3) E3 2006 Preview

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Developer/Publisher: Bandai Namco Entertainment

Mobile Suit Gundam made its way to Sony’s show floor in a barebones sort of way. This game in particular allowed for more than just testing the short demo itself, but seeing what parts of the controller had been improved. As you may or may not know, the controller’s regular two analog sticks’ resolution had been increased from 8 bit to 10 bit. Basically, meaning they are more sensitive — the extra sensitivity helped out tremendously in the demo.

Mobile Suit Gundam’s camera is placed in an over-the-shoulder view. Though the Gundam takes up a little bit more of the screen than it probably should (about half), the Gundam model looks very nice. Even the enemy Mobile Suits looked cool; the only thing that really sucked about the game in terms of graphics was everything else. They plop you down in a desolate mountain desert and let you blow up six enemy Leos and a couple of guard towers. Hoorayyyy… however, I did enjoy the little bit that was offered. Regular movement was a bit slower than it probably should have been, and made it harder to actually put your laser sword to any good use.

The main weapons I used were the machine gun and the head Vulcans (machine guns in the head). It didn’t take too long to defeat enemies. If you happen to actually get damaged enough during the demo (aka you suck at games and probably life) body parts will start to fall off, disallowing use of certain weaponry or abilities. I hadn’t figured it out until my last play-through of the demo, but you can boost while on the ground, allowing you to move a lot faster and not rely solely on sprinting on foot towards your enemies. The boost also allows you to jump to get to higher places but when you land it takes a second or two for your Gundam to recover.

To me, it was weird to see such a barebones demo for Mobile Suit Gundam out on the show floor when there was the Xbox 360 counterpart Mobile Ops: One Year War practically finished already. For what its worth, though, the PS3 version did look noticeably better.

 

Games

Dave’s E3 2005 Journal: SNK and a Box of Neo-Geos

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This entry is part 3 of 3 in the series Dave's E3 2005 Journal

When I went on the second day of E3, I had the pleasure of seeing the event how it should be: with all the lights on. Needless to say, everything looked brighter. I don’t know if it was the affect of brightness that made it more apparent that AJ was wearing a trench coat that was particularly eye-catching (to say the least, since like 50 people came up to ask him where he got it and stuff), but that wasn’t the only highlight of the day. No siree.

We left a little later than I would have liked. I’d say we’d actually gotten on the road at around 8:00 or so, because we had to wait in the drive-thru for Jack-In-the-Box. But that wasn’t even the part that took the longest. From Point A to Point B, we were in traffic that was crawling at about Five MPH. We didn’t even get to the LA Convention Center until about 9:15 or so, and I didn’t hit the speed limit once.

When we got into the actual building, I called Dan to tell him we were there. He said they were in the press room along the far wall. It should be noted that every time I talk to someone on the phone, I have to ask them to repeat what they said about five hundred times before I can understand them since it’s so loud, and I have a thing about not holding my cell phone the right way. After a little confusion (it took us longer than I’d like to mention) about actually where this mystical “press room” was, it turned out that it was the same place we got our badge holders in. Silly me. Another funny part of it is that each time AJ had gone down the hall that we were supposed to, I told him to go down another hall with me. So he went down the right hall twice before we actually went the right way together.

We met up with Dan and Marcus who were doing stuff on the web site at the time. Since I forgot that we were supposed to make business cards of some type, Dan gave us a handful of his to use between us, so that we could just write our stuff on the back of it and give it out. We left the area afterwards, and went to the floor, looking at the games we’d already seen the day before, and stepping in to play a few of them. This encompassed most of our day, and except for a small period of time between 10:40 a.m. and around 12:15 p.m.

The games I had played today, and forgotten to mention about yesterday are as follows:

StarCraft: Ghost – I hadn’t actually played the game, but I did see it played in what could be described as a Capture the Flag mode. The game was ridiculously awesome, especially since I’m a long-time StarCraft player (not exactly a veteran, but I do love the game) of about seven years, so it was really cool seeing how all the vehicles and Terran units were modified and changed after ten years since the first game came out. I had always wondered why they hadn’t done anything more with the StarCraft franchise, but the empty space in my heart has been filled with just watching other people play StarCraft: Ghost. From the looks of it, it seemed like it was better, and more unique than Halo. Since its set in the StarCraft universe, people could chose to be a Ghost, Firebat, or Marine, and drive Siege Tanks, Vultures (which seem like they handle exactly like a Ghost in Halo), and other original vehicles made for the game. The mode that was currently being played in multiplayer was a very interesting version of Capture the Flag. Instead of retrieving a flag and taking it back to your base, the object of the game was to infiltrate a factory, lift it off, and land it in your base for a certain amount of time. It looked really fun, because players of the other team were constantly raiding the factory, taking it over, and launching it off the ground back towards their base. I predict StarCraft: Ghost will put the Halo name to shame, even though I loved the original Halo.

Battlefield 2: Modern Combat – This game is another from the development team DICE and publisher EA, who have worked together in the past with Battlefield 1942 and Battlefield Vietnam. Battlefield 2 is a modern combat game, using all of today’s weaponry, and the added surprise (to me at least) of artillery fire. While the featured demo was multiplayer and featured only one map, once you got used to the PS2 controller, the game became really fun. All the soldier classes (considering the types that are usually included in a Battlefield game) were available to choose from, so it provided a wide variety in the troops. I played for about an hour or so. You can read my preview of the game here:
http://www.gamersmark.com/previews/view/253

Burnout Revenge – I only played the original Burnout for all of about half an hour on the Xbox at my friend’s house, and was really not that into the game. Three games later, (and while I haven’t played it, I hear Burnout 3 is really good) Burnout Revenge has really impressed me. What could only be described as high adrenaline racing, you drive into your competitors, trying to crash them into walls, and it’s helpful to just be as reckless as you can while still trying to win 1st place. The crash scenes and the explosions are really amazing because of the angles and slow motion they use to efficiently deliver all the action that is happening. There were two courses available for play in a single player mode for the E3 demo that was on display. I’m definitely looking forward to the final product.

Kingdom Hearts II – Kingdom Hearts II builds on top of what made Kingdom Hearts so great, and added some level of complexity. This is definitely a welcome change for those who bought the first game, but I’m not sure how it be for little kids who played it. Complexity issues aside, Kingdom Hearts II is an all new adventure, bound to be full of the characters that were in the original, as well as different Disney movies like, Mulan as well as others, which will provide the setting. Hades (from Hercules) takes a big part in the game from the looks of it. There’s a boss battle where you fight the Cerberus with Auron from FFX, which allows for some really cool cooperative attacks. In the first Kingdom Hearts, the FF characters didn’t accompany you on your journey, but the demo obviously seems to suggest otherwise for the sequel. The battle system is just as fluid as ever, and with the inclusion of a concept of “forms” Sora can change his fighting style (the one included in the game allowed Sora to have double Keyblades) which makes for some pretty exciting innovations. One thing is for certain though, if Kingdom Hearts II includes the Gummi Ship minigame thing they had in Kingdom Hearts, then I’ll probably just scream, because I never understood how to do anything with that freaking ridiculous concept.

Now its time for the SNK predicament. This is a very special part of my E3 journal, because if I hadn’t played Kingdom Hearts II ,
Battlefield 2, and Burnout Revenge afterwards, I would have been pissed off.

10:30 – I realize its 10:30, and stop playing Kingdom Hearts II. AJ and I have an appointment with SNK Playmore, which is in the hall that we weren’t in. So we had to go — quick style.

10:40 – We arrived at the SNK Playmore booth. I went up to the Press Desk to check in, and told them who I was and that I was with GamersMark.com. The lady looked at the list she had, and “gamersmark.com” was listed on it. She asked me for a business card, which I gave to her with information I had written on the back of it. She asked me who I was supposed to meet, but I didn’t know any name because we weren’t given one. She said to hold on, went into the backroom, and disappeared forever. That’s right, I never saw her again. Maybe she was really hungry and decided the business card would be a delectable treat. So, under the impression that we had to “hold on,” AJ and I looked at the old Neo Geo stuff they had in a case. Then we sat down, still waiting. AJ took out something and started reading, sitting on the floor. I looked around and saw that someone was done playing Metal Slug 5. I took it upon myself to play Metal Slug 5, since all the other games they had were relatively uninteresting old games they were porting to the current generation of systems which would all eventually have Live-enabled multiplayer. Whoopidoo.

10:59 – I notice it’s nearly 11:00, and figure that they should be coming out to greet us soon. So I continue playing Metal Slug 5.

11:04 – I look at my cell phone again, and notice its 11:04. So I thought “Ok, maybe they forgot.” So I went to the Press Desk again and did the whole process again that I had with the first woman that was there, since the person there now was completely different. She asked me for a business card, and then went to the backroom. We waited for about a minute, and she came back out and waved us in. So I called to AJ and then we went in. The lady then said “he’ll be right out.” So we took a seat on the couches. At this point it was about 11:06.

Interlude: 11:06 – 11:40 – During this time, amid weird looks by other members of the “press” at AJ’s trench coat, AJ and I read all the magazines and stuff we got for free. I drank a can of Sprite. I got up and got a small turkey sandwich with a thin piece of lettuce in it. While I was getting the sandwich, the guy I had seen walking around every which way through the room complained to me about how they had no mustard for the sandwiches, because they had it yesterday. I just said “Oh, that sucks.” It was then I thought that it would be funny if that was the guy we had to meet for our meeting. At this point we had waited about fifteen minutes already. So I went back to my seat, and ate the sandwich. This random guy comes from somewhere, with a sandwich and takes a drink from the bowl on the table. He asked AJ where he got his trench coat, and after AJ said the same thing he said to everyone else, the random guy asked us who we worked for. We said “Gamersmark.com” and the random guy said “Oh, really. I think I heard of you. Kind of ’up and coming.’ I hear you guys are pretty cool.” Yeah, right. I doubt he’s ever heard of us. That was the most general statement for any web site. That’s why we ignored him after, and acted like we had no interest in him. After a while later, I finished my sandwich, and then the random guy picked up his stuff and left. Afterwards, we waited for like another ten minutes before I got frustrated.

11:40 – I just about had it at this point, because we checked in 20 minutes early, only to be ignored. So I went back outside to the Press Desk to see what was up. There was another different person there (so that counts as three different women I saw at the desk). She was talking to someone else, so I stood by waiting for her to stop talking. While she was talking to him, she looked right at me, so I had assumed that she would talk to me after. Turns out, that wasn’t the case. Another dude comes out of nowhere and asks her a question, and they talk for about a minute, so I stepped in closer to where she was so that she would pay attention to me.

11:45 – I told the 3rd lady that we had been waiting inside the backroom for about 40 minutes and hadn’t met anyone yet. She said she’d see what was up, so I followed her back there, and then sat back down next to AJ. She went into a room and told someone that we had been waiting for about an hour. So, whoever she was talking to was supposedly in a meeting still. So when the guy in the meeting left, the guy who I could only think is the Manager/Director of the booth for SNK came out and apologized for the long wait. He asked who we were supposed to meet, and I said we didn’t know, we just know we had an appointment with SNK at 11:00 a.m. The Manager apologized again and asked if we had taken any food or drinks. I said we did, and he said that was good. He said “You’re supposed to meet my pr representative, let me go get him.” So after he went chasing after him for about another five minutes, he brought back the mustard guy.

11:50 – “Ohhhh, so YOU’RE Gamersmark!” is what the mustard guy said. No shit, Sherlock. We’d only been sitting in that room for the last half an hour watching him walking around the whole time because we weren’t there for any particular reason. But then I guess I couldn’t expect him to actually look for two guys that work for Gamersmark.com that he was supposed to meet at 11:00. So, we finally got our meeting underway, except we had to do it together with another guy. Wanna guess who it was? The Senior Editor of Play Magazine. Great, not only do we get ignored for an hour, we get overshadowed by a more prominent figure in the video game media than us lowly Gamersmark.com staffers.

12:00 or so – The mustard guy told us about which of SNK’s games that they were porting from their Neo-Geo to release on Xbox/Xbox 360. The mustard guy said that SNK loved Xbox because the fanbase likes 2D games more than that of the PS2’s. Supposedly all their 2D game sell horribly on the PS2, and all their games being released are for Xbox, save for the Metal Slug 4/5 combo pack that’s coming out later this year. Depending on the success of that, they may or may not become exclusive to Xbox. He also said that they were making a Metal Slug game in 3D. During the whole time, the senior editor dude kept pressing for special treatment of playing the games that weren’t available out on the floor. So between my nods, and saying “yeah” to transfer the message that I was listening to what he was saying about release dates for games, I had to listen to the annoying senior editor guy asking about being able to play games that no one else could. The mustard guy said that they’d have something after the show just for them. So, lucky him. That was basically all that happened. I didn’t go away from the meeting I had with SNK with the same feeling I had gotten from Namco. Maybe it was because we were ignored for so long, or maybe because Namco actually made us feel like they wanted us to find out about their games and had people actually working on the game explain them to us. We got press kits from the mustard guy then left. On the way out, the Manager acknowledged us when we left, and we said thanks to him. The Manager was a nice guy, in hindsight.

So, thanks to all that, there’s a lot more on today’s journal than originally planned. Be happy. The rest of the day we just walked around, and played some more games. We left when we got tired. On a side note, I don’t hate SNK.

Games

Dave’s E3 2005 Journal: Lines Everywhere but No Power Anywhere

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This entry is part 2 of 3 in the series Dave's E3 2005 Journal

Today was the first day of the exhibits at E3. A lot more happened today than I could have really anticipated.

I thought that it was impossible for E3 to suck at all, except for one thing that could happen, that could make it suck. A power outage. And that’s what happened this morning in the LA Convention Center. It wasn’t the LACC’s problem, it was the city’s problem, so there was no telling when they’d be able to get the power back up. Fortunately, they had generators running to keep the emergency lights on around the building and the parking lot. That didn’t keep the parking lot from looking like a dungeon though.

After AJ and I got to the parking lot, we drove around looking for a parking space. We drove around for a half an hour at least, constantly behind a long line of cars, wondering if I had wasted money on the parking ticket I bought. After a while, we were finally directed to an area, by staff. In a dark abyss of a corner, there were finally some parking spaces. When we finally got in the door, people had to deal with the power outage, quite simply because there wasn’t really anything to do because of it.

We met up with Dan and Marcus, who were in line waiting for the media briefing that was held before the exhibits opened. Everyone in line would get a bagel and listen to the media briefing. Dan and Marcus lost interest in attending the media briefing, and both decided to go to McDonalds and eat something there. Since AJ and I already ate, we just stayed in line because there was nothing to do. However, because of the power outage, some dude that worked there (I’m assuming) said some stuff about “since the power outage is blah blah blah, so the media briefing won’t blah blah blah.” I couldn’t really hear him because it was really loud and he was kind of far away. So, AJ just said we should just leave because they probably weren’t going to even hold the briefing. But I contested wholeheartedly because we’d get a bagel. AJ said it would be a shitty bagel, but I said “how do you know?” Other people in line made some comments about what we were talking about, but we didn’t pay attention to them, because they were stupid.

We walked around for about fifteen minutes in the lobby. We were handed some publications to read by some random people. One was an issue of GameInformer, and the other was an E3 Newspaper thing made by the ESA (the group that makes E3 possible). We sat around outside (because it was hot inside) and read what we were given, wondering if there’s going to be an E3 still because of the power outage. We waited until about 9:55 a.m. before we went back inside. Then the doors opened to E3, and the huge herd of people flooded into the E3 with cheers. Took a little while to actually get in, but we did.

The whole day we walked around pretty much, looking at all the different games around. I saw a lot of games being premiered for the first time like Shadow of the Colossus, Jak X Combat Racing, SOCOM 3, and like a thousand other games. There were big screen TVs everywhere and it was freaking loud.

Random information I gathered:

Square Enix is releasing a slew of RPGs in the coming months, such as Kingdom Hearts II, Radiata Stories, Romancing SAGA, Fullmetal Alchemist, etc.

Namco is trying to make all new franchises for their expansion into the PC realm of gaming instead of porting their games from the consoles, so the games have a feeling that is more than “Oh its on PS2, but now they’re putting it on the PC,” however it wouldn’t be stupid to think that some could transfer to console systems. When I poised the questions to different members of the Namco staff on-site at E3, they declined to comment on any possible porting of the PC games to the consoles, which could be a good sign in certain cases, depending on the type of game.

Of the games I saw, I only played/learned about a few enough to actually know something about the game. The following games qualify for the list of “what I know.”

Phantasy Universe – I hadn’t played a Phantasy game by SEGA since Phantasy Star Online on Dreamcast. I instantly noticed the control scheme was amazingly better than PSO. I didn’t know if it was online, but whatever mode I was playing, I was accompanied by three NPCs in my team. I thought that it could be a really good game from what I had played.

Before Crisis: Final Fantasy VII – This is the mobile game we’ve been hearing about which is a prequel of sorts to FFVII. It was all in Japanese, so I couldn’t tell you how the story was or anything, but by the way it looked, it had the best graphics for a mobile phone game I’d ever seen. But the controls don’t make the same impression. While it was still only in development, I’ve seen games that come out and have horrible controls regardless, so I had told someone about the way I felt the game should be improved a little bit. It was definitely hard to control your character in an action-battle setting, where you had to dodge around and hit your enemies, while they were firing at you and moving around as well. Needless to say, you need something better than a mobile phone to control that well. Also, if you were hit by the enemy who had a gun (you only had a sword, since you were that red-headed Turk), their rate of fire was that that you couldn’t hit them with your sword before they hit you, making it hard to get any hits in at all. Another minus was that the enemies had a lot of HP for being such low level ones. I can only wonder how hard boss battles (or the final boss battle, for that matter) would be. I’d gander a “near impossible.”

Kingdom Hearts 2 – looks like it plays just like what made the first Kingdom Hearts so great. They probably improved certain aspects of the gameplay and stuff, but I didn’t have a chance to actually play it. Perhaps in the coming days I will be able to.

Warhammer – One of Namco’s PC-only games. Its going to be an RTS game, but all they had of the game was a trailer with no in-game footage. Warhammer is a cool concept, so its possible the game could be very good.

Hellgate: London – I can’t say anything bad about it. I really think it’ll be one of the best games to come out on the PC. It mends together aspects of First Person Shooters and RPGs in a really cool way. You can read my preview for it here: http://www.gamersmark.com/previews/view/235/

Mage Knight Apocalypse – Another game from Namco’s wave of PC titles. Based on a table top game, Mage Knight Apocalypse prides itself on the fact that even though its an MMORPG-type game, there is no leveling up at all, which they feel takes away from the experience of playing the game, because it pulls you away from it while you level up. They explained that the stats increased as you used certain skills during the game, such as swinging your weapon or using spells. The skills that are increased would only be increased based on what you actually used during the game, so that means that if you use melee weaponry, you won’t get a magic skill for doing so.

It was a long day, and there’s two more coming up. We’re going to be concentrating more on playing the actual games than looking around and getting a feel for what’s around so we can prioritize our time the next day or two. And on a side note, the displays and booths look really cool. Each company has its own style. All the non-creative/low budget companies took up cubicles in the back of the halls though, so they weren’t as interesting.

We also saw some dude from Australia who had a virtual reality hardware thing called the a_rage. The technology and concept was really cool, since virtual reality was actually feasibly possible with it. They are an independent company, so I hope their product succeeds to some extent.

(Thanks to Marcus for subtitle name for the article.)

Games, Game Reviews

Hellgate: London (PC) E3 2005 Preview

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Developer: Flagship Studios | Publisher: Bandai Namco Entertainment

I had the pleasure of being invited to an appointment to check out Namco’s new PC games today at E3. The games I had seen were Mage Knight Apocalypse, and Warhammer, and Hellgate: London. Namco’s goal in their expansion to the PC market is to create new franchises that aren’t featured on consoles, to give the made-for-PC attitude in their upcoming PC games. Mage Knight Apocalypse was available in a playable form, but Warhammer was just shown as a trailer. The only game I had actually gotten hands on with was Hellgate: London.

The version of Hellgate: London that is on the E3 floor was still in development, but it had a lot of elements already added in the game for playing. The actual story for Hellgate: London is fairly simple. Being set 20 years in the future, demons come from Hell and you have to stop them as part of the last surviving humans on the Earth. Similar to adventure games with RPG elements, Hellgate: London stresses character development and increasing the abilities of your character and his weaponry. In this respect, the game becomes very unique when it integrates its weaponry choices. There are many different kinds of guns and melee weapons, that you can create different combinations of in both of your hands. The only melee weapons currently in the game are swords, but a representative of the development team said that they will be including different kinds of weapons, such as a cricket bat, so that you can kill things in a style that you want. From what I’ve seen, there are rifles and pistols that have futuristic kinds of ammo/uses, some in an almost magical way. The rifle that I saw (almost similar to how a shotgun works) unleashes white balls of light that spread out among the area and create a lot of damage, though not very accurate. The rifle works really well when there’s a large group of zombies, demonic creatures, or other enemies. The pistols aren’t anything too out of the ordinary from what I saw, but the kinds of ammo they have are unique. You can upgrade your weaponry as you collect more weapons, and also equip more items to your body, changing your character’s appearance.

Hellgate: London is not a pure first person shooter; rather it uses a combination of first and third person views. It is useful in some cases to use the first person view, and also switch out of it to the third person view to get a look more at what’s around you. The first person view can only be used when you have only guns (meaning no combination of a gun in one hand a melee weapon in the other), because using melee weapons in first person is hard to use, and wasn’t included. I had asked the member of the developer team (who was the art director) whether or not that would be included. He said it might not be, because it was undecided whether or not they would put that in. Through my experience with playing a game called Thief, which used first person melee attacks, it was hard to function. In this regard, the ability to switch between perspectives is a very much welcomed aspect. He also mentioned that Shops would take a big part in the game, though they haven’t been included yet. Shops would be used to sell the items you gather and save your game when you visit. Some sort of a quest-structure is to also be included in the game, so that the game can move along when playing single player. The RPG elements, the concept of modding weaponry, and the beat-em-and-shoot-em-up feeling you get from the game can appeal to a broad audience of PC gamers, as it reaches a middle-ground between FPS and a game like Everquest.

While the game takes place in London, there are two parts to the game: above ground and underground. All the maps are generated randomly, so you’ll never go into the same area again, as the main purpose of the game is just to develop your character in classic RPG style. Upon the question of whether or not there would be multiplayer included in the game, the art director said they haven’t included it in the game, but they do want to put it in. If there are the standard types of competitive online game modes we’ve seen with most first person shooters and having some sort of a quest mode be played co-operatively.

The actual version that I had played was quite impressive. For being Flagship Studios’ first game and a part of Namco’s first wave of PC titles, I was very impressed by how good the graphics looked; the game was very fluid for being in an early stage of development. The development team did an amazing job in creating the settings and areas. The ruined look of a city ravaged by demons, gave the actual feeling that if a demon invasion happened in the real world, it would look just like they had portrayed it. The art director told me that as you progress through the game, enemies get tougher, weapons get better and more improvements are available for your character.

I have no doubt that Hellgate: London will not disappoint. I came out of E3 today looking forward to being able to play more of the game and to see how it turns out more than any other game I had looked at while I was there, mostly because of how well the development was going in such an early stage. The release date for Hellgate: London is to be determined, so whether or not it will be released this year or next year is left to question.

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Dave’s E3 2005 Journal: Calm Before the Storm

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This entry is part 1 of 3 in the series Dave's E3 2005 Journal

So, I woke up today at around 6:30 and took a shower. When I got out of the shower, I got dressed and then called AJ. After I told him he was coming with me, I drove over to his place, and like we had decided last night, we went to go eat somewhere, but first AJ had to get batteries for his camera and some cash. Afterwards we went to eat some doughnuts. Anyway, there wasn’t too much traffic on the way there, since we caught the last bits of rush hour I believe. When we got there, there was no trouble parking, but I can only imagine how hard it’ll be tomorrow for that.

When we got in, we got our media badge holders, and looked around. Everything was still being set up, so nothing was actually being shown yet. Its a good thing we got our badge holders and everything really easily, because it’ll probably be hell tomorrow morning.

Me Standing In Front of Cardboard GTA Chick

After we got our badges we went back down to the lobby and looked around some more. I called Dan to tell him we were there. They said they were parking right then and that they’d call when they got to the lobby. So we hung out around the lobby some more, and AJ walked around behind the escalators, and low and behold we found the new Batmobile for the upcoming “Batman Begins” movie.

The New Batmobile from “Batman Begins”

When AJ and I met Dan and Marcus for the first time, we shook hands and stuff, then they asked where they could get the media badge holders. On the way there, they asked what was going on today, and we said nothing except the Nintendo conference. While they were getting their badge holders, AJ and I figured out that the Nintendo Conference wasn’t even at the LA Convention Center. Needless to say, we were kinda mad. So, since that was the only thing even happening today for the most part, we didn’t know what to do at all.

We looked at the event list and saw that there was an Educational Game conference hosted by MIT or something like that. We decided to just go, since nothing else was happening, and while AJ and I were looking around some place else, we lost Dan and Marcus. They didn’t say they were going right in, but we assumed they did. AJ was saying we should probably just leave since nothing was happening, but I thought we should at least tell Dan and Marcus before we actually left.

So we went inside the MIT conference thing, and saw Peter Molyneux (game designer for Fable, Black and White, and Black and White 2) talking about his new game where you can make a movie and then share it with people. It seemed pretty interesting. He was talking about how educational games can still be fun, as well.

He was talking about how educational games can still be fun, as well. He talked a lot about all the different things that game developers making educational games had to deal with, and the rising costs of development for the next generation consoles (upwards of 20 million dollars). The main points he made during his main talk was that he wanted games to be used in the classroom to teach. He made a reference to how he learned more about world history from the Civilization games than he had ever known previous. He also mentioned he liked to make games that gave you a choice of being good or bad, because people could see the consequences of their actions whether they be good or bad and see how things happened, similar to real life. He mentioned that in America, 75% of the people chose to be good in games if they were given the chance, but in Europe it was the exact opposite, with them saying 75% of them would chose to be evil. After a while of him talking, he took some questions from the audience. All together that probably took a good 45 minutes. Or at least it felt like it.

A funny part of the conference was that Marcus asked a question about what markets they hoped to appeal to with educational games even though they cost so much because of increasing next-gen development costs. After he answered the question with saying there are enough people out there who would buy an educational game (or to that affect), later on someone else in the audience stood up and made the statement that educational games always sell well, and that “they” (meaning Marcus) should check their statistics again, because she hates it when people say that educational games don’t sell well. I wanted to tell her to stuff it, cause it seems like she was trying to snub Marcus for asking that question, though she really didn’t know who he was. She probably worked for a company that made educational games now that I think of it.

Peter also made a reference to Leroy Jenkins from World of Warcraft, if you know who he is. Molyneux said that he supported the Xbox 360 (but not specifically ONLY) because of its abilities regarding multiplayer games, which he is all in favor of, because people would be able to go on quests with each other and stuff.

He said that major thing in the next-gen platforms was how they could bring people together to play with each other, and that was a very important value for him.

Another question that was brought up in the conference was about the fact that with increasing quality of games, it would be hard for schools that will always have outdated PCs be able to use the games that are top of the line. Molyneux responded with saying that a remedy for that problem would be using video game consoles instead of updating all the PCs every year, since consoles only come out every five years or so.

He also said that there are many games that could help teach courses, such as the Civilization games for world history, or using the Half Life engine (which he said was very useful) to create educational games.

After Peter’s interview/conference session was over, people started to get up and leave, while people stayed for the next conference by Leap Frog. AJ and I already decided we’d just leave after we told Dan and Marcus, and we stayed for the whole conference to do so. So we told them we’d just go since there wasn’t anything to do. They’re probably just hanging around there still, taking pictures and stuff.