#NerdsUnite: E3 on the DL ... word!
<editorsnote> Nerds, meet my buddy Sean. He has a really rad site called Violent Gamer, and he's here today to talk about some of the latest and greatest in the gaming industry. I only have one more thing left to say ... HIT IT SEAN !!</editorsnote>
#TalkNerdyToMeLover's @violent_gamer
A Short Look at E3 2012
Every year the Electronic Gaming Expo, E3, comes to Los Angeles and it is often the biggest gaming event of the year. It is a press only event, for the most part, but there are students, exhibitors and others wondering around as well. For three days we get to explore the two giant halls of the Los Angeles Convention center and take a look at the biggest games and electronics. There is usually a bunch of smaller developers attached to some of the big publishers like Microsoft or Sony, but for some reason this year there were far fewer indie developers. Adam and I both have had a ton of fun and learned about a great many games, despite Kinect being everywhere and irrelevant presentations all over the place. We also managed to record over an hour of gameplay from many of the games all over the floor. I just wanted to write a little and share some of what we have written about so far, plus show a few videos and some highlights.
Before we were even on the floor of E3 we ran into one of my favorite nerds out there, Wil Wheaton. He is known for quite a few things, but most recently he has been doing his own show on Felicia Day's Geek and Sundry website and Youtube channel. Every two weeks Wil Wheaton does an episode of TableTop. In the show he brings three celebrities in, big and small, and gets them to play a board game with him. He also explains whatever board game they are playing beforehand and while they play. It is an interesting and enjoyable show for anyone who loves board games and really enjoys seeing how people go about. Anyways, it turns out he is a really nice guy and doesn't mind talking to fellow nerds like us. He even stopped long enough to take a picture with us.
Once we got onto the floor of E3 and started checking out games we ended up bumping into Felicia Day as well, but we didn't want to go bother her and her entourage of friends. After that we wandered into Sony's section of the floor and took a look at the role playing game Ni No Kuni, the new Devil May Cry, the smash brothers style fighter Playstation-All Stars, God of War Ascenson and Little Big Planet: Karting. We managed to get up videos for most of those games and Adam wrote something up for Playstation All-Stars: Battle Royale. Our favorite game from the first day of E3 had to have been Planetside 2. It is a free to play first person shooter that puts a huge amount of players on some fairly massive continents and let's them fight over outposts and territories. It is a faction based game and you choose from three factions to fight for. You jump into this futuristic world and customize everything. You can take the skies into bombers and air transports, run over some infantry in tanks or troop transports, or choose one of six infantry classes to fight with. It has been in development by Sony Online Entertainment for quite some time and even though it is free to play, a price model that is usually awful, it is looking to be quite good. They have a beta going for the game right now and we will be writing more about it as we dive into that, but anyone can sign up and try to get access to the beta over at their website. Adam also wrote something up on Planetside 2 and our short time with it at E3 if you would like to read a bit more about it.
We will be doing a bunch more E3 related write-ups throughout the next couple of days, so keep an eye on our website, Twitter or Facebook if you would like to read about any of that. If you are interested in seeing some games in action we have over thirty videos over on our Youtube page from E3 and one of my favorites is posted below. If you want to check out the whole E3 2012 playlist head on over. This video is from Aliens: Colonial Marines, a game based on the Aliens universe, and they had a small multiplayer demo at E3 where one side played the Aliens while the others took control of a squad of Marines. Adam and I played the game and Brian Royce at Gearbox Software, the developers of Aliens: Colonial Marines, played on the Aliens team against us with several other Gearbox developers. Needless to say they absolutely destroyed us and it was a blast. If you are interested in the game you can visit their website or check out the three or four other videos we have of Aliens: Colonial Marines on our Youtube Playlist.
Thanks for reading this little post about E3 and if you are interested in anything else gaming related, or E3 related, Violent Gamer is ready and willing to be perused.