Diaries of an E3 Virgin is a short series of articles about the E3 experience from a first timer on the floor. Here’s day zero, day one and day two.
I was exhausted. Once again, we woke up around 7am after yet another late night up. But this was it. The final day. The last chance to see what you needed to see. Being there as press, we were more pressured to see as much as we could in order to cover as much as possible. First stop for the day was Ubisoft. The PR at Ubisoft was great, assigning us a rep to make make sure that we got around to everything we wanted to see.
All of the games were showcased to us in small private theaters were we were treated to new gameplay demos by the developers. Starting things off with The Division, we then saw a brief portion of the open world roaming in Watch_Dogs. Following this, I was surprised with a preview of the new Rocksmith 2014. What I thought was just going to be some minor upgrades to Rocksmith turned out to be a complete overhaul of the game. Specifically we focused on session mode which you’ll find out more about in my preview, but I’ll just say this: AI band mates. And it works.
Now we got a gameplay demonstration of South Park: The Stick of Truth, which was essentially like watching 15 minutes of the show because that’s how well they have done this game – it’s truly incredible what they have done with making it a perfect companion to the TV show. After watching Dan play some Assassin’s Creed IV multiplayer, it was time to hit the merch booth to buy some cool stuff to remember my time here. Only problem with that idea is that it was day three.
On day one I had noticed the merch booth and wanted to peruse its wares, but the lines were long and I was too excited to see the show floor. I’ve learned my lesson for next year. Going on day three, it was like trying to find food in a post apocalyptic wasteland; the shelves were picked over and all of the good stuff was completely gone. Even the less desirable shirts were only available in large or extra large, neither of which will even remotely fit my small frame. Finally I found a decent looking shirt for my wife in a small. While not my first choice of shirt for her, it was the only small in the whole damn place, and I left with nothing for myself.
Well, that’s partially a lie, I did leave with some cool swag from the booths, which was the next stop on my final day tour: more booths. This time, the aim was to hand out our “Best of E3” awards though. Between Dan, Cameron, PMC and I, we got all ten of them passed out and awarded to the developers for the games of our choosing. You can expect our best of E3 article next week to find out our picks.
Awards handed out, I had to make a final stop for a last minute appointment at Warner Bros. They did not have me on their list, but managed to get me a PR rep so that I could see the gameplay demo of Mad Max and then get some hands on time with Batman: Arkham Origins in the press exclusive lounge. After a cold beer and a chat with the lead programmer, the voice over the PA told us all to get out because E3 was over. That was it.
The rest of the night consisted of dinner with our bosses, guest appearing on the GameRevolution Radio Podcast and finally packing and making final arrangements for the trip to the airport in the morning. Exhausted, tired, and sore, I still would not have traded this experience for anything. Attending E3 has been a dream of mine since I can remember and I am finally home with that experience completed.
Thanks to all the E3 veterans from PSLS and GR that helped me out this week. Thanks to the developers for the great presentations and the awesome games. And thanks to my wonderful wife who let me take this trip away from her for a week. It’s been great and fun, but I have to write some previews now. Hopefully you’ve enjoyed the Diaries of an E3 Virgin and stay tuned throughout this week for our previews of the titles that we experienced on the show floor.
