General Discussion

This E3 is the year for cross-promotions. Dodge and Scion were there (yes, the CAR manufacturers), you could pick up painkillers and earplugs from Tylenol’s (T)Ouch booth and I even saw a booth babe in a McDonald’s shirt. That really does show you how much electronics entertainment is becoming a part of the main stream.

As I wandered through Kentia Hall, there was Speed Tree in their usual place – first booth on the left. What’s Speed Tree? Well, those really nice trees you see in Mythic’s Dark Age of Camelot world? They were created by Speed Tree. As are the trees in Auto Assault, Neverwinter Nights and Vanguard:Saga of Heroes. As the years have passed, the trees have only grown more beautiful.

So what is in Kentia? It’s always where the History of Video Games exhibit is, a bunch of arcade machines with which to relive your childhood on classics such as Red Baron, Centipede and Joust, meetings rooms and international booths. Kentia also hosts many small publishers of children’s educational and entertainment software and also various hardware companies, including Intel, AMD, Western Digital and Sapphire.

Sigil was showing Vanguard in Kentia and giving away copies of Computer Gaming Magazine containing Beta Access Codes, and Heroes Journey also remained in Kentia again.

Wandering through, I found Z-Board, manufacturer of the Merc keyboard (which we reviewed) and scored a Fang for us to review, as well as their latest GuildWars Factions skin for the original Z-Board. Z-Board users… watch out for the latest engine which will be released in August. I saw a preview of it and its nifty stuff.

I also ran across Massive Magazine – a new magazine devoted to the MMOG genre, and yes, they have the exclusive on WoW’s new expansion, The Burning Crusade. The magazine is due to launch in September.

The Taiwan pavilion showed some games with interesting graphics, and some incredibly cute games targeted towards children 8+, games with titles such as Angels Love and Mystina where you can ride your cute little unicorn into war and try on different outfits in a fashion show. But that’s an article for another day when I run through other MMOGs out there.

The evening brought me to The Escapist party. If you guys don’t know what that is… check it out. It’s a weekly online game magazine of excellent quality, and it’s free to download. All past issues are also available on their site.

I ran into the Auran Games guys who were out there in force and learned a few new things. 1. The game is named Fury. Not Unleash the Fury, and they’re actually in the 2nd year of a planned 3 year development cycle. Well… no wonder it looked that good.

Well, that was yesterday. A new day today as we tread gingerly on unhappy feet but with enthusiasm on the last day of E3, through the halls to bring you more of the latest MMOGs.

*hums* "Tiptoe through the Tulips"