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Someone here in the Insert Credit Fortress said something about playing some Twinkle Star Sprites on Saturn. People are sitting around, waiting for it to be fired up. It's not happening. The problem seems to be that someone needs to use the computer monitor and these people don't have televisions. I'm going to start writing up impressions of everything I saw today, on day one of the 2003 Electronic Entertainment Expo. When at last the Saturn is prepared and Twinkle Star Sprites begins, I will stop writing, and let this thing sit without warning you. At some point, I'll start talking about day two, or day three. At some points while talking about day one, I'll start talking about two weeks later, and then back to day one. My format will change. My words will flow. Don't be frightened -- I'm frightened enough for the both of us.
All the while, I'll try to insert little points about m E3-long quest to Get Hideo Kojima, which we abbreviated G3T K0J1M4.
So let's begin our frightening journey. Someone just mentioned Sonic the Hedgehog, so I suppose I can start there. Listen:
Sonic Heroes (Xbox, GC, PS2), in short, is genius and beautiful and all kinds of other things. It looks like Sonic 2. It plays like Sonic Adventure mixed with Knuckles Chaotix. It feels like a Treasure game -- what with the on-the-fly formation changes -- if that grabs you. I'm struck most powerfully by the colors: green hills, checkerboard brown-and-dark-brown mountainsides, cobalt-blue hedgehog, orange fox, red echidna. I prefer the GameCube version. The buttons to change formation happen to be the X and Y -- the kidney-shaped ones -- on the GC pad, and they're just so easy to hit. Then again, Sonic Heroes, being a Sonic game, is mainly a one-button [jump] affair. I guess it lends itself to the GC pad -- using B to perform actions (Sonic's dash, Knuckles' punch) feels more natural than not. I am impressed, and I like it. If anything confused me, it'd be switching rails on the "hard" demo; I kept falling until I was informed that I had to press a direction on the stick and then tap jump to switch smoothly.
The defining moment of my Sonic Heroes playing session, if you must know, had to be when insert credit's Eric-Jon Waugh touched his index finger to the screen as the three heroes were running in "Power Formation," with Knuckles at the lead. He was pointing at Tails' backside.
"He has . . . cheeks!"
I focused my eyes. Tails indeed does have sculpted little orange ass-cheeks. Trippy. Call the sequel, then, "Tails Got Back." Call this game the Best Game Starring Sonic the Hedgehog at E3.
F-Zero GX (GC), for more than the most part, is F-Zero X on crank. (That was a shout-out to a devoted fan at EDGE. Ahem.). It is seriously the fastest racing game I've ever played. It is Gran Turismo on Twitch. The game looks like the best racing sci-fi game ever would look if people really were silly enough to categorize such things.
Retroactively, as I'm going back and reading through this two weeks after E3, I feel confident enough to name this Tim Rogers' Favorite Game of the Show.
What did it for me is this cylindrical track with segments that take place inside a giant chain-link-ish cage. In the background, when you're outside and racing at a million miles per hour, is a raging rainstorm and flashing lightning. It's too early to say if it's the Best Videogame Rain Ever, because everything's going by so quickly. You don't even notice it until you watch someone else play. The someone else I watched play happened to be Justin Keeling of Tokyopia.com. He tried and retried that insane track, what, six times? He never lost his patience. The man loves his videogames more than most people love anything. That's not the point, though -- the point is that I waited behind him for almost fifteen minutes, and didn't even recognize him as, you know, him until he turned around to hand me the controller. He was smiling when he did so -- and before he recognized me. It had been because of the game.
"Mr. Rogers! I thought you were still in Tokyo!"
"Apparently I'm not," I told him. Or something like that. I was too stunned from the F-Zero to be surprised to see Justin. I then played the game some more.
On day two, I played F-Zero AX, the arcade version. I had to wait in line for about thirty minutes. Which was nothing -- hell, it was an arcade game, and it was free. The game itself was quite a thrill. In fact, I'd say that it has immediately and disturbingly jumped to the top of my list of "Arcade Games I Totally Wish I Owned." Why it disturbs me so much, I don't know. Here I am, declaring F-Zero AX an arcade cabinet more worth owning than Sega's Virtual Wing War. Which I guess is about right. The cabinet itself resembles the Blue Falcon; even though I only pick the Wild Goose, baby, I can appreciate the glossy design. The side-to-side rocking of the seat might be something that requires regular maintenance.
Standing in line for an arcade game made me think of my times as a kid, playing Mortal Kombat II. That was an arcade game right there. Something people lined up for, and waited, and talked about excitedly when they got home. Now, with home games accounting for a billion percent of the market, how do you get people to line up for arcade games? Sega illustrated two such ways at E3:
1. Make the game free.
2. Make the game good.
In carrying out number two -- the far more financially wise option -- Sega Amusement Vision has allowed players to use ships custom-built at home on the arcade machine. All you have to do is be like me, and/or carry a GameCube memory card everywhere. Not a bad deal, huh?
An even not-worse deal is the license card the game prints out the first time you play. I've got mine.
And this guy had his (and a booth babe hanging on his arm). He also had the l33t skilz to place 1st in a race that just about made me vomit. During the race, he was photographed by 100 Japanese photographers in media badges. One of them was from Nikkei Shimbun. One was from Mainichi. One was from Famitsu. Who the rest of them were -- hell if I know. After the race, some Japanese kid literally cried as the guy signed his GameCube pamphlet.
Even though I don't know the guy's name, I figured he was cool enough to bust out some people skills on. And besides, he was standing with Toshihiro Nagoshi, president of Amusement Vision. I asked if he'd be up for a picture. He said rock on. So we rocked.
Anyone who knows who this guy is, let me know.
At any rate, I interviewed the guys:
Me: Excellent game.
Toshihiro Nagoshi, President of Sega Amusement Vision and monthly columnist for EDGE magazine: Thanks.
Me: Awesome job.
SegamanX: Thanks.
Oh, and if you have magic eyes that can decipher The Matrix, why not compare my run with his?
I shall be importing this game upon its Japanese release. Expect me to say far too much about it in the near future.
[next: The Immediate Future]
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