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On my livejournal during the weeks before E3, I tried to coordinate some kind of get-together for insertcredit.com fans at this year's E3. The plans were mostly confused. They were finalized just the night before the last day of E3. In the end, about twenty people came by to say hello to Brandon Sheffield, Chris Woodard, Chuck Franklin, and myself. Our good friend -- and accomplished manga artist -- Persona wrote something up on the insertcredit.com fan community livejournal. If you have a livejournal and don't know about that community, don't hesitate to join. You can add me, too, if you want, and I'll add you back. It's what I do.
We had some fun, out there. At one point, an ice cream vendor came by, to sell us ice cream. Feeling charitable, I commanded that we all buy ice cream. We did. Brandon and I both got these neopolitan ice cream sandwiches (protip: look out for the word "neopolitan" in Japan, as it means "pork, beef, fish" rather than "chocolate, vanilla, strawberry"!) which we then broke our teeth on. It was an almost deadening experience. Really. We almost died from that shit. Yet, it was fun.
As time got on, Seth "Fingers" Flynn Barkan and myself came up with a list of horrible game ideas. Seth is the author of acclaimed book of videogame-related poetry Blue Wizard is About to Die! and insertcredit.com E3 2004 person of the show -- really, he put up with G4 reporters for three hours, and even had the illustrious Gary Coleman read some of his poetry on national television. He deserves a medal or some sort.
The list of games was titles only. I think the best one was "The Sims: Homeless." Anyway, we made a video of it. All of my E3 videos are linked here, on this page. Dig in, like into fine ice cream. First, though, I want to leave something of a warning -- I'm an actor, see. All of the writing that I do is infected somehow with my sin for fiction. I can't appear in a video like this unless I'm lying in some way. When I meet people I meet on the internet, I tend to lie to them because I think it's fun. So watch these videos -- and any other internet videos starring me -- with that knowledge in mind. Normally, I wouldn't make a warning like this, though hey -- I get some weird emails these days. I got an email from a kid's mom the other day, lecturing me for using "THE F WORD" when writing about VIDEOGAMES, which are CHILDRENS' ENTERTAINMENT; I didn't bother telling her that I have not, personally, ever spoken the f-word aloud, because I figure she wouldn't have believed it. I'm neither going to change my devilish ways out of recognition for my position as a social institution nor apologize for them. I'll just warn you once, here, and then never warn you again.
---
I did eventually come to Indianapolis, Indiana, which is where I'm writing this right now. I am finishing it at the house of Doug Jones, my partner in PROJECT: FFDog. He said, drinking a Dr. Pepper while his now-pregnant (you know, I haven't said "congratulations" yet, so: congratulations) wife Julie slept, as I played a game of Ninja Gaiden on Xbox, just having finished my story about Tomonobu Itagaki, "You know, I really wish I could have been there."
"Been where?"
"E3."
"Oh."
"Yeah."
"You didn't miss much," I told him. "The show was a bust -- most everyone was afraid of the DS or the PSP. The DS stole the show."
"Nah, nah -- I mean, I wish I could have gone to LA, hung out with everyone."
"Oh. Yeah."
"I mean, I don't even play games anymore. Well, I mean, I do. I just don't have the money to buy them. Well, I still buy them. I just buy too many."
There is this lament in today's gamers, that they buy too many games and don't appreciate more than half of them half as much as they'd like to. There's a complaint that half of the games people say are good aren't good.
So I decided to write a short list. That list is of games from this year's E3 that you should, if you be a gamer, buy. I have thought this through quite well. Here are the games, with very short descriptions of each. Eric-Jon regrets, probably, that I leave off King of Fighters: Maximum Impact. I regret leaving off Neo Contra. Yet these things must be done. There is room for only five. They are in order of best (1) to fifth-best (5). I call this list
the tim rogers 2004 essential list:
1. Halo 2 (Microsoft (Bungie), Microsoft Xbox). Eric-Jon Rossel Waugh says he won't write a word about why he believes "Kill Bill" is the best movie of recent decades, because talking about it at this point is useless. There are too many kids too wowed by it. I guess I feel the same way about Halo, and come this November 9th, I'll start to feel the same way about Halo 2. Now does someone want to send me an Xbox?
2. Resident Evil 4 (Capcom (Flagship), Nintendo Gamecube). This game was awarded the insertcredit.com e3 2004 game of the show honor, and it is something of a revolution.
3. Final Fantasy XII (Square-Enix, Sony PlayStation2). Some people say they hate Final Fantasy, so they won't play a Final Fantasy game. Yet people who like Final Fantasy will buy any game with "Final Fantasy" in the title. This is curious, because each of the main series' games are so different from their predecessors that they might as well belong to a different franchise. The haters should know this as well as the lovers do: this is a whole new game. Chances are, even if you didn't like the last game (or two), you might like this one. Don't be a jackass about these things. In the plainest terms, the words "Final Fantasy," when followed by a standard Roman numeral, can be translated as "game in which at least one thing is polished to the highest quality." This beats most games out there.
4. Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater (Kojimanami, Sony PlayStation2). Hideo Kojima has his finger on the pulse of videogames as an art form. He's so entrenched in the art-gaming scene that he refuses to acknowledge games are art. He calls them a transient medium. He says they lose their significance outside the moment in which they are played, and they lose their lives outside the moments in which they exist. It'd be best, then, to play Metal Gear Solid 3 this year, while its moments are still highly numbered.
5. Rumble Roses (Konami (Yukes), Sony PlayStation2). This is a wrestling game in which girls can roll in flesh-colored mud. It plays very well. It entertains, in addition to men, boys and girls and women alike. It is stupid. It is idiotic. It is sheer genius. Tomonobu Itagaki agrees. The finished version might include a topless mode, according to Hideo Kojima. If this happens, it might mean the end of the world -- the end of the world by utter sweetness.
*****
I asked the kids of the insertcredit.com IRC channel (that's #insertcredit at excalibur.esper.net (port 6667), kids!) to ask me questions about E3, so I could put up some kind of Frequently Asked Questions thing in here. Well, all I got were mostly assholish reponses. Fuck you, kids. And to anyone who wants to go into that IRC -- you best be on your guard.
I got a few good questions, though. They come to us from people whose names I forget. The first one is a simple one:
What was the best moment of E3?
[Some hesitation.]
Oh!
I called my mother on a Nokia N-Gage QD at the N-Gage party. I hadn't talked to her in a year or so. She was really surprised to hear me. It was loud in that party, with ambient-ish Eurobeat, and she kept asking me why I was screaming. I told her it was because of the music. She told me she could hear me just fine.
The N-Gage QD was, at the time, chained to a girl who was kind of pretty. She was Filipina, I think. The game on the N-Gage was Sega's Pocket Kingdom, which I'd gotten horribly bored with. I had accidentally exited out of the game, and there was the phone dialing screen. I was confused for a moment. I dialed up Brandon Sheffield's number, and his phone rang, to our amazement. That's when I called my mom.
"Where are you?" she asked.
"Los Angeles."
"What the hell are you doing there?"
"I'm at a Nokia party."
"You're in Los Angeles, and you don't even think of giving your mother a call until just now?"
She'd assumed I'd been in Los Angeles for, like, several months, or something. I'd only been there two days or so. Well, you know how it goes.
We talked for a half an hour. I think the booth girl was so zoned-out that she didn't notice I was actually talking on the phone until I'd been doing it for ten minutes. I told her to sit down. She sat next to me, and relaxed. Must have been a hell of a job.
I hesitate to say "I don't know if I was supposed to be making a long-distance call like that," because . . . well, why else would the phones have been enabled? I should have called my old roommate in Japan. Hell, I should have called my friend in Korea. I could have had plenty more fun times. Yet alas, the press conference started just a half an hour after I called my mom.
The verdict, on the N-Gage QD as a phone: it ain't bad at all. The sound quality was much better than the original N-Gage, and the unit no longer requires Sidetalking. Yet – the screen fogs up completely with the smallest hint of sweat. Oh well -- that's Western cellular phone design for you: requiring you to press your skin against the display. At least it cleans up easily. And it's not like you'd be using it for games or anything.
That was a good question. So I sought some others. Oh, hell.
If every game shown at E3 came out on one magical day, which one would you buy first?
That's a rough question. Would that day be . . . tomorrow?
Yeah, sure, let's make it tomorrow.
Well, seeing as I'm in Indianapolis right now and I have access to a couple of Xboxes -- Halo 2.
No -- you can only get one copy of the game.
What the shit? Well, hell -- one copy of Halo 2. Doug has a big screen. We could go split-screen, I guess.
What if you didn't have an Xbox?
What the fuck? You said "any game."
. . .
What?
Just . . . don't say Halo 2, alright?
Uh, okay. Neo Contra?
What the hell? You'd get Neo Contra over Metal Gear Solid 3?
Well, you got me thinking about shooting stuff.
Forget I told you not to mention Halo 2, then. Tell me, which game would you buy?
. . . Halo 2?
THIS REPEATS FOR LIKE AN HOUR, UNTIL I SAY RESIDENT EVIL 4
Next question:
What if the PSP and the DS were released TODAY, and you had enough money to buy just one of them?
Well, they're not going to be the same price, are they?
Well, assume that they ARE going to be the same price.
I'm a journalist. The first rule of journalism is "never assume anything."
You're not a journalist, asshole.
Oh, and you are?
You always SAY you're not a journalist.
Well, I guess I'm not.
Then why'd you pretend you were?
I was avoiding the question.
Damn you!
I am damned.
Five minutes later.
So, which one would you buy?
It depends on the games.
SHIT, man -- just imagine they both have all the same games, and all of the games are AWESOME.
Well, I'd pick the DS.
Why?
Because if they had all the same games, then the DS would be the only one where you could use a stylus, and Nintendo says that lots of DS games will require the use of a stylus. The PSP doesn't have stylus support. You wouldn't be able to play all of the games.
Thirty seconds . . .
That's a real asshole of an answer.
That's how I do things.
Just answer it for real, then. Which would you pick? The DS or the PSP? Don't put any dumb thought into it.
The PSP.
Why?
I love that analog stick.
Is it really that nice?
Yes. Haven't you touched it?
No.
Well, I have.
Fair enough.
Thirty seconds later, he signed off.
The verdict:
INSERTCREDIT.COM FANS: YOU ROCK!!
. . .
I think I'm done with this thing, then.
--tim rogers has got moxie, and he intends to drink it all, every last drop.
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