IGN gives Age 3 best PC strategy game and best PC graphics of E3! Woohoo! Meanwhile, we don't even make the finalists over at Gamespot. Obviously award giving isn't exactly a science (and E3 awards in particular are more like astrology than astronomy in the first place)... but it's still nice to pick them up where you can. Also, it means more coverage and more coverage is a very good things. Games live or die, commercially, by their pre-release buzz.
As a regular show-wandering peon it's frustrating when stuff that is only showing behind closed doors wins awards. Like the other two finalists in the IGN PC strategy category... the only thing you could see of Civ 4 was a hokey informercial and the wait-in-line theater demo for Company of Heroes looked gorgeous, but didn't show any gameplay. I'm sure both games will be awesome (and Civ 4 in particular I know will totally eat weeks if not months of my life). But it's still kind of weird.
I have enough contacts in the industry I probably could have swung something to see the real Civ 4 showing, or see Oblivion (which was also behind closed doors) but coordinating that is a pain in the rear. Also, even though it's irrational, I really hate "bothering" people I know to see their games in progress (even though they almost always don't mind).
Some of my other friends in the industry think that games that show out on the show floor openly are suckers, like the filler content of the show while the theater demos and exclusive back room demos are the real stars. Obviously a theater demo is going to show your game better -- controlled experience, audio environment isn't totally polluted, etc. I guess I'm old fashioned, but I really like "proving" that our game has what it takes out on the show floor. Admittedly, we wind up sending a ton of people to the show to man the booths, which is super inefficient. I guess I can't really argue that the games that generate the most buzz are usually the back-room blockbusters (like Spore was this year). My populist instincts will just have to fight it out with the elitist practicalities of E3...
Less than a week to the PC version of San Andreas! I can't wait. I got interrupted from the PS2 version about 75% of the way through the main storyline and by the time I was ready to get back into it the PC version was announced and I figured I should save my playtime for the better-draw-distance, mouse-look-enabled, custom-soundtrack version. I'm already planning what MP3s to put together for a GTA-suitable soundtrack. Lordy, I'm such a geek. A geek very excited for next Monday's release of the game, anyways.
Oh, and since I missed it while off at E3... it's been a year since I started this crazy, intermittently-updated blogging thing. Thanks to the handful of folks who stop by the site, I hope you've found my ramblings at least minimally interesting...
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A Little E3 Aftermath
Comments
Re: A Little E3 Aftermath
by
pk
on Thu 02 Jun 2005 11:25 PM CDT | Profile | Permanent Link
Hi Xemu,
it's a pleasure reading your blog. The theatre demo of Company of Heroes consisted of two parts. The parts of the demo rendered at 4:3 is actual gameplay. Our user interface is not done, so instead of mouse-clicks game designers basically scripted all of the move, assault, etc commands. The parts rendered at 16:9 were created in our machinima tool that runs on top of our engine. Both were rendered by our engine in real-time. We invested tons of effort into the sound of our game and we just couldn't control the aural experience out on the show floor. On top of that, it is just easier to answer questions when you are talking to a person one-on-one. There have been tons of articles written in the last few days about E3 being pointless. Personally, I believe the point should be to get as much one-on-one interaction as possible since a lot of attendees just show up for the vacation, swag, and booth babes. Re: A Little E3 Aftermath
by
Badman
on Fri 03 Jun 2005 08:13 PM CDT | Profile | Permanent Link
Can't speak for others, but I certainly have enjoyed reading your blog over the last year. I'm actually glad that so many good game dev blogs have sprung up recently.
Re: A Little E3 Aftermath
by
Xemu
on Mon 06 Jun 2005 05:22 PM CDT | Profile | Permanent Link
pk: Thanks for the info. That's good to know. It looked close enough to gameplay that I figured something like that was going on, but the distinction wasn't too clear to me sitting in the theater. I love WW2 games, and I loved Dawn of War, so I'm really excited to see what y'all come up with there. I totally agree for a demo like that being in the theater is an ideal situation -- I just would have been even more impressed if I could have gotten my hands dirty with it in action on the floor. The Dawn of War xpack looked pretty sharp too, should be a good year for Relic! :)
The one-on-one interaction is definitely key. I'm not nearly as a good a networked as I should be (both in and out of the booth) but one of my favorite things about E3 is definitely being able to see other developers in the trenches showing their games. Every year I go to the latest Insomniac and Sucker Punch games and make an idiot of myself gushing praise to whatever poor developer happens to be working the game that moment. :) Badman: glad you're enjoying the blog. I'm hoping to update more often (probably with shorter entries) because going 4 weeks or more between updates just isn't enough. I've said that to myself before and gotten distracted, but I'm hoping this time I'll stick with it more and there will be more long-winded pointless ramblings in the next year! Totally agreed on some great dev blogs... I have a hard time keeping up with them myself sometimes! Trackbacks
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