Official "I need a coffee IV" Edition

Okay, one day down, two to go, and the first meeting of the day in thrity minutes. Let's roll through some of the things I've had a chance to get my hands on today. Yesterday. Again with the coffee.

The day began down at the Concourse Hall with Tidus/Virgin/Interplay A few titles stood out down here, namely Hunter: The Reckoning, Downforce, and Lotus Challenge. Downforce touts a realistic F1 racing engine and some spectacular explosions to go with it. The media rep I spoke with insisted I get one of those on tape so I'll be sharing that with you later. Lotus Challenge seems to resemble Project Gotham Racing with a realistic damage model, but goes further in having 28 raceable tracks and an additional 22 stunt and challenge levels. Unfortunately, it's only at about 20% completion right now, but I'm sure it will be looking rather good in a few months time. Hunter: The Reckoning plays similar to Dynamite Cop and Zombie Revenge, but that's where the comparisons end as those games, well, sucked after fifteen minutes of playtime. Not only does the weapons load look and play well, but the game offers an experience building system for characters and a brutal Nightmare mode upon completion. Oh, and it also features enemy body parts becoming quickly seperated from their compain body parts in large explosions. Gimmicky, but hey, it's all fun.

The Microsoft booth was next, where they highlighted games that we'd pretty much already seen at the press conference. However, of note was Crimson Skies and it's weather system. Funnel clouds, lightning storms, brutal pounding sheets of rain. good as Eye candy, but the fact that they factored it into the gameplay itself is amazing. Seeing planes get hit by bolts of lightning in midair is incredible, and watch a zepplin struggle in vain to escape the pull of an enormous tornado is just beautiful beyond belief. After the press conference I had a chance to sink my teeth into Panzer Dragoon Orta, and it is jaw-droppingly good. The frantic action, the immense landscapes. And the bosses! Wow, just... wow. A lot of people here are saying Zelda for Game of Show, but until I get a chance to play it myself, Orta's got my vote. I had a chance to get a few brief moments of footage of some inept person attempting to play Steel Battalion but decided to come back later and try to get some footage that shows the game at it's best.

A brief stop was made at Metro 3D where they seemed to be working with two major ideas FPS and adventure games for The X-Box and a vast library of old and new games for the GBA (Those who remember Defender of the Crown and Aero the Acrobat can reminisce about nostalgia for the next few minutes) as far as the games for the X-box go Dronez is the one that stuck out in my head, feturing levels ranging from the insides of an organic creature to what appears to be an Egyptian pyramid. With a plot that they compared to the Matrix (Far future, people attend to by machines in the real world while their minds are trapped in an imaginary one) the game appears to show some promise and it's one that I'll be keeping an eye on for the months to come.

And for those of you who are curious, Armada 2 did not make a showing. Yeah, I'm pissed too.

Next was Tecmo's press conference, which was, franky, poorly done. Don't get me wrong, the footage of Rygar and Ninja Gaiden was incredible, but I've never seen such a poor performance on a stage. I mean, how do you screw up reading off of a teleprompter? How?!? Sadly enough, I left before it was over.

To roughly five feet away at the Kemco booth, which brought a rather important first to us. The announcement of a Kareoke singing game for the GBA, and to go along with it, the beginning of Burgundy's singing career, delightfully recorded for your future enjoyment. Also of note was a puzzle game by the name of Egg Drop for the PS2 and GBA which quickly gathered a small crew of TNL team members complaining about how they couldn't link up and start talking smack on each other. I see it as a way to save them some unneccesary embarassment at my hands, but I'm sure that'll be one of the games we'll be playing here next year.

After being physically drug away from Egg Drop, the next stop was Mai and Millia Rage. And there was a booth there too. Sammy or something like that. Mmmm... Mai...

Oh, yeah, games, that's right...

An important thing to note at the Sammy booth was a game by the name of Lethal Skies. Taking place in the future where global warming has caused the flooding of a decent portion of a planet, you're presented with planes old, new, and imagined through a mission based system. A key feature they've introduced is a replay mode which follws the flight pattern of all the planes, ships, and helicopters in the area. An excellent way to review failed missions and an incredible view when trying follow a frantic dogfight. There was also another title there, but I'll leave that up to someone who has a better grasp of the subject to tell.

After that, there's not much more to tell. I ran out of video, and then I spent the rest of the afternoon catching up with a friend from Austria. Today I'll be getting some video of Gungrave, some much better video of Steel Battalion, and taping the entire Konami trailer again. If anyone's got any requests for day three, let me know and I'll take a look at em tomorrow.

Later!

- Robert Rence