I went to E3 Wednesday. It was fun, there was lots of stuff, but it didn’t feel as impressive as it seemed it should have been seeing as three consoles were “unveiled” this year…that is if you were willing to wait in line for an hour to see it. I wasn’t.

E3 is audio-visual overload. There is more stuff beeping, screaming, exploding, blinking, and dancing than the senses can take in. It is difficult to decide where to focus your attention and even harder to commit your attention to one place. E3 this year was largely handheld oriented. PSP and DS were all over the place. New games for the emerging consoles were not.

I am a big fan of RPGs and Tactical strategy games. Thus, I was really surprised to see what looks to be an ass-kicking Tactics game at the Nintendo booth, named Fire Emblem. I am also a fan of DDR in its various incarnations, but I was not sold on DDR: Mario Mix. Much of the music in the DDR games is bad enough without it being replaced with Nintendo Midi music.

E3 may be a world of debauchery, scantily-clad lasses, violence, and sin—BUT—you could still get your God on thanks to The Bible Game. Test your Testament knowledge and do something apparently Bible related with a large garish wheel covered in what appeared to be marbles.

One of the most interesting games I saw was Okami. It flaunts a cell-shaded style masquerading as watercolor somehow involving a calligraphy brush. By pressing the R1 button, the scene freezes and you can paint onto the screen with the brush. The game was only 20-30% complete so the demo I played was a tad confusing. I am looking forward to seeing how it all comes together when the game is complete. I also saw a trailer for an online PC Tactic Strategy game called Parfait Station. I really dig the character and level designs. It also seemed to somehow combine strategy elements and real-time Zelda style action. I intend to check this out when it hits the street as well.

There were numerous other things to see, many which I did, much that I didn’t. Other games I thought looked interesting: Narnia (maybe), Jaws Unleashed (yes, you play the shark), the new DDR (it involves using the eye toy so that feet and hands are involved well this time—not badly like in the last edition). Pac N Roll, a Pac-Man rolling DS game, on the other hand did not impress me. Good time, but at E3, it seems the real stuff all happens in the conference rooms where you have to pay as opposed to the free floor passes. Oh, and someone interviewed me, but I have no idea who they worked for. So, if you see me on TV or the internet, let me know. I’m curious who the hell I spoke to.

Peace out.