The dawn has broke and games will never be the same. The wings of the morning on May 17th, 2001 have brought to slummy.. ur.. sunny Los Angeles the American debut of 3, count em’, three powerhouse platforms, each alone capable of redefining an industry. An impression of each as seen through the eyes of Tolkiemengway.

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E3 First and Last Impressions

Gamecube

Certainly the power of a century old innovator at its finest hour. Strangely, when seen first hand the strength of the Gamecube’s appeal lies first in it’s spatial efficient architecture. The Gamecube unit is about the size of 7 cd cases stacked, or more poignantly about 1/3 the size of Microsoft’s behemoth. That such

a small piece of hardware can power the astounding Rogue Squadron II: Rogue Leader is a major accomplishment, on par with the down sizing of Bush’ role. Nintendo displayed the Gamecube in a variety of flavors, pink, blue, white, and silver and have debuted a mega-multimedia system developed in conjunction with Panasonic. This receives the "sell my friends and family to get it" award of the show, as it is equipped with a DVD / CD player, stereo receiver and a fully functional Gamecube stuffed within a titanium hued unit.

And what, you ask, of the touted controller? In a word, butta. It is the body part that doctors cut from our hands at birth, it fits as if it were genetic. Though the button configuration is a tad strange, and will certainly alienate the fighting genre, a game like Luigi’s Mansion perfectly utilizes the ideally aligned analog sticks.

With all these architectural and aesthetic delights, it’s hard to remember that the games are what make the system, right? This is and area where Nintendo may have faltered. Where in the name of Miyamoto is Link, where in the name of mother brain is Samus!? Zelda was absent as well as Metroid and in their place are three new adventure titles; Starfox Adventures: Dinosaur Planet, Pikmin, and Kameo: Elements of Power. They are all nice and display ambition, especially Pikmin, written and directed by Miyamoto-san. However each title requires a more thorough analysis than can be eked from 2 minutes of frantic play with a mob down your neck. Nintendo’s bread and butter was Luigi’s Mansion which sets new standards for control and graphics, and even more so Rogue Squadron II: Rogue Leader, my vote as game of show.

Though Nintendo has offered up some original titles to appease the press, their lack of footage from their anticipated Zelda and Metroid Gamecube titles is a disappointment. Nevertheless the fact that Nintendo has debuted arguably the most technically proficient piece of video game hardware ever created allows it to receive the coveted calloused thumbs up.

X-Box

I’ll get this out of the way first. Halo is the finest example of graphic quality I have ever seen, and it rocks like the Flintstones. But the X-Box stinks. It is last years PS2, a big disappointment…The worst of the worst?, the controller. It is big and clunky

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and it makes my hands want to gag. It feels like a mouth full of mashed potatoes. The buttons are oblong little eggs placed too closed together and not deep enough to truly mash. Tony Hawk 2X and Madden 2002 are virtually unplayable do to the inane controller design. After playing it I ran next-booth and grabbed the duel shock to get the bad taste out of my hands. I can’t believe what a blunder this controller is, or maybe it’s just me.

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Other wise the games had variety. Enclave and Halo got the graphics and violence, Tony Hawk 2x and Madden 2002 got the sports and Cell Damage and Project Gotham Racing got the car thing going on. Some of the games cause an espousal of flowery appraisal for the X-Box, while a few cause the muttering of curses under-breath. Two titles, Mad Dash and Azurik: Rise of Perethia have the graphic quality of a late generation Pentium 2 titles, and others like Arctic Thunder and Amped Snowboarding don’t fare much better.

Most of the hype surrounding X-Box was those games shown in video form. DOA 3 and Jet Grind Radio Future are, as we all know exclusive to the X-Box, as well as GunValkery and Panzer Dragoon. Jet Grind in my estimation is reason enough to shell out the $299 for the X-Box, though not before invoking the gods to give Smilebit a dose of sense.

X-Box though a disappointment does have many of the necessary ingredients to succeed, incredible hardware, great internal and external development support, and the infinitely deep pockets of its daddy, Microsoft. Yet E3 2001 is not the place where X-Box has chosen to display it’s potential. Expect a turnaround next year.

Gameboy Advance

It was everywhere at E3. Nearly every single booth from developers to accessorizers to retailers displayed Gameboy Advance in some capacity. Any developer not on board with the Advance is surely foolish, for they are a minority to be left in the cold. It does one down the Gamecube controller on comfort and the screen’s luminosity is just bad, but this is one system that without question has the games to make it. Tony Hawk 2, Mario Kart Advance and Final Fight One all equal if not exceed their home console brethren. Final Fight especially brings back nostalgia reserved for only those systems of elite status. Graphically the Advance displays no better than what we have seen on the Super NES, though the animation has been dramatically improved. Spider-Man leaps and swings as if he were a fully motion captured character.

Unfortunately there were no new games revealed for the Advance in playable form, as nearly everything displayed has been tossed around for months on the pages of many a mags preview sections. Nevertheless the biggest attraction of the entire show was the Gameboy Advance giveaway that featured a wheel of fortune theme and consistently featured a queue stretching into the distance.

Of course Gamecube, X-Box and Gameboy Advance weren’t the only consoles on display, though the others were somewhat lost in the shuffle. PS2 had certifiably the best lineup of games at the show with extraordinary offerings from nearly every booth.

Konami showed off the crowd favorite for the second year running in an extended demo of Metal Gear 2: Sons of Liberty. Silent Hill 2 turned out to be creepier than anyone ever expected, filled with zombies with incredibly manic personalities. Silent Scope 2 was shown with a prototype one-handed controller, which has a thumb roller ball used to aim and a gun-like trigger.

Capcom showed up with Devil May Cry, featuring by far the coolest original character of the show in Dante. Maximo, a beautifully controlled 3D take on the famed Ghosts’ and Goblins’ universe. Heavy Metal Geomatrix featured a nice twin sticks control peripheral though it doesn’t offer much an improvement to the flawed Spawn engine.

Activision showed off it’s much hyped O2 lineup, which included Shawn Palmers’ Snowboarding Matt Hoffmans’ Pro BMX and Tony Hawk 3 (flawless). Shawn Palmers’ Snowboarding, incorporating an all new boarding engine, effectively has transferred Tony Hawks unparalleled grinding system into their artic take on the board sports. Spiderman was shown in action looking quite nice, as was accompanied by Super Car Street Challenge as the only notable acclaim action titles.

Electronic Arts offered many a crowd pleaser especially 007: Agent Under Fire. This title is up and running, looking good and playing even better. There is a truly kinetic sequence as you barrel through the streets of what seems to be London in one of Q’s (or is it R now?) super modified Beamers. EA had Madden 2002 running simultaneously on Game cube, X-Box and PS2 side by side. I wonder, was this a tactic to show all that it holds no biases, or was is a clever scheme to show the superior graphic ability of a certain blue cube? (Cause it did look the best). NBA Street also stunned yours truly with some Nike commercial-esque dribbling moves and a combo system that would give Marvel v. Capcom 2 a run for it’s money.

Sony’s in-house software was nearly as impressive as the rest with perfectly completed versions of Twisted Metal Blackand Gran Turismo 3 A-Spec. The latter is hands down racer of the show. Twisted Metal Black handles like a dream, and though only about half the levels were playable they are most certainly vast.

Some other impressive titles were Koei’s Kessen II, which really does display 500 on-screen, characters at once, a rather extraordinary feat. Rockstar Games brought Grand Theft Auto 3 which has changed to a third person perspective romp as oppose to the old dull overhead view. This change however seems to be a bit difficult for the GTA 3 developers, cause it’s looking beta quality.

Sega

Perhaps in response to the lack of consumer support had by the Dreamcast, Sega chose to keep their booth closed to the public. Only those invited were given access, this humble writer was invited. On the inside the atmosphere was like that of a struggling corporation giving a closeout sale. The booth was sparse with about 15 games running but about half that amount playable, and only one monitor dedicated to each title. This made for long waits in between play, though certain video’s like Jet Grind Radio Future were worth watching a dozen times. Sonic Adventure 2 is good enough to make me want to buy another Dreamcast, thereby showing my utter appreciation. Plus it’s the killer app that warrants the purchase of a system, though it’s a little late in this case. Phantasy Star ver. II was running on Dreamcast and Gamecube, nearly equal in visual quality. Gun Valkery, Crazy Taxi 2, all the

Sega sports 2k2, and Monkey ball pretty much rounded out the Sega lineup this year. Should we be depressed or excited for the future? Who knows?

E3 2001 has proved an exciting event in the history of games. It is the dawn of a new age. Who will dictate the pace will most

likely have been decided by next year. Nothing was proven, and no victories were decided. The stakes have been set, and weapons are armed, and like we’ve heard time and time again, we, the gamers will reap the benefits of this extraordinary battle. May the best thingamajig win!

TOLKIEMENGWAY


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