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E3 2004 Part 1 May 13, 2004 Pungkas Pongky Nataatmaja |
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Summary: Here is our first E3 2004 coverage article. Look for Pongky's insights on the new Half-Life 2 demo, Doom 3 hands-on impressions and 87 photos!
 E3 Day 1 | Page:: ( 1 / 7 ) |
E3 Sophomore
I revisit E3 2004 with a semi-fresh set of eyes as this is my second trip to the Los Angeles Convention Center for the gaming feast. Basically, I wanted more from last year, and more is what I got. I knew this year was going to be a big year for the tenth anniversary of E3, so I spent all of day one in the South Hall, where the major buzz was. Coverage in the other halls will follow. Last year all I did was cover the event with photographs, but this time around, I will share with you the hands-on games that I tested out while still delivering tons of images from the event. This year, I had not wanted to grab all the free goodies that is usually prevalent in the booths, since I found from last year they weighed me down and slowed me up.
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Initial Thoughts
Walking into the convention center this year brought back memories of the past year. Lines of gaming enthusiasts lined up outside waited eagerly to get in. America’s Army had a Kiowa scout helo parked outside in the main area. There was a giant balloon Spider-man clinging onto the side of the convention center structure. There were tons of bacon-wrapped hotdog peddlers on the street corners, making the air smell like burned fat and toasted onions. One or two news helicopters floating overhead on a perfectly smoggy and sunny downtown L.A. morning. Anyway, I couldn’t wait to get in! What did I personally want to see this year? Doom 3 playable version, another Half Life 2 demo, and whatever little ‘surprises’ we can find that is a soon-to-be-released gem.
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SIDEBAR:
| Closed-room Demos | Page:: ( 2 / 7 ) |
Half-Life 2
As HL2 fans waited and formed a line about 200 yards long, we, the media got special treatment. We estimate that the regular E3 visitor had to wait at least two hours to view the demo which was about 10 minutes long. We did take digital footage of the demo, and will serve the demo on FS once it is done being compressed. The demo room was a small 2-row seat room, and one row standing area, and can probably fit about 40 people comfortably with a great speaker setup and two large plasma displays, just like last year. This year, though Gabe Newell didn’t demo the game.
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The demo consisted of 5 or 6 new scenes. From last year, it wasn’t a big improvement though. Of course, there is the obligatory close-up of the mystery man’s face, showing the great facial animation. Then there is a mini physics demo, where Gordon hacks through some wooden planks and throws tables around. There was one scene in the docks where Gordon took control of a giant cargo-lifter magnet, and picked up an empty container, and dropped it on oncoming thugs. There was the dune-buggy scene with lots of aliens to shoot at. Another scene involves the destruction of barrels.
Ironically what impressed me most was the very first part of the game, when Gordon just arrived, and is walking through a worn down apartment building. Where people have no hope, and Gordon is getting to know everyone in the building. The realism is almost there, as we see Gordon going up stairs, with imperfect walls and great lighting. It felt almost like a movie.
They also gave us a hint of what multi-player gaming would be like if they used the Source engine, and guess what, they remade one famous Counter-Strike levels using the new engine, and it looked great. I could not name it, because I was never into CS that much, but the reaction from some viewers was very noticeable. Terrorists and counter-terrorists never looked so good.
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Splinter Cell 3
Getting to see UbiSoft’s Splinter Cell 3 demo for the PC was a treat. It was a pretty hefty demo, clocking in at about 20 minutes. Each viewer got a remote control so they can vote for which parts of the demo to see, which was a nice interactive touch on Ubi’s part. The demo came in three parts: the first was the actual game demo, the second was the interactive portion (in three segments) in which users can choose what they wanted to see, and the third was the online co-op mode in which two players worked together against the baddies.
They had two level designers on-hand, and one of them played through a level in a Japanese-style home. Sam showed off some new nifty moves, and improved interactivity with the world, such as turning off candles and busting through the paper walls to grab enemies. The engine has been overhauled in SC3, with great water effects on the ground, on Sam himself when it was raining or when the sprinklers were turned on after Sam threw out some smoke bombs. An interesting move was when Sam threw a sticky shock bomb in the water and electrocuted some henchmen who were walking in standing water.
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The best part of the demo was seeing the two level designers play it out in co-op mode. In this mode, they were playing online and had mic headsets to communicate with one another. The playing style is still the same, stealth and more stealth, but now you can ‘boost’ your buddy to get over a wall. Also, when you are clinging on a ledge, your partner from below can use your body to climb up. In one scene, one player was on top of a tall building and has lowered a rope for the second player to wall-walk up to the first player. On the way, there were windows with baddies on patrol. So, they had to communicate whether to go left or right to avoid detection. Ubi didn’t say whether it can have more than two players working together, though.
| Gameplay tests | Page:: ( 3 / 7 ) |
ESPN 2005 - XBox
I got to play a full 2-minute quarter game with another player on the floor in the Microsoft Xbox area. The playable version only had about 6 teams to choose from, so I picked the Spurs playing against the 76ers. The gameplay and pace seems more arcade-y for me, which doesn’t suit me well. Maybe it was set at that setting, and I won’t be surprised if the final release will have a setting that is more ‘simulation’. The graphics were slightly improved over the last year, and it seems that there are more animations. I do, however, notice the tendency to get strips and steals in this game, much more so than the current 2004 incarnation, but we’ll wait to see if that will be adjusted or if we can just set some sliders within the game. I’m looking forward to this one.
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Doom 3 - XBox
Doom 3 was playable on the Xbox, running on BenQ LCD monitors. It looked very nice and dark – what do you expect it IS Doom. Playing FPS’s on consoles is one thing that I will never get used to, and I longed for the keyboard and mouse. But from the few minutes I spent playing it, it looked great. Lights are destructible, monsters in the shadows are unseen unless you shine your flashlight at them. Dynamic lighting really made the environment more spooky and realistic. One thing that I felt didn’t look too good were the flames, maybe it was a limitation on the Xbox hardware, but it didn’t look real, especially when there are aliens who flings flame-balls at you. The zombies themselves had positional damage, meaning that if you shoot them in the head, the graphic ‘decal’ would be mapped to the proper position, and it seems that they had rag-doll system too, as they would fall over in random positions.
Rainbow Six 3: Black Arrow - XBox
Yet another R6 release is coming for the Xbox. I tested out the game for a few minutes while a rep was giving me the low-down on this new version of the game. I played a multi-player map (can be played over Xbox Live) that was called ‘Conquest’. It was interesting because you had to take control of ‘checkpoints’. The controls were good (for a console FPS) and the gameplay is typical R6, which means one shot one kill. Some like it, some don’t.
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The Sims: Busting Out – Nokia NGage
This was the first time I got my hands on an NGage. It was diminutive, with an even more diminutive screen, but at least it was bright and easy to see. I tried a few minutes of The Sims: Busting Out. It was a simplified version of the PC game. In the NGage version, I used the control pad to move the character. He has objectives to complete, like decorate your room, work, eat, shower and the like. The neat thing about this is that you can ‘log in’ to their Sims network, and chat with others and challenge them to play games with you with a complete ranking system. If you challenge a player who is higher ranked than you, you will get more points if you beat that player, and vice versa. The top-down isometric graphics are smooth and sharp. I think the NGage is much better suited for 2D games.
Ghost Recon 2 – Nokia NGage
What do you get when you try to play FPS games on the NGage? About 8 frames-per-second and tired thumbs. I didn’t find this particularly playable, as it was hard to press the buttons for my medium-sized thumbs, and the frame rates were horrible. It reminds me of the fake 3D look of wolfenstein 3d, only much worse.
| More Hands-on Gameplay | Page:: ( 4 / 7 ) |
Full Spectrum Warrior - XBox
FSW is looking to be a great game. Please let it be known that this is NOT a first person, or even third person shooter, it is a hybrid genre game that combines squad-based combat and strategy. You command squads of four soldiers, and your view is limited to what they can see. You can switch between squads freely and issue commands to individual soldiers or the entire squad, such as ‘fire within this scope’, ‘move here’, ‘take cover’. The command interface is interesting, as you can see and move icons to tell your troops where to go. We’re glad to see this is not another military FPS where you go on missions in decimated African or middle eastern nations.
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Juiced - XBox
Juiced is a racing game for the Xbox. I can sum it up in that it’s NFS: Underground but with damage modeling. I tested it out driving a Subaru WRX – with total body-work decals and spoilers. As I was racing against six AI opponents, I noticed the controls were good, and physics were not too arcade-y. I started hitting barriers and poles (and other cars) and the bodywork got more and more damaged. After one big hit, my steering was damaged, and it pulled to one side all the time. Nice looking racer, but the graphics didn’t really stand out in the crowd.
Under the Skin - XBox
This is a cute cel-shaded action game in the vein of Jet Set Radio and Space Channel Five for the Dreamcast. You assume the role of an alien creating havok on Earth while other aliens are doing the same thing and competing with you. You can use your DNA gun to absorb the genes from a person, and change into that person when standing in your spaceship icon. But you can get discovered, and walk around in your skivvies, or worse, you are seen as an alien! Cute.
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That’s all we have for day 1 coverage, look out for more articles by your friendly FiringSquad crew in the days to come. In the meantime, check out these photos from the event.
| E3 2004 Photos | Page:: ( 5 / 7 ) |
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| More E3 2004 Photos | Page:: ( 6 / 7 ) |
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| Still More E3 2004 Photos | Page:: ( 7 / 7 ) |
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