E3 - Hands On - Best Of The Rest Wrap-Up

E3 - Hands On - Best Of The Rest Wrap-Up 13

Posted by simoniker on Saturday May 17, 2003 @09:27AM from the thank-the-lord-it's-finally-over dept.

So the E3 Expo in Los Angeles is finally done, and we wrap up our coverage with a look at the best of the other booths at the show, from Activision through Take Two to Eidos. Plus, we take a quick trawl round the evil troglodytic dungeon that is the Kentia Hall, deep below the main expanses of E3. Read on for info on virtual ping-pong, Starsky And Hutch, and Futurama....

- Activision's stand had some pretty interesting content, starting with True Crime:Streets Of LA, the closest to a Grand Theft Auto clone we've seen so far. The graphical pop-up was a little disappointing, but it was still fun to play. The new Vampire The Masquerade game, Bloodlines, looked intriguing, with some good physics courtesy of the Half-Life 2 engine, and neat stealth kills, but the FPS action didn't entirely gel with the RPG stylings. Continuing on, Day Of Defeat is the excellent Half-Life mod also available as a stand-alone product, and featuring plenty of WWII team-based action. Spiderman 2 quietly popped up, too, unexpectedly showcasing much more freeform action, with Spiderman running in any direction around streets with passersby and cars and... more shades of Grand Theft Auto? Hopefully the fact that you're Spidey will mix the gameplay up, though. Finally, there was the Doom III trailer, which you've probably seen by now, running on a big monitor at the back of the stand.

- The exterior of Take Two's stand was a little disappointing, with big titles like Manhunt only being shown behind closed doors, but a few products of some interest. Conflict Desert Storm 2 showed more military action, but with urban environments. Hopefully it'll improve on the disappointing original. Starsky And Hutch was looking much better than demos of last year, and any game with music by Tim Follin has to be worth at least checking out, but it still looked a B-list, as opposed to a true A-list title. Finally, Celebrity Deathmatch was.. not good. Seems like any game with licensed characters of the caliber of Marilyn Manson, Mr.T, and Anna Nicole should be quality or, uhm, not. It was a simple one-on-one fighting game which reminded of Simpsons Wrestling in all those not-so-good ways, with average graphics and long loading times.

- Vivendi Universal was sporting licenses, licenses, and more licenses. Simpsons:Hit And Run looks like a pseudo-sequel to Simpsons Road Rage, which was simultaneously addictive and painful (thanks, Crazy Taxi!), and this game had much nicer graphics, plus the ability to get out of your car and wander around Springfield. Futurama has already been previewed positively by at least one site at the show, but.. sorry, Fry running around with a gun being a hero? That on its own is pretty crazy, and the frame rate jerkiness and simple game mechanics weren't doing it any favors either. Still, there was plenty of Slurm. The Hobbit had a very super-deformed and cute look, and seemed reasonable, but not special. Finally, tucked away one just one or two monitors was Buffy:Chaos Bleeds, a sequel to the woefully underappreciated Xbox brawler, and the update was looking seriously good.

- Eidos' stand was dominated by the Backyard Wrestling crew, advertising the gonzo grappling title being developed by Paradox (Thrill Kill, Wu Tang, X-Men.) The stand-out titles were probably Deux Ex:Invisible War, too complex to appreciate properly at the show but very promising, and the new Legacy Of Kain:Defiance, which had shadow enemies borrowed from Ico and seriously nice visuals. The new Tomb Raider title looked nothing more than reasonable, though, not showing massive improvement for its continual delays.

- The Kentia Hall, underneath the main show floor, has long been the place you can find all the weird, lower-budget, often non-US companies and products, jostling for attention with the software wholesalers and peripheral manufacturers. This year, among highlights such as the 'Girls Of Street Racing' DVD stall and Hexacto's Lemonade Tycoon game (what's next, Tycoon Tycoon?), a few products stood out. For example, there was Iritech, the 'Eye Fortune' company, who sold a coin-operated product which worked out your 'Inherited health type and current health condition' through scanning your retina. As long as it had your date of birth too, that is. Mm, high-tech fortune-telling. And we don't know what Bert Co. sold, but they have a great name. Finally, there was D-Gate's networked virtual pingpong arcade machine, Action Ping-Pong Live!!!! - where, yes, you wield a ping pong bat in real life as you duel the person on the machine next to you. Be sure not to stand too close to the guy playing, his backswing may take your eye out. And as the caption on top of the game read, 'You must win to be a REAL CHAMP!' We second that, and hope you enjoyed our coverage from E3 this year.

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