Last night, at Dana’s party in West L.A., I met Eric Zimmerman and Frank Lantz from the New York-based Gamelab, quite possibly the most talented Shockwave game developers around (artist’s rendering). Their work is consistently brilliant: Sissyfight, Blix, Loop, and my personal favorite, Junkbot. (Try them all, if you have a day or three to kill.)
Also, I had a brief conversation with Justin Hall, the original personal weblogger. We almost met once before while I was working at Gettingit.com when he dropped by the office to talk with our illustrious editor-in-chief, R. U. Sirius. I didn’t know it at the time, but Justin told me that R. U. had asked him to submit cool links for publishing daily on the site. (He was trying to avoid heavy computer use at the time, so he turned it down.)
Anyway, Justin and the Gamelab guys were in town for the Electronic Entertainment Expo, the computer/videogame trade show held at the mammoth L.A. Convention Center. Andre had snagged me a guest pass, but Frank kindly gave me his E3 badge last night so I could skip the hassle of pre-registration this morning. The show was overwhelming. I feel like a little kid who’s been overstimulated to the point of exhaustion.
My highlights included: Animal Crossing, Metroid Prime and Mario Sunshine for the Gamecube; Kung Fu Chaos and Outlaw Golf for the X-Box; Sly Cooper, Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure, Contra Shattered Soldier and Tony Hawk 4 for the PS2; Deus Ex 2 for the PC; and XIII for all four platforms. Gamespy seems to be the definitive source for information about the show, with previews and screenshots for all the games I mentioned. Time for bed.
In retrospect, I really should have gone. I figured ‘oh, i’ll just go next year,’ but who knows if there’ll be as much good stuff. I guess there always is.
Dana posted some photos of the soiree.