For my last article in my E3 coverage series, I wanted to conclude by talking about the companies and games I visited and played in between my main meetings. There’s still a lot to cover, so let’s get to it!

One last time I’d like to remind everyone: please forgive me if I don’t cover certain games at the show. I’m just one person, and can’t cover EVERYTHING there is to see at E3. So for my coverage, I tried to narrow my focus a bit. Since I write for GamingWithChildren.com, I tried to focus on the family friendly games at E3. And the games that interested me, too. Luckily, most of the games I’m interested in are family friendly! There are a couple of games I looked at that are for more mature gamers, but you’ll know which ones I’m talking about when I get there.

Video Game History Museum

Nearly every year at E3, a group of folks sets up a booth displaying game consoles, arcade games, and other odds and ends showing off the history of video games. It’s always fun to look at. I kind of miss when it was in Kentia Hall, though, because it was quieter. Oh well. Here’s a pic of some of the game related toys and such.

Here’s a sample of the classic game consoles on display. They didn’t have the Atari 5200 out like last time.

Finally, here’s one of the rows of arcade cabinets. I could’ve stayed here all day.

Atlus

When I got my press badge, it came with this little laminated thing behind it telling you that you could get a free Persona T-Shirt at Atlus’ booth. So I did that! They were showing off a new Persona fighting game there. I don’t know much about Persona games, but I thought this little red guy looked pretty cool.

While I was waiting in line to get my T-shirt, I watched someone play a new 3DS game called Code of Princess. It looked pretty cool, kind of like a classic brawler adventure, so I took a picture of it.

Capcom

Even though they’re one of my favorite game companies, Capcom didn’t have anything shown at E3 this year that interested me. They were just showing off Resident Evil 6 and other stuff. No new Phoenix Wrights or Mega Mans or anything like that, so I kind of skipped out on them. At least I got to see some people I knew there.

Tecmo-Koei

This company makes the Dead or Alive fighters, and at E3 their main focus was showing off DOA5. I don’t really know much about the DOA games, though; aside from the fact I know the DOA Volleyball games are dumb. I will say that both the PR folks and booth ladies at Tecmo-Koei were very nice and fun to talk to.

I did play ONE game at Tecmo-Koei’s booth. Koei makes a series of strategy games called Nobunaga’sAmbition featuring people from feudal Japan. Recently they made a weird hybrid game where characters from Nobunaga team up with various Pokemon. That game is coming to the US soon as Pokemon Conquest for the DS, and Nintendo had set up a little demo station off in the corner of Tecmo-Koei’s booth. It pretty much plays like a typical tactics RPG featuring Pokemon. But it was still weird seeing these historical figures commanding them. You could even play a little rhythm game to ‘link up’ and befriend new Pokemon. Pokemon Conquest will be out in a couple of weeks, and I think I’ll probably get it out of curiosity. It’ll be the first Nobunaga’s Ambition game I ever buy!

Ubisoft

Their booth was huge and had tons of games, but I skipped out on it because I had seen all of Ubisoft’s games at Nintendo’s press conference already. You can read about them in my Act 2 article.

WarGaming.net

This company makes a popular online PC game called World of Wartanks, which my brothers love. For E3, they showed off two new entries: World of Warplanes and World of Battleships. Outside the convention hall, they even had a prop plane on display.

Disney Interactive

The House of Mouse had one of the best booths at E3. Their main focus was on Epic Mickey 2: The Power of Two. It was really crowded, so I didn’t get a chance to play it. But I do know it’s two player simultaneous where one controls Mickey and the other Oswald the Lucky Rabbit. And it’ll be for all the main consoles, not just the Wii this time. I tried to look for the 2-D Epic Mickey: Power of Illusion game for 3DS, too, but couldn’t find it. The Epic Mickey 2 display also had a museum of sorts with all sorts of vintage toys and trinkets from Mickey’s and Oswald’s history. The Disney booth also had one of E3’s most sought after swag item: hats that looked like the Mickey Mouse ears, except they were Oswald’s rabbit ears! Good news is, I managed to get one! Yay! Disney also had a section to show off their Brave game, based on the upcoming Pixar movie that I hope to see soon.

Disney was also promoting their upcoming Wreck-It Ralph movie. It’ll be out November 2, and I’m totally going to see it. It’s about a fictional video game villain from a pretend arcade game from the 80’s who doesn’t want to be the bad guy anymore and hops around to other game worlds. If you haven’t seen the trailer yet, I recommend you check it out on YouTube now.

At E3, they even had a mock arcade cabinet made to look like “Fix-It Felix Jr.” where Wreck-It Ralph lives. Over in Disney’s iPad game section, they even had an iPad game that plays like what the old arcade game might’ve been like. I could’ve played it for hours. It’ll be out in time for the movie in November, too.

Speaking of Disney’s iPhone/iPad section at E3, they also had another fun one called Where’s My Water?, which is out now, actually. It’s a puzzle game where you use your finger to dig in dirt to lead water to a pipe so a sewer alligator can take a shower. Soon they’ll even make a version of it called Where’s My Perry?, based on the popular Phineas and Ferb cartoon. I have to say that playing all the fun iPad games at E3 has convinced me that maybe I should look into investing in an iPad someday. What do you all think?

Namco Bandai Games

The company responsible for Pac-Man is one of my favorite video game companies, and Namco’s booth had not only a wide variety of games, but also a variety of areas at their booth that all looked different.

Namco’s booth has the distinction of being the first place where I played my first Wii U game at E3. And that game was Tank! Tank! Tank! It’s a port of the arcade game of the same name, and it’s kind of like a more cartoony version of another Namco arcade tank game called Tokyo Wars. The Wii U version was fun, but I’m not sure how the Wii U will make it better. Seems like it could’ve been made on any console. But it was easy to get into and should have lots of fun co-op and competitive multiplayer modes. I was working together with three other tanks to destroy a three headed mechadragon destroying the city, for instance. As a fan of Namco arcade games, this’ll be one of the first third party games I get when I buy my own Wii U. At that section of their booth, Namco had this costumed guy out to promote the game. Although he really just looked like a drum major with a toy tank on his head!

Now, look at that picture again. Look at the floor behind the tank guy. LOOK AT IT! Those who know me know how much I like Pac-Man, so you can imagine the expression on my face when I first saw that floor. I want to carpet my house with that. If I had my own arcade, that’s the floor I’d like to use. Games on the Pac-Man floor included a couple of the arcade versions of Tank! Tank! Tank!, Pac-Man Battle Royale (which is only the second place I’ve seen it), and a few of the Pac-Man Arcade Party mini-cabinets.

One of the other games they had was Ni no Kuni: Wrath of the White Witch. I didn’t play this one too much because it’s hard to get into an RPG at E3. But it has a vast overworld and I walked around it a bit and had a few battles. Fights remind me of Pokemon. You call out a monster, tell it what to do, then your critter runs around and attacks enemies for a short while before waiting for commands again. Graphics are very cartoony, but that should come as no surprise since the look and characters were designed by Hayao Miyazaki’s Studio Ghibli. As a fan of their work, I’ll definitely get this PS3 RPG next year! Namco also had some other stuff I didn’t check out, like a Dragon Ball Z Kinect game.

Namco had a big section to show off their new fighter: Tekken Tag Tournament 2. That part of their booth looked like a shiny car show, and they had people dressed as some of the female fighters in that series. Let’s see if I can name the ones pictured below. From left to right we have Anna Williams, Asuka (one of my favorite characters to play as in the games, actually). The middle guy was just the announcer, he wasn’t a character. Then we have Lilli, and, uh, gee I forget the name of that last one. Maybe one of you can help me out?

Over by one of the Tekken cars were some other costumed characters. On the right is Nina Williams, but I don’t remember the name of the other lady. I always just called her Pink Haired Robot Lady in Tekken 6.

And here’s a pic of just the car without all the eye candy getting in the way.

EA Games

They had a ton of games at their booth. I tried to look up some things about the new SimCity game for my brothers because they love that series. But EA’s booth was so loud that after a few minutes there, my organs started to vibrate and I had to get out of there.

WB Games

Warner Bros. also had a bunch of games. Some of them I looked at, and some I just skipped over. They had big LEGO guys made out of little bricks to promote LEGO Batman 2: DC Superheroes and LEGO Lord of the Rings. Here’s Robin:

And here’s Batman. Their sequel will be out in a couple of weeks, so I’ll be getting it soon.

And I could never get into Lord of the Rings for some reason.

I also saw a new Spy Hunter game at WB’s booth, but I’m not sure what system it was on. But I did get to play a little bit of Scribblenauts Unlimited on Wii U. It was one of the best Wii U games I saw and played. It has more adventure elements, as you explore a vast world and talk with people to accept missions. In the game I met a lumberjack who needed something to chop down a tree. But rather than give him a boring old axe or chainsaw, I gave him a live beaver to hold, and he was able to chop down that tree just fine! I even got a couple of achievements for it! You can also make your own creations. I designed an orange cow with a robot head, and you can trade creations with friends online! The Wii U touch screen made doing all this very easy. This’ll be another must-have Wii U title, and looked more interesting than even some of Nintendo’s first party stuff.

I probably won’t get the last game I saw at WB’s booth, and it’s certainly not very family friendly. But I just have to laugh at the premise of Lollipop Chainsaw because it’s just so silly. You play as a cheerleader and defeat hordes of zombies with a chainsaw. Here’s someone dressed as the main character from that game.

Konami

The people responsible for Metal Gear and Castlevania games had new titles for those respective series at the show, too.

But what caught my eye most at Konami’s booth was Frogger Pinball. It was just a Facebook game, so nothing to get excited about. But I just loved the display they had for it. I wish that’s how the game really was!

Here’s another angle. I just like pinball, and Frogger, too.

Misc. Stuff and Conclusions

I’d like to conclude my E3 reports with a few random pics and things. In one of the hallways they had a section with indie games and live music, so I took a picture of a nearby giant invader there. Possibly from space.

Have you ever seen those chalk art drawings that use perspective tricks when you look at them at a certain angle. I’m not sure if I got the angle right on this one, but here’s some floor art promoting a new basketball game.

There are a lot of female models around the E3 booths to attract attention to whatever they’re promoting. I try not to post too many pictures of them here, since this is more of a family oriented site (although I don’t think I did such a good job of that this year, oh well). But I just had to show this lady because she cracked me up so much. Not sure what game she was promoting, but she was at GREE’s booth (whatever that is). She was dressed as some kind of warrior with a chain whip thing. But she would do all these crazy poses when getting her picture taken, and she’d swing that chain around. She looked like she was having fun with it. I imagine that it must get annoying to have to stand around all day at a loud convention center getting your picture taken all the time. So I commend her and others like her who were a good sport about it and made the best of the situation and just had fun. So for that, silly chain lady, you win the Cary’s Best E3 Booth Lady Award (like there really is such a thing).

And that’s all I feel like talking about this year’s E3. I’d like to thank my dad for coming with me again; it was a lot of fun. I’d also like to thank Andrew, the GamerDad, who allows me to write here and go to these things. And I’d like to thank all of you who read my stuff. If you have any comments or questions about my E3 coverage, please feel free to post in the comments section. I’d really appreciate it. Later! –Cary

Tags: Misc