Tuesday

I arrived late in the evening on Tuesday in Beverly Hills, California to meet with Tim 'Cajunlanding' Weaver of Mplayer.com. I had time to settle in at the hotel and prepare for the Electronic Entertainment Exhibition (E3) Event opening on Thursday.

Wednesday

Wednesday morning started off with a nice breakfast with some of the staff from Mplayer.com. CajunLanding, Josh 'Jinxx' Morris, Marcus Hopkins, Matt, Jeremy (GameGod) and Cheryl were also going to participate at E3. It was nice to meet some of the Mplayer.com staff I have played multiplayer games with and communicated with for the past few years.

After breakfast, I went downtown Los Angeles to drop off my brother, Jacob Robinson (DarkViper), which also happens to be the Producer of ActionXtreme, Rainbowsix.net, Unreal Kingdom and more gaming sites. He needed to setup for E3 at the Los Angeles Convention Center. The streets were full of traffic. In fact, some of the people driving were honking their horns at each other as we roamed around the big city.

In the evening, I had a chance to meet with Nathan (Prime) and Edmond (Perfect Tommy) of Mplayer at the lobby of the hotel they were staying at in downtown Los Angeles. After we talked about what we needed to do at E3 the following day,  we all met back up at House of Blues for the Eidos Party, CajunLanding, Jinxx, and a couple of other Mplayer employees joined us there.

When standing in line outside the House of Blues, I noticed the line was just too long. You think Disney rides are long? This line felt like it was going to take about 2-4 hours until I would finally get to SEE the door. The House of Blues staff were telling everyone that Eidos sent out 5,000 tickets but the place only could hold 1500. I don't know whether or not that is true. By a certain time, everyone was told there was no way they we're going to let anyone in.

Actually, it was sort of good that I didn't attend the Eidos party. I just went out to eat and was back in enough time to be able to get a bit more rest. I needed to get up early enough to catch the shuttle for the morning scheduled interviews and for the long day ahead at E3.

Thursday

At 7:30am I took the hotel's shuttle from Beverly Hills and arrived at the Los Angeles Convention Center for E3 at around 8:30am. The shuttle took about an hour but I know that if I drove it only takes 15-25 minutes, so it seemed like a long ride on the shuttle.

We were told by various people that if you drive a car to the Los Angeles Convention Center it is hard to get a parking place to attend E3. This event usually expects to attract 80,000 people, and there are 6,000 available parking spaces. One of the signs across the street from the Los Angeles Convention Center said, "$30 to $40 A Day Parking". Later that day we were told if we get down to the Los Angeles Convention Center early enough at least before 9:00am there was no problem on getting a nice parking spot in the Convention Center's parking lot for $2.50 a day.

When I arrived there was a constant flowing line with no waiting. I received my pass but I knew I had about an hour waste until the doors opened for the first day of the event. Before 10:00am we noticed on the top of the stairs by the E3 doors were some people with Ape outfits from the movie "Planet of The Apes".

The Apes were acting out the characters of the movie by treating some of the humans (E3 visitors) like they acted in the movie. One of the Planet of the Apes guys had a pole like the one in the movie made out of wood with and leather strap on the end of it. I saw him put the strap around one of the human's (E3 visitor's) neck when the visitor wasn't paying attenion. Another one dressed in silver metal would start yelling at the humans from the top of the stairs in the E3 building.

At 10am everyone started rushing past the yellow tape guarding the entrances up the stairs to the doors. When entering the convention, the first thing I noticed was how loud it was. All of the games were mixed with the loud music at different booths. It sort of reminded me of a huge arcade except louder and much more roomy.

This was the first year for me to attend E3 so I didn't know what to expect. I have been to many Comic Conventions over the years so hearing so much noise at once in such a huge place was exciting.

My first destination was to get to an appointment at GT Interactive with Brandon Smith of Cavedog. I waited in the GT Interactive's lounge for my appointment. I met with Cliff Bleszinski (CliffyB) of Epic MegaGames. CliffyB and I had originally met a year before, when I conducted a telephone interview with him. Until then I had never met him in person.

CliffyB was picking at the food displayed on a nice elegant table. We talked for a bit but I had to get to my appointment. I did however see CliffyB several times throughout the whole 3 days at the event. He is such a fun guy to be around. 

On my appointment with Brandon Smith of Cavedog at the GT Interactive Booth. I was eager to receive some coverage to write my first impressions on Total Annihilation: Kingdoms.

After roaming around a bit at the convention, my brother called me to let me know that Brian Kemp (BrianK) of Psygnosis wanted to see if I could meet them at the Psygnosis Booth. I have known BrianK since we met in 1997 on Mplayer.  I was really glad to have the chance to finally meet him in person.

Briank asked me which game I was looking forward to getting coverage on at Psygnosis and I told him Metal Fatigue. Drakan: Order of the Flame is another action game I am looking forward to but I knew DarkViper (my brother) would get coverage on that game much quicker than I could from him knowing a lot of the guys from Psygnosis from the "Drakan Party" he had attended in San Francisco, California in October 1998. I had heard a lot of rumors about the development of a real time strategy game called Metal Fatigue, which was said to be also coming along really good so my real attention at the time was on the Metal Fatigue game.

BrianK introduced me to one of the Game Developers which was Jason Hough of Zono, Inc. As soon as I shook Jason's hand, I automatically felt that I knew him for years. I did an interview with Jason Hough which has been posted at GamingEvents.com. Jason's eyes lit up many times when he talked about the game, you can see he really enjoys developing this game.

At around 1:30pm I went to the Microsoft Booth to meet up with Steve Cherrier of Arbuthnot Communications, a PR firm for Microsoft's games division. I sort of had his name wrong so the girl at the Microsoft Booth was very kind to walk with me up stairs to the Microsoft conference room. She didn't know of a person named Steve Churner whom worked for Microsoft or Ensemble. They didn't know who he was so it was sort a big mess. Until finally, I walked back down to the Microsoft booth and was greeted by Steve.

Steve and I have previously talked via phone and instant messanger. He is always such a nice guy so I felt I sort of knew him pretty well already. We walked to a more quiet area to record his interview. After Steve Cherrier's interview, he took me to view and play the game. Age of Kings looks like it is definitely going to get many awards. I have had a lot of fun playing Age of Empires in the past. But, the art and details on the Ages of Kings game has really improved so much compared to the Age of Empires series, let alone many gameplay enhancements.

By the time I was done with all of that excitement and longing so bad to just stay there and play the Age of Kings demo for the rest of the day, I had to get to another appointment.

This time my appointment was scheduled at 2:30pm in the Kentia Hall with Melissa Whatley of Simutronics. Melissa introduced me to Derek Sanderson the lead developer of the upcoming online role playing game called Hero's Journey which Simutronics has been working hard on. I wrote a brief sneak peek about Hero's Journey.

I went outside of the convention center after the appointment with Simutronics and I saw my other buddy Joel Downs (Wemmick). The last time I saw Wemmick was at the PGL in San Francisco, California. He mentioned that he was staying in the area he grew up in near L.A., but he flew out for the event, as he still resides near the San Francisco area.

The rest of the time was pretty much meeting up with the Mplayer.com staff at their booth and waiting for my next appointment at 5:00pm with Jason MacIsaac (Jester) of Gamesmania from Canada. I met him at around 5:00pm. It was so nice to finally see himafter this whole time we have talked to each other on the net. Gamesmania hosted my CGN Cali Girl Gaming News site from January of 1997 - March 18th of 1999. We talked a lot about Gamesmania, the Gamesmania International Team and Canada.

I wasn't able to stay and visit Jester very long, my brother wanted me to meet his buddy Joost of Planetquake so I needed to get going. We headed on over across the street to the big Gamespy/G.O.D Games outside street corner parking lot for the party. I also had the chance to meet up with Lonnie of Babbages. We talked a very long time with Lonnie and Joost. Both of them seemed to be really nice guys.

While talking with them, I noticed Brent McLeod (Veldrin), Ray Gresko (Moongod), Steve Tietze (Gateway) and Maarten Kraaijvanger (Scythe) from Nihilistic, talking away over in a little crowd. Having Don Crew (Aristotle) Publisher of Jediknight.net & Lucas Games in mind... I wanted to get a picture of the Nihilistic guys. Aristotle always talks so highly of them and is very good friends with them.

I ended up talking to the Nihilistic guys a bit about their upcoming Role Playing/Action game, Vampire: The Masquerade. Moongod reminded me to come by the Activision booth to see the game the following day. We also talked a bit about Aristotle. I was really hoping he would be able to fly out and make it to the E3 on Saturday.

After walking back to talk with Darkviper and Joost and Lonnie (left to right pic - DarkViper & Lonnie), I saw Steve Gibson (Scary) of the ShugaShack. I talked to Scary for a bit about some interviews and previous emails then headed back on over to the PQ guys.

That evening was pretty bad because we missed the shuttle we originally took early in morning. While at the Gamespy/G.O.D Games party I completely forgot about taking the shuttle to E3 and the last shuttle had already departed.

We ended up having to take a cab back to the hotel in Beverly Hills. The driver of the cab was really nice but his driving wasn't to good.  Well... lets just say he was practically driving on the wrong side of the road at times. On the freeway, umm.. well.. I could go as far to say that it seemed like he would get very close and almost run into some diesel trucks. I guess it was because he wouldn't look over his shoulder or put his blinkers on. He would just go into the other lane as if no one was in it. So we were constantly being honked at. By the time I was at the hotel I was thankful we all got to there in one piece.

Friday

Early Friday morning we drove down to E3 and it was well worth the drive. We had - easy access on getting a nice parking spot at the Los Angeles Convention Center.

At around 9am I talked to Aristotle on the phone. He originally stated that he made reservations and arrangements to fly out from Connecticut to Los Angeles, California. In fact, he said he was even able to make reservations for his flight to leave Friday night after work.

Due to an urgent situation he was unable make it on time for E3. I was a bit upset but I understood, he asked me if I could check out the Lucasarts booth to see for any coverage on the new first person shooter for Jediknight.net from Steven Shaw. Then asked me to just enjoy myself there and to make sure I had a great time.

After getting off the phone I headed straight to the Lucasarts booth. A Hispanic man stood in front of the door. He told me right off "Appointments Only" in a stern voice. I told him I was with Jediknight.net and I was to meet Steven Shaw. He said ok.. go ahead inside and talk to the lady at the booth. The doors were closed and they had a big sign saying: "APPOINTMENTS ONLY" right there. I walked in the room and talked to the lady at the desk for a bit. She asked around for Steven Shaw but he left the day before. That is about all I received from the Lucasarts gaming scene.

However, I previously talked to Jason of Gamesmania concerning Lucasarts Thursday night. He had an appointment and told me a bit about the game. Nothing to an extreme, but enough to know a little about an upcoming first person shooter by Lucasarts.  

Today was also picture coverage day. I wanted to take as many pictures of booths as I could.

By the way, if you haven't been to the Los Angeles Convention Center their convention center is huge. It has a passage over a street called Pico and when you are inside the building you are sometimes across the street and over on the next block with out really knowing it, which means E3 is actually in two separate buildings.

As I was walking toward the West Hall, something caught my eye...  I totally focused on a huge Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Display which was very well done. When I saw a tall Klingon, he gave me a dirty look playing his role accurately. No way will I let a big mean dirty look scare me (it's CaliGirl remember? Hehe).

I calmly approached the Klingon and I asked in a polite voice...

[CaliGirl]: Are there any more Klingons around so I could take a nice Star Trek Group picture?

(With a mean dirty look and in a harsh strong voice he replies)

[Klingon]: Why are you being so greedy? Wanting more than one Klingon like that?

(Ignoring the question of me being greedy when I knew I wasn't being greedy. Hrmph! I ended up bugging him by asking him in a nice calm voice...)

[CaliGirl]: Around what time will more Klingons show up here?

(With a more aggitated look and even a deeper harsh strong voice he replies...)

[Klingon]: There is going to be only 1 earthling that would arrive at 11am.

The earthling he mentioned ended up being Nicole Deboer, an actress for Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. I knew I had over an hour to see such an earthling so I thought why linger around.

While taking pictures in the West Hall, another display caught my eye. I saw a huge Nintendo sign with the Episode 1 Racer stretched across it. Short sections of a few Star Wars movie, Pokemon and etc was playing on a huge screen in back of the giant display. Automatically I thought whoa! This would be a perfect picture to get for my buddy Aristotle for his Podracers.com site. Even though I was still a little disappointed in not being able to meet him at E3 this year. I took about 3 pictures of different aspects of the Nintendo Episode 1 Racer display. 

I also saw this adorable Pokemon Booth. I am still a newb on playing Pokemon on my color Gameboy so I thought it was great to see such a booth dedicated to it. I don't even think I have even seen a Pokemon cartoon yet. The little Pokemon Volkswagen was to cute!  I didn't have time to check the booth out closely so I just took pictures of it.

I then roamed around the Playstation booth and went up in to see the Final Fantasy VII display and the preview movie inside the booth for a bit as well.

As I was leaving West Hall I noticed that the Star Trek: Deep Space nine had a long line. The people were longing to meet the actress, Nicole Deboer. No way was I going to spend an hour and a half in a line for a Star Trek show. If it was Star Wars, I would have more likely considered.

On the way back to South Hall I heard some type of Egyptian/India music with a really nice beat to it. All of these guys were crowded around... so of course there were girls dancing. It was a Prince of Persia 3d Display, these identical bellydancer twins wore authentic costumes. Prince of Persia 3d is an action/adventure which is now returning in 1999, the Prince will be in landmark 3D and animation technology.

At around noon I was already tired. I was glad I had my tennies on though. I had boots on all day Thursday so this was a nicechange. Although, I didn't have my tennis shows totally broken into so the boots were actually more comfortable.

On my way back to South Hall, I saw John Ehde (Kiljoy) and David Haupt (Cromwell). I haven't seen them in person for almost a year now so it was great to see a few of my old XP buddies again.

As XP-Kiljoy and XP-Cromwell and I were still talking, two guys walked up. They happened to be Victor (Makaveli) and Brian Lee (D3-LittleDragon of clan DeathRow). I was really surprised to see them both. I haven't ever seen Brian in person so I was really happy to finally meet him after talking to him for all of these years online.

The Clan I am in was going to have an XP Party that night but I decided driving all the way out for 1 hour or so to get to it wasn't a very good idea at the time. I was already  tired from not getting my normal hours of sleep. I couldn't make it another hour just to drive back again to the hotel in Beverly Hills that night or early morning.

I met up with Ray Gresko (Moongod) at the Activision booth. He is a really sweet guy. He has the most piercing gentle blue eyes, you can't help but notice them. Other than that, he has a great personality, it truly was an honor to meet him. You can really see his excitement in developing this awesome game, Vampire: The Masquerade. Nihilistic was honored with awards such as AGN3D's "Best RPG Award", IGN's "Best RPG Award", Gameprix.Com's "Game of the Show Award" and Best Game Concept Award" at the E3 event. You can see why they received lots of attention which was greatly deserved by such hard working guys.

After Ray showed me the highlights and the game's storyline, I told him that Aristotle wasn't able to make it. He looked a bit upset too, but he seemed fine. I know that the Nihilistic guys wanted to meet Don just as much as I did. Here is an interview of some of the Nihilistic Team.

I met up with the Westwood Studio guys for my appointment at 2pm. Aaron Cohen was so helpful and very sincere. He first introduced me to John Hight, the executive producer of the Role Playing Game, Nox. At E3 the Nox lady really knew how to act out her role. :) 

While listening to John Hight I noticed a girl that was standing there talking to someone, it was XP-Cromwell's girlfriend, Elana. I was surprised and hugged her. I then looked around to find XP-Cromwell and XP-Kiljoy.

Trying not to interfere with John Hight's game tour, I heard this guy talking behind me with a very familiar voice. I looked over my shoulder and I saw Mike Milbrett (XP-Nomad). I hadn't seen him since last year at the XPCON so it was so great to see him again too.

I heard this cute female voice yell out Cali!!! I turn around and I saw my buddy Christina Chan (XP-Pookie). I haven't seen her since the PGL in November of 1998. Then Eymard (XP-Delusion) and XP-Chael came around the corner and it definitely felt like an XP reunion.

I kept thinking I was sort of interrupting John Hight while he was showing me the Nox game so I apologized and contined to focus on the game. I also had a chance to play the game while he showed me where to go and what I could do.

Aaron of Westwood introduced me to Theodore Morris. Theodore was showcasing C&C2: Tiberian Sun. A lot of people who know my C&C addiction on Mplayer.com years ago, would know how excited I was to see this game. Just thinking about it now makes my hands itch. Theodore asked me if I would like to try it out after he gave me a C&C tour. I requested that I didn't at this time. All I could think of at the time was the fact that if I started playing the game, I wouldn't get off. I mean, I probably would but it would take a lot... I wrote a little about my first impressions of C&C2: Tiberian Sun.

I received a call from my brother DarkViper asking me to meet him at the Eidos booth to meet Stevie Casie (Kilcreek). I told him I needed to check out the Braveheart, Deus Ex and Anachronox so I would be there in a jiffy.

I have talked to Kilcreek many times through emails, in IRC and on Mplayer so I knew her online pretty well. But we never met in person.  She is very pretty in person. I have always heard many guys talk highly about how cool and beautiful she was and I could totally understand why. Not only is she pretty on the outside, she also is very sincere when she talks to youl. I took a picture of her and my brother DarkViper at the Eidos' Ion Storm's Daikatana game area. I also talked to Kilcreek and John Romero of ION Storm briefly on Saturday in the Cafe at E3.

I decided to go see if I could go play some Age of Kings. I checked over at the Microsoft Booth and while I was passing by, I XP-Kiljoy and XP-Cromwell were there with Elana. I asked them if I could get a picture taken of them.

While I was talking to them, a young guy with a hat walked up to me and just stood there and stared at me. I looked over and just looked back and talked to XP-Kiljoy, XP-Cromwell and Elana about the E3 event... The guy kept staring with his eyes squinting as if he knew me. I actually think he was staring at my badge to read it.

I looked at his E3 badge and saw his name. It was Brian Loizer of Massassi Temple. I have dealt with Brian for over a year or so. He also used to help run Jediknight.net. I was so excited to see a Jediknight person there, then 3 other guys came up and started talking with me. I didn't know who they were until Brian introduced them. It was Alexei Novikov of Code Alliance, Captain Ramen of Outpost-34 and Brian's friend. They asked if Aristotle was still coming to E3 on Saturday. I told them he couldn't make it.

While all of us Jedi fans talked, the guys noticed that Yves Borkmans from Nihilistic was wondering alone. He seemed to be looking for something at a booths so we all started talking to him for quite a long time. He told us he was longing to see the Messiah game. Yves Borkmans was a lot of fun to talk to, and he has such an adorable accent.

I was still amazed that the JK guys actually recognized me. I still don't know how they did it. I haven't ever met them in person but maybe they have seen my California Girl Photo Album online. 

One great thing about today was the fact that we drove there so there were no taxi cab nightmares this evening. Just a very, very long day...

Saturday

For the last day of E3 I didn't arrive at the convention until after 10am. There seemed to not as many people on Saturday. I didn't have too many appointments to get to so I was able to check out the games more. I met up with Olga of Buka Entertainment to get some coverage on their upcoming strategy game, Aztec.

Since it was more of a smooth day, I wanted to check out some of the action games such as Unreal Tournament, Quake 3 Arena, Daikatana and Tribes. On my way down the escalator I saw the XP Crew again. Yes, those guys were everywhere. I think over 20 of them went to the event.

I did get a chance to meet up with Wemmick again. I gave him a wake up call that morning and told him I was sorry for not being able to meet him at lunch the day before. We met up at noon and talked for a while. He is always so cheerful.

While I was walking through Kentia Hall I passed the Wrebbit Interactive Booth. The booth was displaying a Bavarian Castle 3d Puzzle game. I talked to the guy for a bit and he asked me if I could check out the demo.

I bumped into Dennis Fong (D11-Thresh) of Gamers Extreme and FiringSquad while I was roaming around the Eidos booth. We talked talked about some of the games, including Soldiers of Fortune.

Stephanie Bergman (Bobbi) of All Games in New York and Vangie Beal (Aurora) of Gamegirlz from Nova Scotia, Canada were interviewing a developer at the GT Booth. I haven't really talked to them since April 30, 1999 on the Lilth & Eve show:

Today on Lilith & Eve, Stef and Vangie are joined by Lockup aka Sandy Goseland from BetaBites,   Killcreek Stevie Case from Ion Storm, RazorCut aka Ray Graham, Jr Stearns, oops aka James Stearns from the Online Gaming League (OGL), and CaliGirl aka Jody Robinson from CaliGirl.net (among others).   Wanna just download the show and watch later? Click here to download the 19k version, or here to download the 85 kbps version.

It was great to finally meet Aurora in person. I was watching Stephanie interview a developer and looked over and saw Vangie observing the show. I tapped her on the shoulder and told her who I was. We both gave each other a bear hug. I saw Bobbi at the PGL event last November of 1998. I noticed this guy standing next to Vangie and kept wondering if it was either Hab or Goliath. I don't know if it was Hab or not or I would of gave him a big hug.

I stopped by the Activion booth to tell the Nihilistic guys bye before I left. Steve (Gateway) was at one of the Vampire: The Masquerade display screens so I talked to him about the game for a while. I think I would of bothered Ray (Moongod) but everyone seemed to be crowded around him. After talking to Gateway about the multiplayer mode in the game. I told Yves, Gateway and Moongod bye and headed on over to meet my brother DarkViper at the Dynamix booth. 

DarkViper was interviewing one of the guys who are developing Tribes2. While I was there, Nathan (Prime) and Edmond (Perfect Tommy) were also waiting for DV so I talked to them for quite a while. Edmond was talking to us about the Planet of the Apes and CGI stuff.

We left the convention center by 4:15pm. By then, I felt so worn out. Ever since Monday night, I only slept every night about 3-4 hours. I noticed at certain times I was getting tongue tied from my brain just going blank from not sleeping right. Friday night was the most I slept, which was 5 hours. 

My only disappointment about the whole E3 Event was not being able to see some of my other buddies such as; Aristotle of the LucasGames Network, Sean Martin (Redwood) of Stomped.com, Billy Wilson (Wicked) of Voodoo Extreme, James Fudge (Prophet) of CDMag, Kenn Hwang (Spear) of FiringSquad, Markus (Majesty) of ShugaShack, Michelle MacLellan (LadyICE) of Unreal Kingdom and John MacLellan (Jeh) of ActionXtreme and Unreal Kingdom. Some of the ones I missed did attend the E3 on some of the days. Oh well, hopefully next time. :)

I also wish I took more pictures of the Nihilistic guys, Mplayer.com Staff, the XP crew, and others. In fact, I recall taking a picture of the Westwood guys at their booth and some other developers at certain booths. For some reason I can't find them. Other than that, I really didn't expect a lot of things that ended up happening while I was there. It was so great to finally meet with a lot of people I have talked to online over the past years.

I hope you enjoyed my journey of E3 1999! Take care, - CaliGirl :)