Oh man, it's hectic here. I don't know if it's more hectic here this year than it was the last. Or is it that I'm just a year older? But ultimately, who gives a crap. Anyway, as you may or may not know, the Early Access Media got to hit the show floor two hours before everyone else, so I used that chance to check out some of the stuff that I thought should be kind of cool.

The first game I got to play during this year's E3 was Prey in multiplayer mode, believe it or not. I was casually strolling around, wondering what the hell I should try first, (like a whale guy in a candy store), and hell, I ended up jumping into a multiplayer game of Prey.

In most regards, the game plays very much like Unreal Tournament and Quake, in terms of the pace and the layout of the levels. The big news in multiplayer I guess (I played a standard DM match) was the introduction of portals that pop up in areas around the map. Well, this was kind of cool and mighty useful too, seeing as you could use a portal to get away from a chasing opposing player. The tactic worked really well until everyone sort of got the feel of the map, at which point portals became not as useful for getting out of trouble. Overall, although the multiplayer mode didn't seem unique in any shape or form, it was actually quite fun to play. I kind of got carried away for a moment as I ended up in the second spot; next to this guy who must've been hax0ring cuz his GAY!

Next up, I wandered off to Ubisoft's booth, where I met with the PR boys who gave me a tour of some of their games. Ubi has a really, REALLY tight lineup this year. This new game, Assassin's Creed, is the main event for them, plus they were showing it behind closed doors, so I'll have to wait for that one till, like, tomorrow or the day after.

However, I did get to watch a demonstration of a level in Dark Messiah of Might & Magic. The first thing that needs to be highlighted about this game is that although it seems like it'll play similarly to Bethesda's Oblivion, it won't really. The devs stressed the fact that this is an action game in first-person mode in a fantasy setting. The swords and sorcery may be similar to Oblivion, but the actual gameplay isn't. The best that I can describe it is playing an action RPG in first person mode, and I must say the formula works pretty damn good. The level I saw was set in some sort of a cavern, with beautifully, and I do mean beautifully, implemented HDR lighting. The dev was fighting some mobs while making his way to the boss. Both melee combat and spell casting looked and felt great, and from what I could see of the environments, the team did an excellent job on modifying the Source engine (About time somebody did. - Ed. Vader). The game has its own identity, and that is very important to have when using a licensed 3D code. The end of the level had our main guy fight this huge Cyclops boss. There is actually a trick to killing him, and it involves traps and the use of physics. Looks really fun when you're watching the guy do it, and most of all, it's really spectacular to see the huge monster grab you in its hand in first person view. You really get the feel for the scale of this bastard. It's quite impressive. Looks like this will be a good game.

Moving on, I made my way to Activision's booth, where I was treated to Marvel Ultimate Alliance and Enemy Territory: Quake Wars.

Marvel Alliance is an X-Men like game done in the "full" Marvel universe if you will, with characters like Spider-Man and Thor, making an appearance. There's no doubt that this one will be a hit, but it plays and looks almost exactly like the X-Men Apocalypse games from Raven. Obviously, the addition of heroes like Captain America, the Fantastic Four and all the others will make this a great seller, but from a standpoint of innovation and such, this is just X-Men with tighter shadows, particle effects and lots more famous super heroes.

On the other hand, Enemy Territory is absolutely freaking amazing. Holy shit! We got to play a 20 minute multiplayer match with something like 8 players on each side. Smaps and I joined the fray as the Strogg, and right from the get go I started loving this game. Not only does it look as good as on the screenshots, it also plays brilliantly, even at this point. The sheer amount of vehicles and sci-fi gadgets that are crammed into the gameplay is staggering. I freaking loved getting into one of those jet packs and flying across the map, throwing grenades at the opposing team etc. Of course, Mech-like vehicles were stomping their way across the field, I could deploy a bunch of structures on the field, tanks, aircraft, jeeps... you have everything in there and it just looks so spectacular and plays so smoothly. There is a device you throw on the ground and a huge death ray comes down from the skies, annihilating everything in its path - much like that weapon in C&C, if I'm not much mistaken. The medics can cast shields over an area, which protects them while healing other soldiers and Strogg infiltrators can partially turn humans into Strogg. Awesome stuff, and Smaps gonna tell you more about it in his full report.

Let's see, what did I do after that? Ah yes, the gents at Blizzard were kind enough to take me into their special booth for the special people where they showed me the Burning Crusade, the upcoming World of Warcraft expansion.

Immediately I asked about the possible emergence of Diablo 3, and the answer I got was that they don't really wanna do anything other than Warcraft - I'm paraphrasing here a bit.

Looking at the expansion pack though, I could probably understand why. They are adding huge areas into the game that, artistically, look pretty damn nice. Initially, I was worried that they've pretty much squeezed the Warcraft art dry, but as it so happens, they did a pretty amazing job on the Outlands and the starting territories for the Draenei - the new Alliance race. Now when you see the Draenei, you realize what this is all about. Blizzard is adding a counterpart to the Tauren (Draenei are big mothers) to balance out the addition of the Blood Elves.

The Draenei starting area looks wonderful and is very different from other starting areas in the game. The Blood Elves starting area is pretty much like what we've seen on the shots, so no surprises there.

For me, the coolest thing about this expansion pack was the inclusion of socketed items and the flying mount. Oh man, the flying mount! It was this ghost-like, glowing dragon that you can only get at level 70. The developer was flying with him across territories in the Outlands and it just looked so unbelievably cool to me (Geez 2lions, you're a hopeless WoW addict. - Ed. Vader). As big a jump for the player as getting an epic mount after running on foot for God knows how long.

The socketed items will have the equipment nut jobs going even nuttier, as this is some really cool stuff. It's like enchanting and it's BOP (so it's like engineering in that sense); the cool thing is there are three slots that you can use to combine gems of different qualities (green, blue, purple... you know the deal). You can play with the combinations of gems till you get the right one and then confirm it on your equipment.

I also got to see the Tier 3 dungeon sets for the Shaman, Warrior, and the Warlock. The warrior set looks freaking badass to the core. Hardcore players are gonna love it.

Other than that, the presentation was pretty weak, as I ended up having the game shown to me by this guy that does world events and doesn't know anything about the direction that Blizzard is taking the game (or they probably just told him to play dumb).

OK, that's it for now kids. I snapped off some pictures of booth babes, which are plentiful again this year. OH I'M SORRY. RIGHT. THERE ARE NO BOOTH BABES AT E3 THIS YEAR.

THEY ARE ALL LEVEL DESIGNERS.

YES, LEVEL DESIGNERS!

Twoey signing off...