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Feature Articles > Features > E3 2006 - Day 1
Our resident "child at heart" Cary Woodham (and his dad Randy) tackle E3 2006. My, what an adventure they had! Last week I headed out to Los Angeles for the Electronic Entertainment Expo, the biggest trade show for the video game industry. I went to help cover it for GamerDad.com, and I brought my dad, Randy, along for the ride. Since I'm blind in my left eye and can't drive a car, my dad helps me get around LA and we have fun spending time together so E3 always ends up being a great vacation. This year's E3 was also special because the founder of GamerDad, Andrew Bub, was also at E3 this year along with our editor-in-chief Dave Long and frequent contributors Steve Fulton and his brother Jeff. It was a real treat to meet all of them face to face. One thing you should know about this E3 article—I didn't have time to play all the games. There is just no way for one person to see it all. So I only focused on the games I really like to play. So don't expect to read any news and impressions about Metal Gear Solid 4 or Halo 3. But this is good for you parents because most of the games I like to play are whimsical, family friendly titles. This series of E3 articles will fill you in on what games your kids might want this upcoming holiday. So when your kids come up to you in August and say, "Guess what I want for Christmas?" You can say, "Yoshi's Island 2?" And they'll be all like, "H-how did you know?" You can score some ‘cool points' by reading this. Even before our airplane hit the runway in LA, there was already video game antics going on as I got my dad addicted to the Sudoku puzzles on Brain Age for the Nintendo DS. He played that game nearly the whole time on the plane to LA, each night in the hotel room, and on the plane ride back home, too! I wouldn't be surprised if, when the DS Lite comes out, my dad ends up buying one and a copy of Brain Age for himself!
 At E3, video game companies set up larger attention grabbing booths, so they can show off their upcoming titles for the holiday rush season. Our first stop for day one of the show was Namco Bandai Games' booth. They actually had two booths kind of catty-cornered to each other. The Namco Networks section was showing off all manner of classic Namco arcade cell phone games, and the booth was also decorated in the appropriate classic Namco style. Some of the new upcoming cell phone games include Super Pac-Man, Time Crisis and Ridge Racer. Being mobile phone games, they were very simplistic versions of their arcade counterparts. If you played one of the cell phone games, one of the booth helpers wearing Pac-Man hats that went completely around their heads would give you a token. You could use this token at the many toy vending machines scattered around the booth to get a small Pac-Man toy. Classic Namco memorabilia was strewn through the booth, such as classic arcade cabinets, cases of early 80's Pac-Man toys, and a VW Beetle decorated like Pac-Man that I would love to have in my garage. At Namco Bandai's main booth, they were showing off their console titles. I got to check out three of them up close and in detail: Pac-Man World Rally, Snoopy and the Red Baron (GamerDad called it "my daughter's next favorite game"), and Naruto: Ultimate Ninja. I really wasn't expecting much out of Pac-Man World Rally, being a tired Mario Kart clone and all. But when I played it at E3, I was pleasantly surprised. Play control was smooth and responsive. I could pull off powerslides and zip around other racers with no trouble. There were lots of classic Namco references, which I like. Some of the playable racers included Pac-Man, Fygar from Dig Dug, and the Prince from Katamari Damacy! The prince drove around on four little Katamaris, and wore bike handle tassels on his head, like the present he gets in the game. Other classic characters will be playable as well, but they haven't been announced yet. Other racers, like Inky the ghost monster, drove around in the Pole Position car, and one of the special weapons you could get to attack other racers was the spaceship from Galaga. It was kind of hard to hear on the loud show floor, but one of the tracks had a jazzy remix of the Pac-Man theme, and in the final game there will be a classic cup series of tracks based on old Namco games. There were three race tracks you could pick from in the demo's E3 Cup. A standard road track, an ice track, and a jungle course. On the sides of the road track were some Pac-Deer, and if they ate a power pellet on the ground, they'd glow and run across to the other side of the road. Don't run over the powered up Pac-Deer when they do that, because you'll end up spinning out. There were lots of fun things to look at in the ice track, like a giant whale, an even bigger Abominable Neander-Pac clubbing around, and cute penguins with bowties sliding around the track on their bellies. The jungle course featured huge snapping turtles and sharp corners, and the Pac Ranger from Pac-Man World 2 was observing all the jungle hijinx. The race tracks feature elements from the classic Pac-Man maze game as well. Collected bonus fruit might open up a gate to a shortcut on the track, and if you eat enough scattered dots and power pellets, you could turn your racer into an electronic chomping Pac-Mobile. All the other racers would turn into blue ghosts riding unicycles, and for a limited time you could munch the ghosts for the lead. The Pac-Man World Rally E3 demo also had a battle mode. Each racer had a life bar and you could pick up health icons, so it was more like a car battle game rather than Mario Kart's balloon popping. The battle arena looked like a haunted castle, with giant Pac-Spiders waiting to pounce on you. Weapons you pick up were based on Pac-Man bonus fruit. Lay down explosive cherry bomb mines, peg racers with the rapid fire watermelon seed spitter, or simply ram them into the wall with the Banana Rammer. Since it's still a me-too character kart racer, the jury still isn't out on Pac-Man World Rally. But after playing the E3 demo, things are looking a little more promising. It comes out this summer for just about all the current consoles, even the PSP. Another pleasant surprise at Namco's booth was Snoopy and the Red Baron. Playing better than your typical cartoon licensed game, Snoopy and the Red Baron is best described as a family friendly Ace Combat. Snoopy is dreaming he's the WWI flying ace, and you control Snoopy as he flies around in his biplane with Woodstock by his side. In the demo, Snoopy flew around, shooting down enemy biplanes, ships, and tanks while protecting a boat and a convoy of trucks. The game is very forgiving, if you hit a wall you'll just bounce right back. And even though the game is all about dogfights, Snoopy's title is still fairly nonviolent, as parachutes always pop out of shot down biplanes. The game features other classic Peanuts references as well. Lucy briefs you on your mission and tells you what to do during it, and on one of the islands was a root beer factory. For the boss battle against a huge battleship, you control Woodstock as Snoopy's gunman, blasting threatening targets on the ship. But even during this tense battle, the game retained its cartoony look. If you shot one of the ship's smokestacks, for instance, it would blast off like a rocket. Snoopy and the Red Baron will be out this fall.
 Since Namco merged with Bandai, they were also showing a lot of licensed anime game titles, like Zatch Bell, .hack GU, and Naruto: Ultimate Ninja. Since some of my little brothers like watching anime and reading Japanese manga comic books, I figured I had better at least try out one of these new games, so I picked the Naruto PS2 one. It's a fighting game with simple, easy to learn controls. Like Super Smash Bros. One button for jumping, one for close attacks, one button for throwing long range ninja stars and other weapons, and one for super special attacks. You could jump in and out of the background, like SNK's King of Fighters games, and the cel shaded graphics looked just like the cartoon. When a meter fills up, you could perform super special attacks with timed button presses, but your opponent could defend against those attacks with timed button presses of his or her own. The game shows you what buttons to push for these special attacks, so even I could figure them out, and I stink at fighting games. Fans of the 3-D Dragon Ball Z fighting games will probably like Naruto's title. I didn't have time to check out Namco Bandai's other games. I saw Tekken and Ace Combat PSP games, and they even had a few PC titles as well. Namco's booth also had a stage show where energetic ladies were hosting events and competitions, handing out goodies, and talking about all of Namco Bandai's new games. I was only disappointed that they only showed Tales of the Abyss in video form only, but I guess it's kind of hard to get the feel for an RPG at the E3 show. Another one of my favorite video game companies is Capcom, and luckily their booth was right next to Namco Bandai's, so we went to them next. Fans of classic Capcom games will love their E3 lineup, especially on the portable handhelds. The Capcom Classics Collection Remixed that was on the PSP is coming to Xbox and maybe other consoles, and the big console version of the first Capcom Classics Collection is coming to the PSP with added games and features. Street Fighter Alpha Anthology has all the Street Fighter Alpha games on one PS2 disc, and also includes the silly Pocket Fighter. Puzzle World on the PSP has some of Capcom's famous puzzlers like Super Puzzle Fighter 2 Turbo, and Power Stone Collection takes both Dreamcast fighters and puts them all on one PSP UMD. Mega Man fans can get another dose with Mega Man Battle Network 6, and even the Mega Man ZX game on the DS looks promising. The first stage of ZX takes place at a Hard Hat amusement park, and the graphics look great on the small screen. For fans of the Ghosts N Goblins series of side scrollers, Ultimate Ghouls N Ghosts on the PSP looks to be a winner. You control boxer-short wearing knight Arthur as he fights zombies and demons and all sorts of graveyard baddies. The game is supposed to have all 3-D polygon graphics, but I couldn't tell. It all looked like classic 2-D to me, yet still full of personality. Arthur can pick up new weapons like bombs and a thorny vine whip. The first stage was your typical graveyard setting, and I fought a fire breathing cow head demon boss. This earned me some new boots that let Arthur do a double jump. Arthur could do other new moves as well, like grab onto ledges. The double jumping boots helped me beat a fire breathing giant rattlesnake mini-boss. But then the graveyard got overrun by lava and I had to do some tricky jumps to keep from getting broiled. This was tough because Arthur's jumping controls were a little clunky in the demo. Even on easy, Ultimate Ghouls N Ghosts is still incredibly hard, just like the last games. After jumping over all that lava, a wave of molten magma swept me back to where I started. And Arthur turned into a pile of bones, because a wave of lava is still a wave of lava. Where's a fireproof surfboard when you need one? Even with the short demo, I could tell this new PSP game retained the classic look and feel of the old Ghosts N Goblins games. Even the GBA is getting some classic Capcom love with Mini Mix, which has the NES versions of Strider, Mighty Final Fight, and Bionic Commando on it. I didn't do too well playing Mighty Final Fight because I got distracted by a TV screen right next to me which was showing a demo of one of the biggest surprises for me of the E3 show: Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney 2: Justice for All. YES! I loved the first one on the DS, and hopefully Capcom will make enough copies of the sequel so everyone can play this fun series. Next to Capcom was the Square Enix booth. They had about a million billion new Final Fantasy games and spin-offs for the current and new consoles. But I haven't been interested in a new Final Fantasy game in a long time so I skipped past all of those. But there were three DS titles at Square Enix's booth that I liked. First was Final Fantasy 3, a 3-D remake of the only Final Fantasy game that hasn't been released in the US yet. The graphics looked great, and even though things got a little grainy sometimes, it was still PlayStation quality stuff. It looked a lot like Final Fantasy 9 on the PSOne. I walked around a cave and entered some random battles. The battles may all be in 3-D, but they're still turn-based (Active Time Battle didn't appear until FF4). It was hard to hear on the show floor, but the remixed classic FF tunes also sounded great on the DS. Another DS Square Enix treat was Children of Mana. It played like a basic hack and slash dungeon crawler, but the bright graphics, charming enemies, and catchy music should make for a fun, albeit basic, button mashing portable adventure anyway. Last but not least is Rocket Slime, a DS adventure starring the cute little happy blue slime enemies from the Dragon Quest games. Guide Rocket the Slime on a cheerful 2-D Zelda-ish adventure. Rocket has slimy attacks, like stretching himself out and snapping into enemies like a rubber band. Clobbered enemies will rise into the air, and you can catch them on top of Rocket's happy slimy head and carry them around. In the E3 demo I played a wireless battle against a booth helper lady. We both had giant tanks and could walk around inside them. You viewed the outside of the two tanks on the top screen and controlled your slime on the bottom screen. I could pick up items and enemies inside the tank and toss them into a cannon to fire at the opponent's tank. If my slime ran out of hearts, I could take it to a little church in the tank to revive it. After blasting all the enemy tank's energy, I entered the opponent's tank to take out the heart shaped engine. The booth helper lady's red slime did everything she could to stop me, but I think she let me win anyway. Whew! And I think that's all for now. In part 2 of Cary and Randy's E3 Adventures: games, games, and...well, more games!
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