| WooJin Lee's Impressions |
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This was my first E3 and man did it kick ass. It was great to meet most of the staffers for the first time and it was just a great social event to be part of. Some of the swag was really nice to boot :) The only bad parts were the trip to and back....
One thing I didn't like about E3 were the damned closed demos that caused ridiculously long lines to form up. That's why I didn't get a chance to check out C&C: Generals and Doom III...oh well. Not too big of a loss, I guess. I skipped over the RPGs I already imported but I did take a quick peek at Wild Arms III and Grandia Xtreme. The port seems pretty decent, and the dub for GX sounded pretty decent...much better than that robot game that Enix had at their booth...R.A.D. R.A.D was a very cool game once you got used to the controls though. Of course, that didn't happen for me until the 4th time I tried it... As for Growlanser II and III...I'm not quite sure why they even had a playable version of 2 out there. There was barely any translation done (only the chara names and 'Yes' 'No' answers from what I saw) and the game seemed to freeze every so often...eh, whatever. The RPG I was most impressed with was GC's Legend of Zelda. It looks like it's taking a more interactive approach this time around with lots of NPCs around, so it's a much more lively world this time around...and the animations are just terrific. Games like Zelda and Wild Arms III really show that cell shading is here to stay. Deus Ex 2 looked very promising as well...well, they didn't have much in the way at E3 except a tech demo... but still. I'm confident that the team at Ion Storm will make use of the engine to bring about a worthy sequel to the original. The game I was most surprised by was Suikoden III. I was skeptical before I saw the game in action, but from the demo I played it looks like the story is going to get very interesting and I personally didn't feel that the battle system was all that slow.I'm looking forward to importing it when it comes out in a few months. The other two games I wanted to play but couldn't was Star Ocean 3 and .hack. Star Ocean 3 was only shown through low quality video and .hack...well, I didn't feel like getting in line. I'm a fan of the .hack anime series so I'm hoping that the game will turn out well. The non-RPG lineup at E3 was much stronger. I was wowed by both Panzer Dragoon Orta and Metroid Prime but the game that really surprised me was Robotech. I couldn't believe how an American company could perfect the feel for the series that many Japanese companies had been struggling with for YEARS. I just hope that the storyline parts are well integrated in the final version of the game...as well as the use of wingmen enabled. Another surprise was Mystic Heroes. Ogami and I were making fun of this game like crazy when we first saw it. I mean...it looks like just a kiddified Dynasty Warriors. Then we started playing and didn't leave for the next 20-30 minutes. Nothing really new, but it's just a lot of fun. There were a lot other cool stuff as well. Resident Evil 0, Megaman Zero, Castlevania... the list goes on and on and on. I really do think that 2002-3 will be a year that the non-RPGs really stand out. The staff as a whole also checked out Little Tokyo where I bought two really, really expensive things on impulse. I now have the dubious honor of spending the most money during E3! Whee! Favorite RPGs:
Favorite Others:
Best of Show:
Worst of Show:
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