I’ve already detailed my intimidating experience on my first day of E3 so for Day Two, I think I’ll take a different approach. You saw me at my most anxious and stressed on Day One, but Day Two was a totally different experience. After seeing how well (and calmly) my colleagues at The Adrenaline Vault handled their E3 responsibilities, I decided to shadow them on Day Two. I would leverage some of Turks’s connections and experience the VIP treatment. I even walked away with a few VIP badges, which may or may not have needed to be returned, but they’ll look good on my wall. The main difference in my approach to Day Two was a focus on the experience and better time management (i.e. a lot less walking between halls).

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I never aspired to become a game reviewer, it just sort of happened. My journey began with the casual podcast download, progressed to writing iOS game reviews and has escalated beyond my expectations with my inaugural E3 experience. Attending E3 with a media pass has its perks, but if you’re not prepared, there are some pitfalls awaiting the unsuspecting noob. What started out as a nightmare, however, eventually became something that I will value the rest of my life. I’m already preparing myself for next year’s E3, but nothing will be quite as intimidating, yet ultimately transcendent, as my first time.

When I arrived at the Los Angeles Convention Center, I thought I was adequately prepared for the long day ahead of me. My calm quickly unraveled while I walked through the parking structure. The sign near the entrance read “$50/day maximum for event parking.” E3 definitely qualifies for an event, but surely I wouldn’t be charged $50 for leaving my car in this garage for the day, right? Nope, I parked in the garage for L.A. Live and parking there was considerably more expensive that the convention center parking. Rather than search out another parking garage, I decided to finish my first appointment to preview Dead Island, and then scope out more affordable parking solutions afterward.

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In light of the PC vs. Console debates and flame wars I’ve participated in this past year, I owe all of the PC gamers I’ve argued with an apology. As much as the words “I’m sorry, I was wrong” sting my lips like lemon juice on an open wound…PC gamers: “I’m sorry, I was wrong.” While I’ve never advocated console titles as being on par with the technology behind PC games, I’ve argued that the gaming experience and immersion of the two can be equal. Unlike a lot of gamers I’ve come across, I generally don’t care what system a game is on if I enjoy the experience. I thoroughly enjoyed Red Dead Redemption on my Xbox 360, but I’ll only play Left 4 Dead and Battlefield Bad Company 2 on my PC. I’m even considering buying a used Game Cube so I can revisit some GC games that I miss (unless I buy a Wii and download the titles). In my analysis, any preference of systems was either a symptom of fanboy-ism or a case of elitist syndrome.

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What’s going on you sexy video game? Yeah you! I see you sitting all alone at the kiosk, flashing your $60 price tag and showing a little too much insert. You’re promising to be my game of the year and excite me in all the right places. For a little more than a tank of gas, you’ll make me forget about all the heartache and loss in my gaming past. You’ll be the game in the genre that sets the bar for every other game I’ll bring home. But game, I know something you don’t know: you’re not my first $60 game. I’ve been around the gaming block and learned a thing or two.

We’re entering the age of the Indie Game. You might not think so, with titles like CoD: Black Ops and Homefront setting sales records for the industry and for their publishers, but the $60 game is dying. Homefront set records for THQ, but when the reviews were lackluster at best, the company’s stocks took a sizeable hit and gamers were left confused, lonely, and heartbroken. How could Homefront, with its over-the-top marketing, completely fail to at least mirror its FPS contemporaries? Gamers were presented with Bulletstorm, Fallout: New Vegas, Fable 3, and Crysis 2 (to name a few) and while these titles sold fairly well, I’ve noticed a few trends.

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I was a really weird child, and I’ve found the definitive proof. My parents are moving out of state this month, so I made a few trips back home to sort through the cardboard-entombed relics of my youth. I’m weird now, but I had forgotten what sort of child I was until I found an unopened letter from my past. Tucked neatly into a manila folder, somewhere between the pirate ship I drew in second grade and my middle-school poetry journal, was a sealed envelope. Scrawled in my practically unchanged handwriting was an address for one Mrs. Brown, who apparently lived at the same address I did. I sat there crossed-legged, with a beaded Native American headband tied around my head and surrounded by the toys of my youth, and unfolded the letter, which read:

“Dear Mrs. Brown, my leg has been acting up so I will need you to send me more apples. The last lot was bad, they were too sour. And please send me another cherry cake. Two cherries were missing from the last one.”

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First, let me be clear. I am not a fan of any publisher/developer, including Activision. I simply do not care. If a game is good, then I will support it. I don’t engage in pointless debates about how Treyarch is inferior to Infinity Ward (or vice versa). However, every once in a while, something happens that enrages me to the point that I will brave the trolls and address the idiot gamers out there. Recently, Activision made some important decisions that impacted the lives and employment of 500 people. At this point a lot of you gamers will spew forth an anti-Activision tirade born of monumental ignorance and immaturity. Let me give you two pieces of advice. One, don’t do that. And two, your life is going to suck until the day you die if you don’t stop playing the victim.

Activision announced that development of Guitar Hero would cease. Many gamers accuse Activision of draining the veins dry of any successful IP it owns, and often cite the Guitar Hero franchise as evidence. This opinion is completely void of common sense and knowledge of business strategy. First off, no product is capable of an infinite life span, which means it will see diminishing profits. Oversaturating the market can decrease any game’s lifespan, but I would argue that Activision knew the music-genre was fading. In addition to trying to profit as much as it could, it was also supplying work to the Guitar Hero developers. Had Guitar Hero 5 and Warriors of Rock never been released, on top of the franchise dying after GH World Tour, the developers would have suffered an earlier fate. Either way, the idiots out there seem determined to fault Activision regardless of the decisions they make.

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Growing up, I wasn’t technically a gamer. I owned a Sega Genesis and NES, but I only purchased bargain bin games or rented the occasional video game from a local mom-and-pop rental store. My best friends usually had the newest consoles and the latest titles, and I would get to play the latest titles when we hung out, but I was more into the social aspect of gaming with friends. “Gamer” wasn’t something I was, gaming was something I did when I got together with my buddies.

Now I’m 27 and consider myself a “gamer.” I’ve even developed a reputation around my work as the nerdy gamer. Upon coming in late to work one day, my boss asked me if I “was up all night gaming or something.” A large part of this transformation is due not only to being able to afford to keep up with gaming, but also the embracing of technologies that keep me informed such as podcasts, RSS feeds and updates from Facebook.

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