Today’s advanced technology can be a double-edged sword. It can provide us with tools and experiences unimagined in previous generations. But it can also deprive us of some of the things we’ve come to cherish. Technology has recently claimed another victim in games journalism, and we’re all the worse for it.

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It’s hard to believe that it’s been five years since the relaunch of the Adrenaline Vault. Angel Munoz, who founded Avault way back in 1995, and editor-in-chief David Laprad gathered together a ragtag bunch of newbie reviewers and set us loose on the gaming world. Since then, we’ve published more than 800 reviews, plus countless blog posts, news items and forum conversations. It’s truly been a long, strange trip.

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A few weeks ago I did something that I swore I’d never do.

I bought an iDevice.

This makes me a complete hypocrite. For years I’ve been telling everyone who would listen that Steve Jobs is the antichrist, and that his products are the spawn of Satan. This springs from my deep hatred towards the Mac. I’m not really sure why I hate the Mac, but I do. It’s one of those things that we do without any real provocation, such as disliking a perfect stranger without even meeting them (don’t lie; we all do it). But I’m sure that those odious Apple/PC TV commercials from a few years back have something to do with it. PC users everywhere wished that John Hodgman (PC) would grow a pair and clock Justin Long (Mac) just once, and I was no exception.

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It’s time once again to give some thought to what I’d like to see under the Christmas tree, wrapped in brightly colored paper with my name on the tags. Notice the strategic lack of mention of the fat guy in the red suit with the white beard and the captive reindeer that drag his lazy butt everywhere in the world in one night. I don’t know the demographic breakdown of Adrenaline Vault’s readership, but I think I’m safe to say that it skews old enough that I’m not gonna traumatize any kiddies with the following: Santa ain’t real (sorry, Patrick). Unless, of course, his middle name is “Best Buy Gift Card,” which makes up the bulk of my traditional holiday haul.

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The longest week in games journalism came to an end today as this year’s edition of the Electronic Entertainment Expo closed the books on another year in gaming. My last day featured new games from some big-time publishers, some promising items from some distinguished indies, and my first games of the week for the Nintendo Wii and DS.

Today’s journey began with a look at Lucha Libre, a Mexican wrestling simulation. A delay in the start of the demonstration forced me to move on before it started, but indie developer Slang gets high marks for their booth design: a full-sized wrestling ring, which was supposed to host some actual luchadores putting each other through their paces. My Avault comrades stayed for the demo, and I suspect there will be some discussion of it during their final E3 podcast. I did, however, stay long enough to score a wrestling mask that I’ll no doubt use to scare the kiddies in my neighborhood this Halloween.

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Another busy day at E3. Perhaps too busy, actually. I thought that I had worked out my scheduling problems for this year’s show, but apparently I still have more to learn. First, to get some unpleasantness out of the way. Activision’s Dan Amrich and I were supposed to sit down for a chat this morning before the show, but we must have gotten our signals crossed, and didn’t manage to get together.

Now to business. After a quick trip to play the multiplayer shooter APB, I had to hoof it to the other end of the building to see developer DTP’s RPG prequel Dragonsang: The River of Time. Set 23 years prior to 2009’s Dragonsang: The Dark Eye, River of Time features a character creation engine that can generate hundreds of classes and races. You control all four of your party members, each of which has their own game-opening story (shades of Dragon Age). Combat is turn-based in this story, which could run anywhere from 40 to 80 hours to complete, depending upon how many side quests you decide to tackle. The PC-only Dragonsang: The River of Time will be available at the end of 2010.

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It’s amazing how beneficial it is to get a good night’s sleep and a decent (if expensive) meal when covering an event such as E3. This morning I emerged from my hotel room with a renewed state of mind and made my way to the LA Convention Center for the first official day of E3 2010. A day that would include an introduction to Nintendo’s future, the return of an old PC developer friend, another entry into the resurgent racing game genre, several free-to-play MMOs, two TV series getting their very own video-game spinoffs, a new stealth-based sniper game, and the celebration of a gaming icon’s 30th birthday.

The day started out with the annual Nintendo press conference, the last one of these we would be taking in (we sadly didn’t get invited to the Sony conference, although I will be visiting their show-floor booth later on in the week). And it quickly became obvious that, of the four press gatherings we visited, Nintendo had done it best. They introduced 11 new games, mostly starring characters from gaming’s past, including Zelda (Zelda: Skyward Sword for the Wii), Mario (Mario Sports Mix for the Wii), James Bond (GoldenEye 2007 for the Wii), Mickey Mouse (Disney Epic Mickey for the Wii), and Donkey Kong (Donkey Kong Country Returns for the Wii). New DS games included Golden Sun: Dark Dawn and Dragon Quest 9, and mentioned for the second year in a row, Metroid: Other M for the Wii. But perhaps the biggest reveal in the show was information concerning the Nintendo 3DS, the company’s upcoming 3D-gaming device. The 3DS sports a wider upper screen than the DSi, improvements to the graphics hardware, a motion sensor and gyroscope, and a depth slider that allows you to choose how detailed you want your 3D images to be. Most intriguing, however, is the news that the 3DS will have the capability to show full-length 3D Hollywood movies, and the two cameras embedded into the device’s lid will allow you to take 3D still pictures. More than 20 third-party game developers have been signed to provide content for the new handheld, with many of those games promised to be available the day the system is launched (no availability date was announced), in stark contrast to Microsoft’s Kinect (the hardware formerly known as Project Natal), a system for which very little of any import will be available on release day. Lots of smack is talked daily about the Wii being a system for kids and old people, but you wouldn’t know it by the enthusiastic response Nintendo’s leadership received about almost every item they described during the press conference.

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First in line at the airport security station. Hot dogs and orange juice at 8:30 am. Stuck between runways on the tarmac in LA after a near perfect trip. A painful reminder that walking ten city blocks is not a good idea for someone who’s totally out of shape. And to top it off, a Queen singalong with thousands of game journalists and “friends.” This was the preview day of E3 2010.

All in all, much better than last year, when travel and hotel problems got us off to a really bad start. Ironically, we almost ended up at the same hotel this year, and we’re staying just five blocks up the street from there. But one positive experience remains from last year: the taco truck is still there!

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The alarm went off at 6:45 am today, and my body desperately tried to convince my mind that it was much too early and, please, could we have a couple more hours of sleep? I had had one too many Frangelicos on the rocks the night before at the 2K cocktail party, I was up until 2 am writing yesterday’s blog, and one of the clever youngsters rooming at my hotel thought it might be fun to pull the fire alarm around 10 pm, causing the local fire brigade to evacuate the hotel in 34-degree cold. My mind agreed with my body that a bit longer under the covers might be a good thing, but I couldn’t afford to miss the media-only hour available to me on the show floor at 9 am, so there I was, dragging my sorry butt into the shower to prepare for another long day at PAX East.

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My first day at PAX East 2010 started and ended with great things, sandwiched around an unfortunate crossing of signals, a mystery meeting room, some interesting new games for the Wii and the DS, an RPG sequel with some amazing production values, and a very creepy survival horror game. All of that, plus a vast sea of game-loving humanity taking up residence in the Hynes Convention Center in Boston.

The day actually began for me 28 floors above the action in a hotel around the corner from the venue. Jamie Cheng, CEO of Vancouver-based Klei Entertainment, let me get some hands-on time with Shank, a side-scrolling action game that Cheng describes as “a cinematic brawler.” “We love the movies of Robert Rodriguez, and we also love games like Double Dragon,” Cheng explained, “and we felt that we could do something really special.” And from what I saw this morning, they’ve succeeded. Shank takes visual elements from movies such as Sergio Leone’s spaghetti westerns and the “Kill Bill” films of Quentin Tarantino, dresses them up in a comic-book graphical style, then tops it all off with a playable character who can carry four weapons at one time, including twin hand cannons and a chainsaw. One of the most interesting parts of the game is that, unlike many side-scrollers, you’re not always going from the left edge of the screen to the right. Shank makes use of both the horizontal and vertical axes, allowing the action to move in both directions. Toss in some blood-soaked finishing moves (there’s no gore toggle, so an “M” rating is almost assured) and you have a bloody good time. I am a bit worried that the game will lack replayability, but the demo that I played was ridiculously fun. Shank is being published by Electronic Arts and is scheduled for a summer release. I’ll have more about Shank at E3 in June.

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This morning I saddled up the four-wheeled pony and hit the road to Boston for the very first PAX East gaming festival. This show has been happening in Seattle for years, and has been described as E3 for the fans instead of the media. Last year’s west-coast event was also notable for the swine flu outbreak that happened there; hopefully I won’t be seeing too many folks wearing surgical masks at this show.

For those who might not know, PAX stands for Penny Arcade Expo (yes, I know that Expo begins with an “E”; somehow I suspect that PAE East would’ve been tougher to market). The show gives the fans the opportunity to check out the hottest upcoming games, attend dozens of panel discussions on a myriad of subjects, and basically do what they can’t do at E3 because they can’t get in (or so we’re told). This show also includes console and PC game tournaments, a PC LAN setup and console room where you can sit down and play as long as you like for free, and a keynote address by the hero of TV geekdom, Wil Wheaton (Wesley Crusher on “Star Trek: The Next Generation”). The lines will be long and strong for that one.

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Always on the lookout for game deals, yesterday I joined the flock of vultures picking on the festering carcass of my local Hollywood Video store. I was greeted by a huge sign: “Store Closing! Everything Must Go!” Knowing that they rent (or used to rent) video games, I decided to see what bits of gaming flesh might be left on the store’s bones after being picked clean by the local predators.

To my surprise, aside from the years-old stuff that nobody wanted to play (even when it was new), I found a fairly good assortment of new Xbox 360 and PS3 games that hadn’t yet been snapped up. Notable in their absence were any Wii games; either they were the first to go, the store owners are hiding them, or they’re keeping them for themselves. Two items caught my eye: Killzone 2 and The Saboteur, both for the PS3. They were displayed in the New Release section and did not have price tags attached. This puzzled me, since by almost any reasonable definition of “New Release,” Killzone 2 should’ve been off that list six months ago, having been released in February 2009. So, I went to the sales counter to inquire, and was told by the teenage goth with studs in his chin that, if there’s no price tag, they’re not for sale (perhaps the huge sign in the store window lied to me when it said “Everything Must Go”?). “Come back in five or six days,” the counterwaif told me, while not even bothering to look up from what he was doing.

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For much of the gaming industry, 2009 really sucked. Those who had proclaimed the games business to be recession-proof soon discovered how wrong they were; game and hardware sales sagged compared to the strong numbers of 2008. Several development houses were shuttered, including Ensemble, who had barely shipped Halo Wars before they closed, and Grin, who produced Terminator: Salvation, Bionic Commando and Wanted: Weapons of Fate in the space of five months before the hammer came down. The enthusiast press was similarly affected, with journalistic stalwarts IGN and GameSpot suffering major employee purges.

And there were the occasional scandals. Valve raised the hackles of the Left 4 Dead loyalists by releasing Left 4 Dead 2 as a stand-alone, full-priced product instead of a free-to-download expansion pack, despite a celebrated Internet petition calling for the contrary. Infinity Ward ticked off their PC customers by not offering dedicated-server support for the PC multiplayer component of Modern Warfare 2, and almost everybody by including a controversial (and completely skippable) scene in the same game about a terrorist massacre in a Russian airport. And not to be left behind, Bioware once again had the temerity to include adult themes other than blood-drenching violence in Dragon Age: Origins; you’d have thought the right-wing crapstorm raised by the omnisexual hookups in Mass Effect would’ve still been in their heads, right?

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How much are you willing to spend for a 3D version of Duck Hunt? Developer Bioware is hoping that your answer is 400 Microsoft points (that’s $5 in real American greenbacks) with the release of Pinnacle Station, the second DLC pack for their excellent (but 2-year-old) space opera Mass Effect. Eighteen months after the launch of the first expansion, Bring Down the Sky, which added a brief but interesting 90 minutes to the original game, Bioware has given us the equivalent of a trip to the “Star Trek: The Next Generation” holodeck to keep us busy until the early 2010 release of the full-blown sequel.

After Pinnacle is installed, you start up the main game, take the bridge of the Normandy and pilot the ship to Pinnacle Station, a training facility in which you and your squadmates attempt to take first place on the leaderboards of eight simulations, programmed by a smart-aleck alien to whom you must report to begin. You choose one of four combat modes (Time Trial, Capture, Survival or Hunt), then one of two venues. You also get to take two comrades with you into the simulator. No matter which mode you choose, the object is basically the same: kill as many enemies as possible before the simulation ends.

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E3 2009 closed with our busiest day of the show, including some more private demos, a sampling of the local cuisine, and only one minor setback, for which I have myself to blame.

Any of you who have read my reviews know that, in the past year, the majority of games that I have reviewed have been point-and-click adventures. Most of these have been published by Dreamcatcher Interactive, with whose representative was our first appointment on Thursday. One of Dreamcatcher’s frequent collaborators is JoWood, with whom they were sharing an E3 meeting room, and it was their RPG sequel Arcania: A Gothic Tale that kicked off our day. The Gothic series has had most of its popularity in Europe, but JoWood is bringing its latest installment to North America for a simultaneous PC/Xbox 360/PS3 launch this winter. In Arcania, you play as a hero who has a score to settle with the hero from the previous game, a king who has burned down your village as part of his seemingly unquenchable thirst for power. The developer has attempted to make this title more accessible to the non-European gamer, adding mini maps and quest tracking to the game. You play in a three-island sandbox featuring 300 quests (approximately 180 of them story-related missions) that can make gameplay last up to 80 hours.

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