Daily News Spin — May 21, 2001 (Monday)

Tom's E3 thoughts

PC gaming is alive and well and living at E3. Anyone who says PC games are on the decline didn't see the games I saw. There were plenty of clever new titles on display, as well as a ton of first person shooters, RTSs, RPGs, and massively multiplayer games. However, a lot of drama and dollars are swirling around the upcoming console wars. The stakes are high and the bloodshed this Christmas won't be pretty. But I didn't see any evidence that PC games will suffer as a result (Halo didn't look that impressive anyway...).

On the console front, the Gamecube had a much stronger showing than I expected. But what was even more surprising was the widespread buzz that the Xbox is underwhelming. I didn't spend a lot of time looking at consoles, but they were certainly the chic topic of conversation. The conventional wisdom is that Microsoft is setting themselves up as an also-ran while Nintendo steals their thunder. It doesn't hurt that the Gameboy Advance is such an attractive and affordable package with some great titles. Meanwhile, the Playstation 2 is finally coming of age with its second wave of games.

As a gaming universe, Star Wars is dead. The golden age of Larry Holland's X-Wing series and Justin Chin's Jedi Knight is over and it's not coming back. cf. Phantom Menace.

Strategy First will continue to be a publisher to watch. Theirs was the only booth to merit this comment: Every single title they were showing was something I'm looking forward to playing.

Kentia Hall, the sad little corner of E3 where smaller developers are left to languish, finally had a great booth! Fishtank Interactive was showing some potentially topnotch games, including Headfirst's Call of Cthulhu adventure; Nival Interactive's Etherlords; Massive Development's sequel to Archimedeam Dynasty, Aqua Nox; and Beam Breakers, an impressive-looking early build of a racing game through Fifth Element style cityscapes.

Miyamoto is a fucking genius. I know what you're saying: "Duh!" But the point was driven home during a live interview. I've been playing through Zelda 64: Ocarina of Time recently, so it was great to see him and hear him speak. I'm astonished at the juxtaposition of humility and brilliance.

Either I'm less distracted by scantily clad women than I used to be or there were fewer booth babes parading their breasts around this year. I suspect the latter is true.

Eidos wins the Asshole of the Show award. They wouldn't schedule an appointment with us and announced that they "refuse to do business with Tom Chick". Thanks, fellas. Runner up goes to the Bioware guys, who greeted us warmly when we dropped by to make an appointment. But when we showed up at the appointed time, we were told they couldn't let us in because they were booked solid. Of course, we were one of the bookees. We pointed to our names on their list, written down right under the precise time we were standing there in front of them. "Maybe we can get you in a half hour from now," we were told before being sent packing with a press kit. Thanks, guys. Neverwinter Nights still looks nifty.

Brad Wardell looks like Bill Paxton.

Tom's E3 PC highlight

Relic's Sigma.

Mark and I will be posting our thoughts on specific games over the next few days. Stay tuned.

I will make you a fisher of fun

Tom attended the Shigeru Miyamoto interview. Read his comments after hearing from one of gaming's founding fathers and the man behind at least 50% of the Gamecube buzz.