I soon discover, however, that as far as small potatoes go, I am but a French fried crumb. Space Bunnies Must Die is everywhere, its posters of a gun-wielding, pig-tailed babette adhering to every available surface in the World Congress Center. I follow the trail of come-ons to the Panasonic section for a demonstration—who is this intergalactic valley girl, and what is a space bunny? What I find is a Vegas showgirl act. The trio is led by a pig-tailed babette not unlike the one illustrated on the aforementioned posters.
Attired in a pink halter top and skintight capri pants, she rallies the crowd of geeks into a froth of expectation, promising them photo-ops and autographs—and, oh yeah, the game is also available for demo.
The crowd surges forward. As the girls are lobbied for camera poses, I make my way to a station and start playing the much-vaunted game. In this case, main character Allison must battle mutant alien bunnies bent on usurping the Earth.
I have little doubt that Space Bunnies Must Die will be a success, though; its marketers have latched onto an industry truism: If you market the hell out of it, they will come. Unfortunately, as the industry grows ever larger and more and more games are released, the concept of gameplay is becoming progressively diluted. For instance, as I play Vigilante 8 , a Playstation game in which you drive a modified school bus and shoot everything in your path, my interest level wanes by the second.
Is this enough to keep our attention? I ponder this question as I walk through the east wing of the Center, which is slightly quieter, devoted to smaller software companies and peripheral equipment makers.
I nearly collide with no less than Dave Whittle, online editor for Voodoo magazine, which reviews PC games that are compatible with the 3Dfx graphics accelerator.
Dave is a first-generation video game geek like I am, weaned on Donkey Kong and Pacman. I ask him about my graphics vs. Do I stay up past my bedtime to solve that frustrating level?
Do I lean to the left of the monitor to get a better view around the corner of a wall in the game? Do I go to bed at night and the characters in the game haunt my dreams? Sad but true, these are the things that happen to gamers who are involved in a really immersive game.
If I had more time to play, I might form some personal relationships with a few of them. But not too many seem readily immersive like the classic video games of yore— Asteroids, Centipede, Galaga, Defender , et al. Even though the programmers of 15 years ago had comparatively minute amounts of processing power and memory to work with, they nevertheless managed to continually come up with fresh concepts that demanded your quarters.
Why not now? What impresses him most at the trade show? Unfortunately, no real new trends emerged as far as game design is concerned, except that no new trends emerged for another year. The only trend that continues to grow is more violence, more violence, and more violence. New games are technological marvels with incredible graphics and 3D stereo sound, but their game design has not changed much.
Just new twists—albeit some good ones—on old concepts. It is at once familiar and…not quite the same. It feels more like an effort to cash in on a classic title than any kind of reborn gameplay. Feeling somewhat defeated, I begin my circuitous route to the exit, bombs exploding to my left and right, powered by megahertz Pentium IIs.
I recall the first time I discovered video games, down at the Southfield Mich. Being a pinball aficionado, I was leery of the strange device at first, but soon found myself spending hours bopping that little glowing ball back and forth, quarter after quarter.
Thankfully, I somehow avoided becoming a juvenile delinquent and have been shamelessly playing ever since. For some reason, I decide to take one last walk through the Nintendo arena a. Games qualify for nomination by having hands-on playable versions of the game at the show. This edit will also create new pages on Giant Bomb for:. Until you earn points all your submissions need to be vetted by other Giant Bomb users. This process takes no more than a few hours and we'll send you an email once approved.
Overview E3 Brochure E3 returned to the hot and humid city of Atlanta in Games of the Show The games listed below not only include those playable on the show floor, but any game referenced at the show.
Abacus Software, Inc. About Time Inc. Accolade, Inc. Action Media B. Activision, Inc. Adventus Inc. America Online American Multimedia, Inc. AnimaTek International, Inc. ARC Media Inc. Atlus Company, Ltd. Hicom Co. Jackin Optical Technology Ltd. Jaleco USA Inc. Mad Genius Software Ltd. Microsoft Microware Distributing, Inc. GameHub mplayer. Ocean of America Inc. OptiDisc UK Ltd. Opus Educational Software P. Patch Products, Inc. Phantagram Ltd.
Phantom Reality, Inc. Fox Interactive's previous first-person shooter games are the antithesis of Anastasia: The Adventures of Pooka and Bartok. Releasing in November to coincide with the movie release, it is for children 6 through The program uses a variety of exploration, problem-solving and testing skills.
Fox Toons enters the market for the very young with value priced programs for children 3 to 8. The Baby Felix Creativity Center will help children with basic reading, math, art and music while the Hello Kitty Creativity Center focuses on reading, counting and math skills.
Based on the super successful Japanese sci-fi film, players must take-on evil high-tech forces by maneuvering one man tanks called Fukochimas.
Featuring 12 missions and 10 minutes of original animation from the same team that did the film and a separate training mode, Ghost in the Shell could be the surprise hit much like the film was.
A New Scope This relatively new industry is now stretching its arms to encompass an ever-widening scope of interests. No longer the domain of adolescence alone, everyone can now find something on the shiny plastic discs that allow us to travel, play, learn, create and explore our world and our interests. Over the last three years, the annual E3 convention has increased in size and the breadth of products that it represents, rebuking earlier prophecies of failure.
As a vehicle for the promotion of art, graphics and animation, the CD-ROM has benefited greatly from technological advancements, opening new doors for program development to the benefit of creators and users alike. Joseph Szadkowski writes on various aspects of popular culture and is a columnist for The Washington Times. Table of Contents Feedback? Past Issues [ about help home info awn.
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