E3 2011: Day 1 Summary

Well, golly. We've arrived in L.A. Today was sort of a pre-E3 press day where we were shuttled around the city from presentation to presentation on charter buses, given tote bags and posters, and fed all kinds of stuff, from cupcakes to lines about how apologetic Sony is for the whole PSN break incident.

Having never visited L.A. before, I'm kind of surprised by it. It's filled with fairly amazing architectural elements and not nearly as artificial as I imagined it would be. This probably betrays a northern bias, which is based largely on ignorance of actual L.A. and deep love for San Francisco. I am a West Coaster, but not a native, so I am not particularly well-traveled within the confines of the Pacific Time Zone.

The first presser I visited was Ubisoft, which was hosted by a personality named "Mr. Caffeine". He was… well, he defied actual words. He was so irritating, he got his own hashtag for a while. We saw previews for all kinds of titles, but my most anticipated title has got to be Far Cry 3

This could well suck, but I loved FC2 so much that I'm going to play it anyway. There is an ongoing line that one of the characters keeps saying about how the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, and expecting it to turn out differently. We can only hope this means that FC3 is going to be just as rad and brutal as FC2, as opposed to it being tedious and shitty. The only beef I had with FC2 was that the missions got kind of repetitive after a while, but the whole experience of it for me was so immersive that I often didn't care.

Immediately afterward, we were shuttled over to Sony's presser, which was in a completely different part of town. There was a elaborate pre-party with food trucks galore: Fried cheese, sandwiches, ice cream, open bar… Too bad none of the event staff had any idea where to direct media, and quite a few of us missed the pre-party entirely because we were misinformed as to which line was which. So you know, THAT was cool.

But, when we finally got inside we were blown away by the three-ring circus that was the Sony presser. 

I'll skip over most of this, because the actual conference was live streamed, and pretty much the entire world saw it, but a definite highlight included the announcement of the Vita, and the subsequent first booing ever at an E3 upon the admission that the 3G Vita will have an exclusive contract with AT&T. 

The real absurdity started after the presentations were done. We were turned loose on the demo floor for about a hour to wander about amongst the demos and booths. I attempted to make a beeline for a hands-on session with the Vita, but the lines were so impossibly long that when I was waylaid by an interview with a Japanese TV station, I missed the window of opportunity. 

However, before I had time to be upset about this, an announcement was made on stage that there would be a concert given by Jane's Addiction, which was so random but awesome that pretty much the entire room lost it and ran to the stage.

So on the whole, it was an amazing first day. Tomorrow the expo floor will open, and madness will ensue. Interviews will be had, t-shirts will be acquired en masse, and booth babes will be photographed from awkward angles in a hurried manner. 

But before that happens, we're all going to pretend to sleep for a few hours, and possibly even shower.

Be sure to follow @chernobylheart on twitter for all access live updates on E3 around the clock!