Bungie @ E3 2005

Every May, anyone who's anyone in the game industry makes the pilgrimage to Los Angeles to subject themselves to the Electronic Entertainment Expo. E3 (what the cool folks call it) is a 3 day circus characterized by sensory overload, silicone and of course, plenty of schmoozing. Ultimately, the show is intended to be the place for game developers to come and show off their goods to an army of hungry journalists. This is the time to pull out all the stops and blow away the press with super shiny technologically advanced demos and swanky parties. A few booth babes don't hurt either. If all goes well, game companies will successfully grab headlines and essentially put their upcoming project on consumer's radars. Aside from showing off new projects, E3 also has a variety of workshops and functions aimed at helping industry folk learn new tricks and forge new business partnerships. While this is all good and true, in reality it feels a lot more like a big highschool reunion mixed with a used car dealership.

The past two years have been a big deal for Bungie Studios. In 2003, we were there in full force, giving everyone the first glimpse at Halo 2s campaign in our specially constructed theater. Last year, we arrived with multiplayer in hand and gave non-stop hands on demos behind the curtains to all sorts of muckity mucks. Coinciding with each of those huge shows was the annual Bungie FanFest event, an after hours shindig for Bungie and our fans to hang out and enjoy some bad pizza. This time around, things were quite a bit different. There was no Bungie theater. There was no impending worldwide launch of one of the most anticipated titles in recent memory. Instead, we came to E3 armed only with a disc and a dream. (or maybe a nightmare?)

A few weeks prior to the show we received word that MGS wanted to showcase the Halo 2 Multiplayer Map Pack inside the Xbox booth. Honestly this news was met with mixed reaction - on one hand it's always great to get out into the public and meet our fans face to face and show off maps we're really excited about. On the other hand, E3 can be a brutal place and is definitely not for the feint of heart. Fighting through huge mobs of sweaty game nerds, waiting in long lines, dealing with LA traffic, being on your feet all day, paying $8 for a rather disgusting sandwich and enduring a constant ear piercing audio assault all take their toll. Note: This doesn't apply for people like Marty, who spend E3 eating chocolate covered strawberries and sipping martinis inside decadent suites while booth babes massage his feet. And when he's not doing that, he's flaunting his celebrity status to common folk standing in long lines at elite Hollywood parties. Lucky for us he stopped by every now and then to brag about how he got to meet so-and-so and see a private demo of such-and-such. It's probably better off that way, we try to avoid putting Marty into official situations where he may have a chance to talk to the press (i.e. reveal every secret we've ever had).

The show itself went great for us. Despite the usual hardships associated with E3 (see above), our corner of the booth went swell. We had four kiosks set up for split screen play allowing a total of 8 players (2v2v2v2 team slayer) to jump in and get some hands-on time with five brand new multiplayer maps. For those keeping track, the five maps we showed were Terminal, Backwash, Elongation, Relic and Gemini. All five of these maps are slated to be released on July 5th - both on Xbox Live and via retail. The show opened on Wednesday morning and we managed to draw a steady crowd for the remainder of the show. At some points, it was more like a steady mob. While I was there on Thursday, there were a few people who arrived promptly at 9 AM when the show opened and never really left our booth the entire day. At one point I even jokingly pointed out that I heard there were nearly 800 other games on the floor this year. His response, "yeah, well I only care about Halo 2." Nice! Honestly the response to the new maps was fantastic and it was great to be able to see players initial reactions while experiencing a new map for the first time. Just like you, WE can't wait for them to get released so we can all start playing them together.

Working the booth can be a bit boring, especially when it comes to Halo 2. Why? Well, every single person who came up to see the maps already knew how to play. We weren't really "needed" for anything other than making sure each new round got off to a smooth start and that people were fairly stepping aside at the end of a match (which everyone seemed to do just fine). It was amazing to see some of these players step up to a brand new map and thoroughly dominate all of their opponents. Some players were pulling tricks and manevuers that we hadn't ever seen before. In short, nearly everyone there was really good. Definitely good enough to whip Frankie, had he actually been there. We all had fun hanging out with people....except Shiek, who said "it really sucks when you have to stand there while kids play the game and fart." Thank goodness we decided against our plan to give out Tijuana Mamas to the winner of each round.

Of course with any public gathering of Bungie fans comes the opportunity to ask questions. Lots of questions. Lucky for us we were all subjected to the Parsons School of Kudorrific PR Shenanigans, aka "How to answer a question without giving an answer." This fine art isn't as easy at it sounds, as a few first timers discovered some of the tricky tactics used by members of the media. Thankfully Marty was off galavanting around the VIP area so our top secret plans for Pimps at Sea 360 remained secret. Umm...did I just say that? Sure, there were a few people there who took the opportunity to corner one of us and rant about Battle Rifles, standbying or the MLG, but overall people were very thankful and very nice. And that rocks. We never even had to resort to our pepper spray (much to Shishka's dismay).

To spice things up and take our minds off of our painfully numb feet and lower backs, we decided to jump in for a match every once in a while. On Thursday, Luke "Abe Froman" Timmins and myself went 9-0 against showgoers. Not bad, considering quite of few of the players we met were damn good. At one point, Joseph "New001" Tung was approached by some Japanese players and it turns out that they were part of the team that destroyed us in a humpday match a few months back. Joe rounded up the Bungie guys in the area and proceeded to exact some revenge. Unfortunately team Bungie lost the first game but then prevailed in the second. Apparently we refused a third match (you know, there were people there waiting to play afterall!) I saw Shishka and CJ (pictured at right) play a match against some fans on Wednesday afternoon... but they lost as well. I also hear that some members of the PMS clan came by one day, and they too crushed Team Bungie. At least it's good to know our humpday losses are tied strictly to Xbox Live. Occasionally we handed out mini Master Chief figures to the winners of each round. All in all, while it was an exhausting few days, it's always great to meet our fans and it was even better to get such a great reaction to the new maps. Hell, at times even other developers stopped by to pay tribute, which is always flattering.

Our kiosks were located in the front part of the Xbox booth, amidst a sea of upcoming current generation titles. Ironically, we were right next to ex-Bungie founder Alex Seropian's new game, Stubbs the Zombie. Wideload games, the new studio formed by Alex, consists of quite a few ex-Bungie folk and Stubbs the Zombie is actually built upon a modified version of the Halo engine (which looks great!). If you haven't been following this game, do yourself a favor and check it out. It's a totally unique game with a wit and style all its own. I'm definitley looking forward to munching some brains when this comes out later this year. Directly in front of us was a multiplayer Conker area. This new class based multiplayer action looked great and should be a nice change of pace for Live players when it comes out this Summer. There were plenty of other cool Xbox titles to be excited about - Destroy All Humans, Battlefield 2, Burnout 4, and Half Life 2 are a few of my personal favorites. The next generation may be rapidly approaching but it's clear that the current generation has plenty of life left in it.

Speaking of next gen, I'm sure everyone is curious about Xbox 360. Within the booth there were a number of Xbox 360 kiosks showing off a few of the upcoming titles. At this point I barely know more than any of you about the new console (probably even less than some) so I was anxious to see some real games to accompany the laundry list of specs that surfaced last Monday. At one point a few of us got into a private showing of Epic's new game, Gears of War (thanks for that Marty). This was the only up-close-and-personal demo I personally got to see but WOW. A few guys from the Epic team walked us through parts of the game and showed off their jaw dropping visuals to a stunned room. It really looked that good. I'm sure there are videos floating around online but nothing beats seeing it in real-time in high definition. For me, this was the only real taste I was able to get of the next generation but it was easily enough to get me really excited. Of course there were plenty more Xbox 360 titles there, I just personally didn't have much time to see a whole lot.=( I'm making the rounds on the internet now to see what I missed.

Obviously there was a ton of stuff beyond the confines of the Xbox booth but personally I didn't really have a lot of opportunity to see much else. Thankfully the high-tech world of the internet allows me to see everything I wanted to see without the long lines and extreme conditions. E3 is a mixed blessing. From the outside it's a gamers ultimate dream come true. And the fact that it's closed to the "public" makes it that much more alluring (though somehow it seems every year that just about anyone can get a badge). I know most of you probably couldn't make it so hopefully this little recap gives you a glimpse of what it's like on the inside - crowded, loud and tiring. Seriously though, E3 can be fun, the first few times... For me personally, the highlight of this years trip to Los Angeles wasn't even E3 - it was D3. Stay tuned for my next recap, which will focus on the other stuff that happened in LA last week!