PixlBit

Nintendo just announced a partnership with Best Buy to have demos from the E3 show floor available in store. It's not quite what I was suggesting, but I could totally see it evolving. Imagine bringing your 3DS into the store for some special E3 street passing and little digital goodies, like demos and maybe even free limited edition virtual console games.

Thinking about those party bags, it would be amazing if they gave out some E3-style swag to, say, the first 100 people.

I'm jealous that you got to see the entire evolution of the show. It was such a stark contrast between 2004 and 2010 for me, so I can only imagine seeing it from the beginning.

I attended my early shows as retail. Well, actually the one in 2010 was retail as well, but by that point I was following the industry closely, so it was really nice to chat with some of the media people. And of course when you find a really great PR or developer that is demoing a game and really engaging with you that's a wonderful time.

It's a funny story, actually. We were all waiting to get in on the second day of the show. At the time, the only person I had seen on camera was Ryan, so I engaged him. We chatted about the old and the new E3, because he and I both had our first show in the early 2000s. Mine was 2002, and I think his was 2001. When Vinny asked me a question I instantly recognized the voice, but I was far too embarassed to say "Oh, you're Vinny!" so I just continued the conversation to it's conclusion.

We probably only chatted for a few minutes, but it was one of the best moments of the show for me, right behind meeting James Mielke.

As a lifelong Iron Man fan, it was great to see a movie where he's taken down to just Tony Stark. Since there's no way the movies will ever touch his alcoholism or his playboy lifestyle leading to a crazy ex girlfriend shooting (and thus paralyzing him), the idea of him having issues with the end of Avengers was a great touch.

I think the Mandarin was totally botched and AIM was wasted potential (fingers crossed that they show up in Agents of SHIELD). But this being a character drama/gumshoe story with Tony Stark divorced of his armor for so long harkens back to some of the best Iron Man arcs. It also makes me want to rewatch Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang again, because it was directed by the same guy.

Also, best ending title credits ever.

I'm willing to bet that the first trailer was done by an outside studio with little moment to moment input from the dev team. It's a dicey proposition, because of course it was an amazing trailer that got everyone talking, but I think most people wanted to play that game instead of what was in the box.

I'm glad we were able to add some entertainment to that gaming experience! (I kid, I'm sure that game is fine.)

We usually come in around 2 hours, but we've flirted with the 3 hour mark a couple of times, although we have yet to break that threshold. The show we're recording this week might be a little on the epic side, as we have two amazing guests coming onto the show.

You can pick up mines to use for traps or perimeter control, but I never found a reason to use them, since the zombies just run around anyway. It was just "kick to the chest, slice-slice-slice, repeat" for me, hour after hour.

It's definitely going for the Borderlands vibe, and while I dig the RPG mechanics for the leveling and damage, the weapons don't bring out that loot hunter feeling from me. The weapon degradation could have made this a cool survival horror game if weapons were sturdier but less plentiful. As it is, the weapon damage was just a minor annoyance in a game filled with minor annoyances.

My eye is drawn elsewhere. But I'll admit that having Mario and Luigi in that shot was too perfect for this show.

I was thinking of you specifically when I brought up the combat for my Zelda game. I actually really loved the combat in Wind Waker and Skyward Sword, but after playing Demon's Souls I feel like this is the new standard for action/RPGs. Unless you wanted to take Zelda in the opposite direction and pattern it after a Devil May Cry or Bayonetta game, which could also be very cool.

Sorry, I phrased that wrong. What I meant is that I didn't see Kid Icarus on shelves, and it didn't even have a spot indicating that it was just out of stock. It could have just been the stores I went to, but that leads me to believe that Nintendo doesn't have more copies being printed. If that's the case, I'd say it's an indication that the game didn't do as well as they would have liked.