Holy crap, I survived my first day at E3! Doesnt sound like that much of a big deal, but youd be surprised at how many people dont make it the whole day. Im proud to say that at 6pm, after 10 hours in the building they had to turn off the games to get me out of there. Heres a glimpse at my day:

8:00am: I arrived at the show, hoping to go to the media breakfast, but since I skipped the media briefing at 7:30 they had already run out of tickets. I did get an E3 hat however, and then went down to the cafeteria and bought breakfast.

8:30: I had to go back outside to get my bag checked again because I didnt get the lame band that says it was checked.

9:00am: Got into the show, before the Electronic Gaming Monthly people, I might add, who were right behind me. Media get in an hour early the first day, so people that had regular badges were out of luck. This gives us an hour to spend with the titles that are going to be impossible to get to later in the day.

9:01: Went straight to the Nintendo booth and quickly made my way to the new Zelda game. Forget the looks folks, this game is going to rock! Its got the same feel as always, just a different look. I then went to play Mario Sunshine which was fantastic as well. I played some GBA games as well, but nothing noteworthy. Metroid will have to wait another day. Here I met my dream girl booth babe who talked about how she is playing Halo on legendary, and how she has beaten all of the Tony Hawk games. I love her. Check out her picture to the right.

10:00: Went and played The Getaway on a couch that lit up on a screen suspended from the ceiling. Heres the deal the games a mess. Yes it can be cleaned up a lot before release, but dont get your hopes up. There were tons of bugs, the framerate was bad, and the controls left a lot to be desired.

10:30: Acclaim booth appointment. This was a whirlwind tour around the Acclaim booth where they showed Dave Mirra XXX which will be rated MA due to the abundance of naked women and f-words in the game. You have to see it to believe it. Turok Evolution looked pretty good, much better than the foggy game we last saw.

From here on things get fuzzy, time lost all meaning and I went from booth to booth and appointment to appointment. Here are random things I remember:

Majesco had some cool games like: Black and Bruised a slick cel-shaded boxing game that has a lot of promise, and Totaled a destruction derby game that was easy to pick up and play, and it was a blast to play.

I met Jerry "The King Lawler" and got a picture. That was cool.

Madden 2003 is a sweet game, and I beat an actual game tester that was playing me from Florida. Im the man!

I paid $7 for a bag of Doritos, a Butterfinger and a Coke. That was lunch.

Getting into the vaunted Sony party is not easy, but I am one of the lucky ones going. Last years party featured Everclear and Moby, so hopes are high that this one will rock as well.

The rest of the day was taken up with some smaller, less exciting appointments. Tomorrow is my meeting with Sony and Square, so expect some good PS2 news, and some new screenshots.

Photos: Aaron having a good time #1, Aaron having a good time #2,
Black and Bruised screenshot