E3 and Introspection

So yesterday was the last day of E3 as well as the one-year anniversary of my graduation from college into “the real world.”

I had a great day at the convention center, which started with playing old arcade machines with classics I knew well- “Donkey Kong” and “Asteroids”- and bizarre old games I’d never heard of- “Pengo” anyone? After that, I waited in line for about an hour to see EA’s presentation for “Spore.” The level of imagination and innovation that is going into that game is pretty astounding. You will literally get to evolve your own society from nothing, designing your own species with an amazing creature editor created for the game. I’ve been hearing about the game for a couple years now, but seeing the demonstration was really pretty astounding- it was certainly one of the most inspiring things I saw during the three days at the conference. Uber-designer and “Spore” visionary Will Wright was there after the presentation let out, and I wish I had shook his hand to congratulate him and lament about how many hours of my life I am going to waste on his game whenever it finally comes out.

People like Wright and the folks at Nintendo are keeping hope alive for the video game industry. These people are the innovators who do not want to just sit back and make the same thing over and over again, who are not content with the idea that the “next generation” of their industry will just mean shinier graphics. These are the people who believe in the possibilities and promise of games, and they are what made E3 interesting.

I got to see a few more cool things at the conference as it wound down- “Dead Rising” is a game in which you must survive in a shopping mall full of zombies for 72 hours. The Romero inspired game looks like a blast, with a great sense of humor and some really gross zombie carnage. It might be the first game coming out for the 360 that I actually want to play. Speaking of the 360, I also played Rock Star Games’ entry into next gen consoles- “Table Tennis.” Seriously, the next game from the controversial creators of “Grand Theft Auto” made a table tennis game. I am still half convinced that the whole thing is an elaborate joke, that they made a playable demo of the game but they are actually going to tell us all we’ve been punk’d and that they are releasing a horribly violent game on the masses instead. Or maybe the game is just an excuse to hide a bunch of "Hot Coffee" features in which you get it on with hookers on a ping pong table.

That was really about it for the cool stuff at E3. I didn’t get to see any of “Gears of War,” which had a huge amount of buzz surrounding it. The first group of PS3 games are pretty to look at but uninteresting in every other way. The insane trailer for “Metal Gear Solid 4” was interesting, but there was nothing playable at E3. Overall, there was a little innovation, and a lot of the same old, same old. I hope Nintendo’s gamble with the Wii pays off big time and teaches the industry to try new things in the future.

I left the convention center and walked down Figueroa towards the USC campus. I decided to walk past the Shrine Auditorium, right as this year’s film school commencement ceremony was letting out. As I walked through a very different crowd of people than the throngs I had been pushing through at E3, I began to get melancholy and introspective. Here I was, exactly a year after graduation, and I was less than three weeks away from the end of my job at BVG. I had just walked out of the biggest showcase of the year for the industry I've been working in for eight months, and after talking to a few recruiters and finding out that most companies don’t hire writers, I was wondering if there was room for me in the world of video games. I still want to move into film and television, but it’s scary and hard to break into as well.

So I was a little depressed, and a little scared about the future. A year out of school and I still had no idea where I was going or if I was going anywhere. Which is why seeing the presentation for “Spore” meant so much to me yesterday. It proved that there still is a place for dreamers to dream big, and to make their visions come to life on a grand scale. I still want to be a part of something like that, even though I have no idea how to do it yet or what avenue to attack it at.

Amid my haze of confusion and introspection and exhaustion from three days of walking among sweaty geeks, I decided I had to go out and do something fun after too many weekends of staying in and watching too much bad TV. I went out to the coolest and most intimate nightclub in LA, the Largo, with my girlfriend and a couple friends from work. If you’ve never been there, check it out. There is almost always something amazing to see in the small venue that will make you feel better about life. Last night, we saw an amazing show featuring a gorgeous, intimate, and far too short set from The Eeels followed by a hilarious and off the cuff stand up performance from the brilliant Zach Galifianakis (in which he told us, to prove his indie-rock cred, he had had named his balls “Belle and Sebastian.”) I drank bad wine and good beer and had a great time seeing comedy and music with close friends. Life is big and scary and uncertain, but it’s worth it for nights like last night.