Monday was Icrontic’s first official day at E3. We woke up at 9am to pack and prepare for the journey to Los Angeles. Rob, Ryan, CB, and myself gathered in Orange and swung by Subway for some lunch. This is the point where the trouble began.
Now you see, last year’s E3 was plagued by copious problems. Brian went into the event with a head cold, and by the end I had captured his cold while Scott had a stomach ache, and Rob had a bad case of the morning pukes. Also, my pocket PC, which had been at my side for five years, finally died when the GPU burned up. Finally, I had managed to injure my knee badly when Scott decided it would be funny to throw a wet floor sign at me while I ran up a downward escalator. Unfortunately for me, it seemed this trend would be continuing with this year’s event.
As soon as we finished eating lunch, I came to a terrible realization—my GPS unit was no longer functioning. It didn’t respond to any touch input. Along with this unfortunate event, I had to make my first payment on my new truck (which is disheartening regardless of the situation), and I received some news from a friend that left me in a funk. Things weren’t off to the best start, and I feared that the tradition of E3 was about to continue.
We arrived at our hotel at 3pm and checked in. Last year the Icrontic crew were stuck in the “historic” Mayfair hotel, and it was one of the most miserable experiences I have ever had. The Wi-Fi never worked, the room was small, and I couldn’t even fit in the shower. This year, there was only one way to go from there, and that was up.
This new hotel had free Wi-Fi and breakfast, along with everything else you could want from a cheap hotel. As soon as we moved in and dropped off our things, we realized that there was a good deal of trouble brewing. The air conditioner wasn’t working at all, leaving our room a dry, hot mess. Beyond that, the Wi-Fi wasn’t even available. It seemed as if the nightmares of last year were returning for another go.
After waiting for over an hour for the maintenance man, we decided to go to the LA Convention Center to register for the event. Registration was seamless, and before long, we all had our badges hanging from our necks. We had arrived at E3.
Our first order of business was food. Nothing is actually set up on Monday at E3, so there isn’t really anything to do at the Convention Center. We took a quick walk down Figueroa street and grabbed dinner at the local Denny’s. After eating, we split up. CB headed to the Staples Center for the Activision event, and Ryan, Rob, and I went to the Regal Theater to see if there was an actual Portal 2 event by Valve, despite the emails that suggested the event had been canceled.
Turns out the Valve event had actually been canceled, and the three of us wasted an hour walking all over the area attempting to get to the bottom of it. In its place at the Regal Theater was an exclusive Toy Story 3 event thrown by Disney and Pixar. I wanted nothing more than to go to this event, but we were turned away. It broke my heart.
After the long string of event disappointments, the three of us took a quick breather in the E3 press lounge to write and relax while we waited for CB to get his Activision on. After awhile, we became restless, and decided to venture out to the city to find the most important of necessities—beer.
Rob, Ryan and I found our way to the Yard House, just like the one Ryan and I had enjoyed while in Long Beach the previous day. While enjoying some fine brews, we discussed our frustration of the night. Not only was Icrontic not considered for and invited to the Microsoft Kinect event from last night, but we were also missing out on all of the parties going on around the city, according to the many tweets we received from those fortunate ones that made the events. We also took the moment to catch up on the events of the day that we weren’t admitted to. As it turns out, none of the announcements by Ubisoft, EA, Microsoft, or anyone else were really very compelling—everything from the press events were actually quite disappointing. We became very frustrated at our complete lack of exclusivity. We were three men, totally outcast in the City of Angels. We had nowhere to go, and we didn’t know the right people.
Things got worse as we heard that Jane’s Addiction was playing at the Activision press event (which was actually a giant, glorified concert). Rob and I were fans of Jane’s Addiction, and considering that the band hasn’t played a show in many years, it was awful to us that we were missing this. We decided to try and sneak into the Activision event. Before too long, we managed to score some guest passes and enter the event.
The Activision event was bizarre. It was about 5% press related, and 95% concert. Tons of artists like Usher, N.E.R.D., Chris Cornell, and Eminem feat. Rhianna took the stage to talk about how awesome Activision is and plug to us why we need to be buying their games. I wasn’t buying it, but that may be more in part to the fact that my ears were bleeding from the bass and pyrotechnics. This event had more explosions than the intro of WWE’s HHH.
We decided to leave early in the middle of Eminem’s set in order to beat the crowd. We hit the road for LAX, as Joe had finally arrived and was awaiting our pickup. The four of us couldn’t stop talking about how ridiculous Activision’s event was, and how lackluster the entire roundup of announcements were. The major bombs had been dropped by most of the major companies by now, and none of us were impressed by what we had heard. We weren’t in very high sprits.
FInally, we returned to our hotel room, five men strong. To make up for such a crummy day, we enjoyed some of the rum that we brought with us. Beefeater and Bacardi. and Mr. bucket. That’s the kind of night it’s been.
Tomorrow will certainly bring better news and new opprotuntities. We won’t mope about over the events of Monday, for Tuesday is a new day, and we’re moving forward.
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