Friday, May 16th

Friday was the last day of the show, and, while my back was happy, I was not. I had already seen and done a ton, but there was just as much or more that I still wanted to get done. First up on the list was a visit to Atlus, who I had managed to miss the first two days. They were hidden in a room (near the media center, ironically enough), which is why I hadn't discovered them in one of the other halls. Andrew and I played some Shining Soul, and I played Disgaea (which rocks, btw) and then I made my way back to Natsume. I had bugged one of the representatives about getting some exclusive swag, and he said that I should come by on Friday. I'm not one to submit myself to too much discomfort just for the sake of getting crap that I don't really need, but Harvest Moon crap is something else.

I had made a list the previous evening of games that I had to check out, so I set out to take care of that. I tried to make stops at all the booths that I had managed to bypass as well. Of course, I had to stop off at Nintendo again. Their booth was cool, with a lot of good games. I tried out GiFTPiA again, and I was still struggling to solve the first puzzle. That game is so annoying, yet I found myself wanting to play it. I think that once I get the hang of the logic required for the game, it might just be a lot of fun. I played the new F Zero: GX with one of the Nintendo booth babes. Turns out she was from South Africa as well, which was pretty coincidental.

They had Excite Bike running on one of the e-Readers, so I was forced to give that a go. There are not many games that can compare with that one with respect to pure fun. I also got a chance to check out the new Starfox first person shooter, which was really strange. The controls are not very intuitive, and there is one (major) flaw: You run by using the right trigger on the GameCube controller. It feels completely unnatural and took me a while to get used to.

By the time the afternoon rolled around, I was frantically trying to make a mental list of all the games that I wanted to check out again, before heading over to Natsume to pick up my swag. While I was over at Capcom's booth, I noticed that they had a Street Fighter 2 arcade cabinet. I can't even begin to describe my love for that game. My brother and I used to play it at a video store down the road from my house nearly every day. Besides the Soul games, no fighter comes close. Unfortunately, I wasn't the only that thought the game rocked, as there was a large line. I cut my losses and headed over to South Hall again.

At 4pm, E3 finally (and sadly) came to a close. I was rather disappointed, since there were still games that I wanted to play. Next time I'm going to have to arrange my time a little better. While I was walking out, something dawned on me: I had just played a lot of games that were awesome, and most of them weren't going to be released for a while. I made my way back to the media room and chatted with a couple other journalists that I had met over the course of the week. Most of our crew was already there, so we made our way back to the shuttle, which took us back to the hotel.

Not much got done on Friday night. Some staffers were already leaving later that night, so we headed off to Denny's (again) for dinner. It's amazing how much you can get to know people over the course of a couple days. On Monday I was a little nervous about meeting all these people, and now, there we were, talking and laughing like we had known each other for years.

Saturday, May17th

Saturday was a relatively uneventful day. Joe and I took a cab to the airport, which ended up costing us $45! I don't know if the driver gouged us or not, but he said that the area he picked us up from didn't count as downtown, and so we didn't qualify for the standard $30 cab fare. Since I didn't know any better, I was hardly in a position to argue. I was, however, rather pissed. When I checked in, the check-in counter person screwed me around for a while, trying to tell me that my papers weren't in order. Travelling the world as a South African citizen sucks, since we can't get into most countries without a visa. Everything worked out, though, and 12 hours and one stop in Atlanta later, I was back in Montreal.

My trip has come to an end, and it was unbelievable. Over the last five days, I've met people I thought that I would never meet, been places that I had only dreamed about, and played tons of games months before their release. I got to know the staff a whole lot better and I worked my ass off. E3 was definitely one of the best experiences of my life. I only hope that I when I go again next year, the experience is as fun.

If you're still reading, congratulations on making it all the way through. I don't know if this journal achieved what it was supposed so, but I sincerely hope that you at least got something out of it. If you have any comments, please free free to email me. Any improvements you can think of will mean I do a better job next year. You can catch me every week over at the Japandemonium section. Until next year, take it easy.

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