The first day of E3 began early for me as I had to shave and shower prior to my brother whom also had to do so for work. In order for both of us to do this I had to get up at 5:30 which was a bit rough for the first day of an event. We headed out before seven and I got to the convention center by 7:15. I could not get my badge holder until eight so I sat down and enjoyed some breakfast.

After I finished my doughnut and OJ I wandered a bit and chatted with a few of the people who had shown up early. When eight rolled around I went and picked up my badge holder and entered the convention center. Upon getting my holder I had some time to kill before the exhibit halls opened. I made my way to the Media Lounge to get ready and relax a bit prior to the beginning of the madness. While waiting, I ran into Scarlet Rhapsody team member, Stan, who was there promoting Plastic Joint.

The Nintendo Press conference began at nine and I was lucky enough to have the person next to me set his laptop to run the live stream. This would be the only press conference I would watch, but from what I heard it was the best one. The conference introduced the world to the biggest thing at E3 this year: the 3DS. Although, I will admit that the revival of Donkey Kong County and Goldeneye were also impressive announcements.

After the press conference, I decided to head out to get in line for the South Hall, where I would be spending the majority of the day. The hall would open at noon and I got in line a little after eleven so I had a nice position. However, while waiting I would get pushed out of the way and have my foot stepped on by a stiletto heel. I would later learn that the person who did it to me was there for a Mafia II promotion.

When the South Hall doors opened I walked in with a sense of wonder. The lights, sounds, and spectacle of E3 is hard to describe. It was a moment I will never forget. I made my way down the hall between the Disney booth and the Microsoft booth. For all my planning I had no idea what I wanted to do. After a bit of wandering I made my way toward the Bandai-Namco booth. The first games I played at E3 were the new Dragon Ball Z and Naruto games. Strange that the first games I played are based off of anime titles, but as a fan of fighting games I had no complaints.

Before I knew it, the time had already reached 12:30 and I went to the next booth over for my appointment with Natsume. I was very excited for my first meeting at E3. I was able to try out their game lineup and talk with the very friendly Natsume staff. This put me in a good mood and set a standard that I would expect from other booths.

As my appointment ended I decided to hit the next booth over which happened to be the Electronic Arts booth. I had the opportunity to go see a preview of the console version of Sims 3 and get some cool swag. Time was moving faster than expected and I decided it was time for lunch. However, while making my way out I got distracted by the Sega booth. It was cool to have the chance to see the behind closed doors presentation of Shogun Total War 2, but after the presentation I was very weak from hunger and I had to rush out of the convention center before I collapsed. As I had lunch I promised myself that I would be stricter about having lunch at a proper time.

When I returned I met up with the members of CtrlAltKill, they wanted to join up for my meeting with Disney Interactive so I gave them the information and I headed off to see a few more booths prior to the Disney meeting. I hit the Square-Enix booth and was a bit disappointed by their lineup. Then I hit the Bandai booth once more to see the games I did not see my first time.

The Disney Interactive meeting was at 4:30 and I returned to the booth with plenty of time to prepare with the CtrlAltKill staff. Our meeting was delayed due to last minute scheduling issues. However, when we started we got to watch an extensive play through of Epic Mickey and Tron Evolution. We were very excited to see these games and I am looking forward to playing them at home.

To wrap up the day I returned to Sega to check out Yakuza 4 and the new Sonic games. Sonic 4 gave me a bit of nostalgia for the long gone days of the Genesis. By the six o’clock closing time I was pretty worn out. I ran into Stan (Plastic Joint) on the way out and we exited together talking about what we saw that day. I left with the CtrlAltKill team to get some dinner and head home for a good rest.

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