Anyways, I'll just skip right to the good parts and tell you all about the trip. It began early Tuesday morning (May21st) as my two friends (Eric and Kurt) and their dad picked me up to take us to the airport. Our flight left at 8:40 in the morning, and had a 90 minute layover in Minneapolis. From there, we flew straight to the Los Angeles airport. We got there at 1:30 about, and were picked up by the aunt of Eric and Kurt. She drove us around a bit and then took us to some hotel about 6 blocks away from the convention. The convention had already started by then, but we only had passes for the exhibition halls, which didn't open until Wednesday. We didn't do too much the first day in California, and went to bed sometime after The Simpsons.

The next day was the most exciting day of the trip. They let us into the main exhibition hall at 10am, and we all went straight to the Nintendo booth. Nintendo has almost always dominated the E3 show with its enormous "booth." It was actually the largest attraction at E3. Everyone wanted to play their most anticiapted games: Zelda, Metroid, Mario Sunshine, etc... As you walked into the Nintendo area, about a hundred small-flatscreen televisions lined the ceiling overhead. Each flatscreen played video clips from dozens of different games. On the sides of the entrance were large flatscreens which acted as moving posters for the upcoming games. The Nintendo booth instantly filled up as hundreds of people started playing the games. The first game we saw was their new Gamecube Zelda game.

This Zelda game is gonna blow your mind. I have never seen animation work this smoothly. The entire game is cell-shaded, and it gives it this amazing cartoonish quality which you will love once you play it. The level I played took place in a cavern with illuminous lighting unlike any other game. The big boss for this level was cool as well. You grabbed its head with your hookshot, and then slashed at it with your sword. Truly an amazing fight. I think everyone will overlook the cartoonish look of Link (which never bothered me) as soon as they play the game. We also saw a new Gameboy Advance game of Zelda set up next to the Gamecube one. I hadn't even heard of this game until I saw it. You could play A Link to the Past (or was it Link's Awakening... I can't remember), or find 3 other friends and play their battle mode which you could either play as a team, or keep slashing at the other players to try and knock off the sides. This was a fun-as-hell game and I can't wait for it to come out.

After Zelda, I saw their Animal Crossing game being displayed. This is a game I've been following for a few months now. The closest thing I can relate this game to is Harvest Moon. You basically start out by entering some information about yourself, as well as your name, then you are taken to a new town where you now have to live, work, and play. It's been dubbed a "communication" game by Nintendo. There are tons of features in this game! It works entirely in real time, meaning that if it's 3pm in real life, then it's 3pm in the game. And if it's winter here, then it's winter there. Another awesome feature is the NES that sits in your room. If you play it, then the real versions of Donkey Kong, Excitebike, Balloon Fight, and much more can be played. I played this game for quite awhile, and I am now even more excited about it. I actually got to talk to one of the translators for the American version of the game. He seemed very excited about it. I asked when it's coming out and he said "hopefully September." I know what I'm saving my time for now...

Nintendo also showed off their new E-card reader. This is a little device that you hook up to your GBA and swipe cards with. For Animal Crossing, you can receive special items and Nintendo games through it, and for Pokémon, your guys can learn new moves to fight with. They handed out sample E-cards to people (all were the same) and I got a Pichu card with a new move, a Hoppit card with a new move, a Game-and-Watch game, and a Kirby card that Nintendo made to give away prizes at E3. Unfortunately, Kirby never gave me anything... Other people were winning GBAs from it.

After the Nintendo booth, we walked around to the other booths. Enix had a gigantic Blue Slime over their booth. Koei had Dynasty Warrior Tactics, Romance of the Three Kingdoms VII, and a new game called Mystic heroes for the Gamecube. Romance and Tactics were pretty similar to each other, but Mystic Heroes was fun as hell. It's a lot like Dynasty Warriors 3, but this time it's more fantasy based. You choose from 4 different characters, and then engage yourself in a massive battle. Their controls were SO nice. One thing I noticed about all of the games at E3 is that the controls of these games seems a lot more fluid than the controls of the past. Maybe it was just me. Anyways, I played Mystic Heroes for like an hour before deciding I need to take a break. But Mystic Heroes will be a game on my Christmas List this year.

Besides just playing thousands of games, I should mention the free gifts that were constantly being handed out by many of the booths. I'm not talking about just fliers or pamphlets here either. I got some cool shit. Atari gave me this cool necklace with a battery in it and the Atari logo lights up when you wear it. Nintendo was giving out similar necklaces as well. T-shirts were easy to come by. I must've brought home 7 T-shirts from E3, mostly ones with Nintendo games on them. Sony was giving out 2 PS2 demos, Ratchet and Clank and some other Racoon game. They were both fun, but I'd buy Ratchet and Clank before the Racoon game. It was just more fun. Very similar in style to Jax and Dexter. I got a free plush penguin from some kids game, a paper weight, some toy clicker, a lot of pins, several key chains, a couple of temporary tatoos, a Lord of the Ring Bookmark with the One ring hanging from it, some more game demos, and a bunch of other stuff I can't even remember like pens and luggage tags.

The best free stuff had to be won though. My friend Eric wanted an Atari T-shirt really bad, and some hot chicks running the booth had him dance on stage for one. All three of us won Mystical Ninja Goeman plush dolls. Kurt actually won 2, and gave one to the 5 year old daughter of his cousin. The most sought after prize by far was given away by Nintendo. They had a game set up that ran all three days for Wireless Wavebird Controllers for the Gamecube. To get a chance at playing the game, you had to wait at least an hour in line. I once waited 2 hours it was that bad. What they do is this: You wait in line, and then get separted from the line in a group of twelve. They then seat you around a roulette-like table with a spinning middle. In the middle of this table were some girls that ran the game, and then on a TV moniter at the front of the table was either Mario or Wario making fun of the contestants. They had some sort of camera that allowed whowever was controlling Mario to see and interact with the players. It was kind of annoying, but entertaining at the same time. On the spinning part of this table were a bunch of prizes. Everyone at least won a T-shirt and a one of those light-up necklaces. Sometimes they put a GBA on the wheel. And every now and then they put a plush Kirby there. They also put four Wavebird tokens on the wheel, and whichever 4 people got the tokens after the wheel was spun got to advance to the 2nd round. The first time I played, I didn't get a token :( After that, I became determined to get one. I made it my mission on the 2nd day of E3 to win the Wavebird Controller (Keep in mind, this Controller hasn't even been released yet, so it was kind of cool to get something before everyone else could). So on the 2nd day, the first thing I did was get in line. This line was LONG. I waited two hours 'till I got to the front. They spun the wheel, and sure enough, I got a token. When this happens, they bring you and the three other winners to a big set-up of Mario Party 4. The 4 people play 7 games, and whoever wins the most games gets the Wavebird. I played Yoshi. I won the first two games. Then Mario won the next two. Then Luigi won one. Then Mario. So now it's me with 2 points, and Mario with three. In order for me to stay in the game, I had to win the next round. The next game was where each of the players are on an ink stamp and you hop around the board. Whoever has the most ink on the board at the end of the game, wins. The strategy for this was simple. All I had to do was erase all of the ink Mario made. This strategy worked like a charm and I won that round. I think whoever was playing Mario wasn't too happy about me erasing his ink, but what did I care. This was war. So now it's tied 3-3, and me and Mario had to do a tie breaker. Me and him decided to play a round of a dodge ball-like game. I won, and got the controller :) So that made me happy, and I could get back to wandering around E3 (FYI: I won 2 controllers and gave one to Eric. I got a 3rd chance to play Mario Party 4, but I gave it to Kurt, who then went on to win the controller as well).

So now I'll just talk about other games I played. Mario Sunshine was a lot of fun. I can't wait for this to come out. I only played one level and what you do is erase graffiti from walls with your water-gun back pack. It's a lot more fun then it sounds. You just have to play it. Metroid was amazing. It's a lot like a First Person Shooter, but much more advanced. When Samus rolls into a ball was the best part. I liked playing with that a lot. Everyone will enjoy this game. Star Fox Adventures is cool. Eternal Darkness is awesome. And Super Monkey Ball 2 was a lot of fun. I also saw a preview clip of the Kirby cartoon coming out this fall, and it looks totally kick-ass. Kirby is hard-core.

Final Fantasy XI is one of the most ambitious games I have ever seen. The game they had set-up was online, but entirely in Japanese. I had a hard time figuring out what to do, but quickly got the hang of it. The little mages are adorable. I'm gonna be that character when it comes out. The CGI opening for this game is simply stunning. This 5 minute clip was better than the entire Final Fantasy movie.

Kingdom Hearts is a must have. I didn't know what to expect from this Squaresoft-Disney production. But I now know that they have beautiful kids together. Expect to see just about every Disney character as well as several Square characters. Here's a spoiler for ya: Cloud is back! And he looks hard-core!

Warcraft III was awesome, as well as the Harry Potter game. A big improvement from the first games. I might actually pick one of those Harry Potter games up. I was a little disappointed with the Lord of the Ring games. At the booth, they had a big Hobbit Hole set up, and when you went inside, you got to watch an iMax-like preview of all of the games. But these games didn't impress me. I'd probably buy The Hobbit though. Looked pretty good. I don't know. These LotR games are kind of "iffy." They should have tried to get the actual movie actors to do the voices.

Some of the new Star Wars games looked good. I'll probably pick up Bounty Hunters. I played Staurt Little 2, but only because they had REALLY nice chairs for you to sit in as you play (I needed to sit down). I also played the new Godzilla fighting game and had a blast at that. The new Medal of Honor game was also a lot of fun.

That's about all of the games a played. So here's the info you really came here to hear: Info on the new Lufia game. Unfortunately, there are no definate plans to release it here. I talked to Graham Markay who is the Head of Operations at Natsume. It was cool to talk to somebody who actually knew stuff about Lufia. I asked about Lufia 4, and he said that since Natsume has so many other GBA titles to launch, he isn't ready to make a deal with Taito and buy the rights to the game. He said they'd probably announce the Lufia game in a few months. He sounded very much like he wanted the game though. He has played the Japanese version and I think he said he liked it. I also asked about possible remakes of the other Lufia games and he said that they have talked about it, but nothing final was ever decided. I then asked him if he had ever been to my site, and he said that he had it bookmarked on his computer at home :) That made me VERY happy. I then asked him about this new Harvest Moon coming out for the Gamecube next year, and all he could tell me was that it will be the ULTIMATE Harvest Moon game. He said they're making it for the fans. I asked if the family aspect of the game had any more depth to it, but he said he couldn't answer that yet. Sounds like a "yes" if you ask me. Natsume also had a demo of Metroplismania which looks like a hell of a lot of fun. It's like Sim City, but you actaully have a character in the game. You play the mayor and interact within this city you're building. I think Natsume will have some awesome titles to offer us in the next year.