Day one of E3, to me, is the absolute worst day of the expo. There's always a lot of pushing and shoving as well as people going crazy trying to get as much schwag as possible. This year was no different. I decided that I would take a bunch of photos and do a quick run through of all the booths to get a feel for what was there.

The doors opened at 11am and like last year, it was marked with a pretty daring parachute jump courtesy of the Army.

I watched this from the comfort of my patio chair outside of Microsoft's Blogger Bus. This bus is outfitted with leather chairs, wireless internet, two 360's, snacks and drinks. Most people who keep active blogs or run news sites were invited to come and hang out while they got to take a break from the madness and upload their thoughts.

I walked through the event with Godfree (GTR) for a while. I got to see a little Moto GP 3, some cool wrestling stuff like chairs that had been thrown, outfits, head-dented garbage cans and more.

Huxley was in the next booth so I squeezed in to see some people playing. This is one of the games that takes advantage of the ability to play either on your console or on a PC. It looked like an amazing game but I do wonder what the pricing will be to play it. I also wonder if PC gamers will be able to take advantage of the console gamers by cracking codes easily. Just another, "wait and see".

After my first pass-through of the event having been elbowed in the chest, pushed into a booth by an overzealous man who needed a blinky neckalce, hit in the crotch with an inflatable sword, and getting the run around with an interview with a certain developer I decided it was time to just go back to the bus, calm down and try to finish my blog from the press event.

Lots of people were stopping by the bus - some who were allowed to be there and some who were intent to get a peek or a seat for nothing. We drew the line with the pizza, though. That's ours biatch!

I went back in for a second pass and worked my way back to the XBox booth where I met up with an old friend from the XBox policy department. That's right - POLICY - this means the guy who can make sure that if you don't play by the rules, you go bye bye.

Major disappointment was in store for me since they didn't have hands-on time with Gears of War even though they said they'd have this during the press event the day before. You could only get this if you had an appointment with the developers. Godfree, was lucky enough to be able to do this so check out his audio at GamertagRadio.com. For the rest of us, there was a theater set up where Cliffy B basically did his demo again. Cool but would have loved to actually play a little.

That night, we attended the C3 party which was a lot of fun as usual. Like last year, we all got a nice up close and personal look at the games without having to beat a bunch of people up just to sneak a glimpse. This year's party was much bigger than last years so there was a little waiting involved but not nearly as bad as during the day. I got to play ShadowRun, Crackdown, F.E.A.R., Table Tennis and Dead Rising. One of the coolest parts? I got to meet Moe! She's that fargin cool chick from 1up that made the finalists to be the new Frag Doll. She is just as cool in person as she was when I talked to her on 1up.

Here is a really brief summary of the games I played and my initial impressions. I am trying to keep in mind that these are still all demos so fine tuning may be needed but here you go:

ShadowRun: I got to the game when the training was half way through so it was a little confusing to begin with. Eh - I just switched off the machine and started over. The play seems to be centered around stealing ancient artifacts from a tomb-like setting but you have special abilities such as gliding and teleportation. I played several rounds of capture the flag against the AI. It was fun for a couple of minutes but got a little repetitive after 5 rounds.

Table Tennis: Ok, this was very cool - Rockstar set up a table tennis tournament with the winner getting a trip to Paris, France. Of course, being the chicken I am, I didn't sign up but many of the MVPs did and had a lot of fun with it. I played a couple of practice rounds with Zamees and Fatty Chubs. I'm proud to say, the GamertagPics founder and my "boss" won the whole damn thing baby!! He won't be taking me, unfortunately but the lucky gal going is well deserving. I want a plastic Eiffel Tower damnit!

Dead Rising: I had to go through a fairly long intro scene that cut into my playing time but then it went straight into a helicopter sequence where I figured out that you could take photos for points. There were lots of scenes of zombies and carnage for my photo-taking pleasure. It took me a while to figure out what I was supposed to do but I'm a little slow so - ya know... I did get a nice photo of a half blown up, flaming zombie which got me about 200 points. I'm going to try and get back to it today since I only got a little time with it during the party.

F.E.A.R.: This game was very, very dark. One of the hard things about playing games here is that you're usually picking up from someone else's checkpoint. When you've never played before, it's a fast learning curve but this one I picked up fairly quickly. All the good stuff was there, jumping, shooting, reloading, death, carnage, darkness and gloom. What more could you want?

Crackdown: I played this with Fatty Chubs and after about 10 minutes of shooting random gang members who were roaming the streets we got a little...bored. I just don't think it has enough to take away from the GTA series. There didn't seem to be a point except to shoot people. Even with my bad attitude that gets boring after a while. The style was a little off for me, too. The idea of the cel shading was pretty cool but I just don't think they pulled it off. The characters looked awkward and choppy but the fact that you and your friend can roam the world together or apart was pretty cool. The idea of having your friends jump in at any time was pretty cool but again, just not enough to keep me enthralled.

Peter Moore made an appearance at the party, too, which was pretty cool but we're hoping to get some more face time with him later this week.

Today I plan to take a closer look at Sony and Nintendo's booths but judging by the lines that were already forming this morning, I won't be seeing the Wii just yet. I got some info that not only do you have to wait in a 3 hour line outside the closed booth but once you get in, you have to wait another hour to play all the games. Some people who got in said they spent the entire day in there waiting in lines. Not my idea of fun and while I am here to report on this stuff, I'm not going to miss out on other stuff waiting in line for something. SORRY!

So I'm off again to check more stuff out. Damn, I hate leaving this bus. It's so comfy and quiet...

BTW, have I said lately that Tony Hynes is THE SHEEEEEIIIIIIAAATTTTT? Well, the entire XBox team is - Ceeeeeesar, John, TriX, Major, and all of them. If it weren't for them, I wouldn't be here and a happy girl I am because of them. Tony gets the special love because, well, he just looks after us really, really well.

Be back soon!

OHHHHH I almost forgot, I picked up a little something for one of my favorite xbox.com and gamertagpics.com forum posters. I did promise him a Hello Kitty pin but they aren't to be had anywhere so I got him this instead: SEE! I didn't forget hahahaha I'm sure you'll look great in it.


Feelz Good will look great in his Serious Gamer Disguise Kit