If you aren't a gamer and happen to stumble upon the LA Convention Center this week, you'd be assaulted by dozens of banners and posters for games that publishers want you to know about. Do the posters really say anything or give any information? We walked around the outside of the convention center and through the various hallways to see what games were given prominence:

Assassin's Creed 2: As mentioned in a previous blog post, Ubisoft's sequel takes the prize for largest banner. With outstreched arms and blades in each, the poster hangs ominously between South and West halls outside. No words, no description, but it looks nice and was granted its own zip code.

Darksiders: This game from THQ had two ads near the inside entrance to West Hall. One was lighted and small, while the other huge banner hung near the...

Long veiled in secrecy and rumored to be the first film washed in 100% pure unicorn tears, James Cameron’s Avatar made a fancy debut at E3 this week. Before the show’s attendees could see the video game tethered to the upcoming Christmas movie, security guards confiscated phones, cameras and anything that could record. New-fangled 3D glasses were given out. A chipper actor-type narrated the demo, starting off with a glowing introduction for the movie’s producer Jon Landau.  (Warning: Spoilers ahead.)
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Landau shouted out screenwriter Zak Penn in the audience, then enthusiastically outlined the basic plot of the sci-fi drama. The film centers on 26-year-old paralyzed veteran Jake Sully, who lost his ability to walk fighting a war he didn’t believe in. His estranged identical twin’s been living across the galaxy, working for interstellar...

The first mistake was not getting out of Los Angeles earlier. Sitting around for an early afternoon flight just extended the risk of serious jetlag.

The second mistake was then immediately comitting on an East Coast schedule and logging on to my computer to chat with friends I hadn't spoken to since I left for E3.

The third mistake was talking about E3.

It's great that everyone is so enthusiastic. I've been asked by a lot of people already about Alan Wake - my ride from the airport tried to pump me for information I didn't really have on hand.  Questions about the press conferences, the demos I saw,whether Aliens vs Predator is still awesome...it never ends.

And this is a very good thing.

I was beginning to be very tired of E3. Press conferences are broadcast across the internet and television so the media doesn't even really need to be in that room or reporting on it - anyone interested can see what Microsoft...

You thought they would have learned from the uproar (albeit misplaced) with Mass Effect. But darn it if BioWare hasn't revisited the slippery slope.

For the uninitiated, Mass Effect contained a cutscene where Commander Shepard has an intimate liaison with a member of his party. The scene is tasteful, with only a split-second of anything remotely tawdry being shown. Add to the mix that this scene could be achieved only if certain choices were made at particular points in the game, meaning that many players would not see the scene if they made choices that could hamper the relationship. This did not stop numerous critics, almost all of whom never played the game or bothered to inform themselves about it, from bashing the game and BioWare for exposing players to sex in videogames and decrying the game as a...

The abuse has gone on long enough. Sensible gamers have had indecency upon indecency heaped upon them and now it is time to react. With recent announcements regarding the Left 4 Dead, Rock Band, Metal Gear Solid and dozens of other beloved franchises the furor or outraged fans has snowballed into a cacophony of self-righteous complaint. It's time for those voices to cease being heard.

I'm am officially calling for a boycott of all crazy video game fans -- those angry that Rock Band isn't a platform any more, those disappointed that Left 4 Dead 2 came out so quickly, those frustrated that Metal Gear Solid games will be playable on the Xbox 360. I propose that all sensible, decent human beings enact an across-the-board boycott of these deranged fans. Cease speaking and listening to these buffoons. Give them no more notice than you'd give a homeless guy with his pants around his ankles. Block them on message boards. Disconnect from them on social networks. Don't turn the...

In an industry that seems to need a new buzzword every few years, it's never really a surprise when you hop from meeting to meeting and hear the same phrases over and over again. At E3 2009, the big word is "cinematic", as in "cinematic experience" or "cinematic dialog" or just plain "cinematic game."

So apparently games are movies again. But, depending on the game and the approach, "cinematic" has taken on a wealth of meanings.

Bioware's Mass Effect 2 is the most cinematic. It's cast as a trilogy, has a strong script and compelling protagonist. And we in the media got to see a lot of cutscenes. In fact, judging by the ratio of game action and talky bits on display, ME2 is as close to being a playable movie as any game can get. 

Supreme Commander 2, a brawny real time strategy game (one of very few on display at E3) has a story based campaign that Gas Powered Games compares to Saving...

I sat, squirming in my seat as one of my many demo meetings petered out, wondering at what we... no. At what they had done! A father, a husband, suddenly gone because of a sick crowd's decision.

 
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EA's Army of Two: The 40th Day demo started innocently enough. Talk of new features peppered the live demo as a room full of journalists and fans watched Salem and Rios running and gunning through Shanghai as distater shook the city to its core. One of the new features in EA Montreal's sequel comes in the form of co-op morality moments. We watched Rios and Salem comes across a weapons locker. As the scene played out, the mercs opened the locker and prepared to stock up on needed guns and ammo. Suddenly, a dumpy security guard scampers in on them, gun drawn, and asks them what they're doing. At this point, the course of action was put to a vote: walk away with...

Villainy hit the PS3 in style at E3, where DC Universe Online debuted on Sony’s system for the first time. I checked out a mission called Mutant Rampage, thanks to an early pre-alpha build. The mission involved a mutagen leak that’s turning people into misshapen freaks at super-science outfit STAR Labs, with different objectives for either hero or villain played out side by side. As a villain, the goal was to steal the mutagen and get it out to the Secret Society of Supervillains and as an auxilliary member of the Justice League of America, the player had to secure an antidote, subdue infected STAR Labs staff and bring the source of the mutagen to be eliminated. The folks at SOE call the well-known characters of DCUO “Iconics” and they were on display for the first time, too. The Joker and his psychopathic jester girlfriend Harley Quinn aided the villain character in his mayhem, while the hero avatar partnered up with Batman and later Superman and Green...

Last night Teti, Narcisse and I had dinner with our colleagues from Sony at a Japanese steak house on the sixth floor of the Westin Bonaventure in Los Angeles. The running joke of the night: the hotel's alarming resemblance to Rapture.

With its acquatic-themed lobby, complete with a shooting arc of water that John Teti can't seem keep his hands out of, to its absurdly out of date decor, this place looks and feels like something terrible happened here, and now only Splicers remain.

I blame the filming of True Lies. This is the hotel where some famous scenes from True Lies were apparently filmed. I know, because there's a plaque next to the elevator that I ride every morning that says, THIS IS ONE OF TWO ELEVATORS THAT WERE USED IN THE FILMING OF TRUE LIES STARRING ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER. And I'm pretty sure the lobby, the rooms, this whole place hasn't been touched since. Even the aforementioned Japanese steak house had a kind of we're-open-...