“I am not the Han Solo you’re looking for”.

Best line (of that kind, anyway) I’ve ever heard.

[19:50] Marie-Eve: salut!
[19:50] lightspeedchick: salut!
[19:50] Marie-Eve: Comment tu vas?
[19:50] lightspeedchick: bien! on s’pète tu la gueule?
[19:51] Marie-Eve: peux pas; mon chum est sur le playStation en train de jouer à God of War!
[19:51] lightspeedchick: bordel!
[19:51] lightspeedchick: mais c’était ton cadeau!
[19:51] Marie-Eve: hehe je sais! j’ai eu le malheur de lui demander de m’aider à battre le premier boss!
[19:52] lightspeedchick: t’as besoin d’un HOMME pour battre un monstre? quessé ça?
[19:52] Marie-Eve: haha, en fait, j’aurais pu l’avoir toute seule; c’est juste que y’arretait pas de tout le temps ressuciter!
[19:52] lightspeedchick: donnes-y jusqu’à 9 heures, après ça it’s Ratchet time
[19:53] Marie-Eve: et lui a découvert une place où fallait monter et “tacker” les têtes de dragons au bateau. Une fois que ya vu ça, le reste était du gâteau!!
[19:53] lightspeedchick: évidemment
[19:53] Marie-Eve: ouep, ok! à 9h c’est Ratchet!
[19:53] lightspeedchick: excellent

On June 11th, I’ll be doing the Standard Life 10 km run on Mount Royal, which benefits the Foundation for research into children’s diseases. That means I need donations from you, dear fellow bloggers and readers!

Standard Life absorbs ALL costs of organizing the run, so that every cent you kindly donate will go to the foundation. Please be generous, it’s for a good cause!

If you wish to donate, see me at the Yulblog meeting this week, or drop me an e-mail and we’ll figure something out.

Thanks in advance for your generosity!

And now for the latest blogging meme… thanks to the Toine for passing the turn to me.

Disk space on my computer taken up by music files:
297 songs / 22 hours / 1.74 GB. So modest!

Last CD I bought:
I have a good ear for playing instruments and singing, but in terms of keeping up with contemporary music, I am quite retarded. Thus, I buy CDs extremely rarely. Two factors have contributed to getting me “back in touch”: people left a whole bunch of CDs at my place this winter, and M-C’s podcasts introduce me to some cool “new” stuff. Thus, she made me fall in love with Röyksopp, and their Melody AM is the last one I bought, after finally finding a decently-priced copy in L.A. Now Thierry has heard it at my place and is desperate to find a copy, which is odd: introducing music to someone is an even rarer experience for me than buying a CD.

(Also bought Odyssey by Fischerspooner at the same time)

What’s playing right now:
* Six Underground / Sneaker Pimps

Songs that are important to me these days:
* Poor Leno / Royksopp
* Something to Talk About / Bonnie Raitt
* Don’t Dream it’s Over / Crowded House
* The Richest Man in Babylon / Thievery Corporation
* Simple Kind of Life / No Doubt

I’m passing the baton on to Lou and Stephie.

Overheard on the way to E3:

- Hey, this is a really nice picture of Anakin and Obi-Wan, wouldn’t you say?
- Yup. Check out those little hip pouches. I wonder what they carry in those.
- Extra batteries. You wouldn’t believe how many AAs those light sabers go through.
- Cellphones.
- It kinda looks like a DS. Maybe they have gameboys in there.
- Those multicolored things they have on their belts, looks like different flavors of condoms.
- They can’t have condoms, Jedis aren’t supposed to do it. Right? You know, the Force is actually just sperm buildup.
- Yeah well it’s In Case of Turning to the Dark Side…
- Yeah they wouldn’t want that to spread… The Jedi Council is still divided about whether to distribute condoms…
- Yeah maybe it actually promotes Turning.
- Why would they even need hip pouches anyway? I mean, they have the Force…
- Yeah, they could just have their stuff hovering around behind them all the time…
- In orbit around them… and they’d look like big atoms with all this stuff spinning around them…

It’s hard for me to find the words to describe what this week has been for me. Thousands of young-at-heart gamers, all sharing my interests, getting together simply to bask and completely immerse ourselves in fun and games. And all around us, the coolest toys anyone has ever made. I knew E3 would be fun and interesting, but when I left Montreal, I was so firmly entrenched in my life, in work and the web, that I felt a lot of separation anxiety. Well, the conference managed to yank me out of my Montreal cares and completely consume me. I’m exhausted, but feel like I truly got to escape, and I feel replenished.

As a producer of games, I’m incredibly impressed by what I’ve seen, and I just want to get back to work as soon as possible. As a consumer of games, I just want to jump up and down with anticipation at the toys coming out this year!

A little late, so won’t be posting so much today.

- Saw XBOX 360 games: Kameo (1000 enemies on the screen, each with their individual AI), Call of Duty II. w00t!

- Saw Clive Barker in person. The trailer for his game Demonik spooked the hell out of me, although I was on the public showroom floor.

- Got lots and lots of swag (but nothing beats my Insomniacs t-shirt).

- Went to the Scottish games developers party. Hee!

- Met the Dooma!

Playtested:
- Jak X: A cool racing game starring Jak. It felt ok, but I don’t know how much scope a racing game can have after being an adventure/platformer for so long.
- Daxter (PSP): Yep, the famous sidekick’s now gotten his own game. The developer told me the PSP would be connectible to the Jak for PS2 game for added gaming goodness.
- Sly 3: This one has a level in 3D, as in with real 3D glasses. It also now includes a multi-player mode where you can actually play Carmelita Fox (or Sly).
- Ratchet in co-op mode: Co-op games being my favorite, the fact that Ratchet is finally going co-op is simply multiorgasmic to me. I have been spending too much time at that little booth.

Saw trailers for KillZone on the PS3 (oh boy oh boy oh boy), Rainbow Six Lockdown, Prince of Persia 3, We Love Katamari and Ultimate Spider-Man. The latter looks AMAZING. I’ve always wanted to see a game done with a real superhero comicbook look and feel to it, and now it’s been done. And it’s yummy.

Got recognized by M. Net. Saw the Batmobile. Met lots of cool people working on my favorite games: Jak, R&C, Sly Cooper, etc.

Was just strolling around when I heard the theme song for one of my games, blasting on the loudspeakers. Looked around and there was the trailer, playing on a HUGE screen above a crowd. I ran over and shot loads and loads of pictures, singing along to the music, giddy as a schoolgirl.

The Ratchet incident. Did I mention the Ratchet incident??? (see previous post) I haven’t seen the PS3 or XBOX 360 yet, but I don’t think today can be topped. I’m exhausted and happy. Goodnight.

…three.

My laptop battery is about to die so I have to keep this short. Yesterday when I came onto the show floor, I saw something I wasn’t expecting: a booth dedicated to Ratchet Deadlocked, the latest in the Ratchet and Clank series, coming out this Christmas.

R&C is my faaaavorite game of all time. I got super excited to think I’d be playing this latest one six months ahead of its release.

Today, after spending about half an hour playing it, I actually got to meet one of the producers! I had never before gushed so much in my life. I told him that I’d played all three games several times through, and use R&C as an example and a reference so often in my work, that some of my teams actually refer to it as “Marie-Jo’s bible”. I gushed and I gushed, and left a puddle of drool at his feet.

Then I rush excitedly back to our booth to tell my colleagues.

About an hour later, I walk by R&C again, and he pulls me aside and gives me a Ratchet Deadlocked t-shirt, like the ones the Insomniac staff wear! I’m actually thinking of framing it. I mean, given to me by a producer of the game!

The best part was when he told me that he, too, gets his ass handed to him by 8-year-olds when he plays it online.

Play with XBOX 360.
Meet loads of cool geeks.
Get cool freebies.
Meet a great online friend.
See Episode III.
Par-tay a-plen-tay.
Meet the maker of Ratchet and Clank.

E3, here I come!