The astute people reading this (no, not you), will notice that despite only being in Los Angeles for a few days, I’m already on part three of my diary. To say that I’m having a great time would be an understatement and to say that I want to share as much of it with you, the reader, as possible is equally true. I’m sure it’s hilarious to hear about my sleep deprivation and my thoughts on British Airways’ poor choice of pilots. That said, this is a gaming website and not a review panel on the effectiveness of random anal cavity searches at US airports (a bullet dodged, I assure you). So with that said, how about we discuss some mother trucking games y’all!?

Monday saw me attend the Microsoft and Sony Conferences respectively. While I could go into details about the Microsoft one, Ed ‘sweet-guzzler’ Price is taking the the reins of that particular beast. In short I can say that if the thing that impressed me the most was Halo 4, then the world has clearly gone fucking insane and you should be grouped with your loved ones, because the Mayans were right; the world is going to end. Make sure you play Resident Evil 6 on the way out though; just press X to win. You could probably do that via your phone, tablet, car, television, oven, fridge, lamp, printer, scanner or dog using Microsoft’s ‘essential’ SmartGlass technology. Fuck. Off. Splinter Cell and Tomb Raider looked good but it’s not exclusive and that isn’t good for them.

So upon leaving Microsoft’s Conference, wondering were all the games got to, I phoned Pete for a ‘high priority extraction.’ Essentially “come and get me but not before I’ve had a chance to get some food”. Being nearly midday and having had nothing to eat or drink was, undoubtedly, the stupidest thing I’d done since arriving. Thankfully a Subway was in sight and if anyone is going to do a Subway right it’s the Americans.

Wrong again. I don’t know how this moron managed to mess up a cheese and bacon toastie with a drop of salad in it but he managed to turn the situation into a total cluster fuck. Despite telling him I wanted lettuce and tomato, he then had the ingenuity to add watercress. Fuck knows why they’ve got watercress in Subways, vile bloody stuff. It had no place in my sandwich. He could save the day, by drowning that green shit in tomato sauce. Tomato what? Tomato sauce mate, ketchup, tommy-k, the red stuff! This? No, you cunt, that’s chilli sauce, it says so on the top. Oh just give me the fucking sandwich you clown. I got picked up shortly after this, which was probably a good thing because it would be awkward to be there when the police respond to a 911 call and find the some dude holding a bottle of Heinz, and  smashing some Subway employee’s face in.

We went back to the house after the ‘Subway Incident’. Ed had gone off to the EA conference, so we went to the shops. Snack food and orange juice is the staple diet of any budding journalist and, unsurprisingly, there was more than enough on offer. Some people run on coffee, others run on tea. I run on Robinsons Orange Squash. Always have done, always will. Appears America doesn’t share my love for this either and so I’m reduced to living off of Sunny D, a glass of which contains Edward’s daily intake of sugar. I wanted to bring my family back a gift from America. Didn’t realise it was going to be me in a fucking diabetic coma. When Ed finally arrived back, and I’d eaten enough Musketeers bars to realise that they won’t be replacing Mars Bars any time soon, it was time to head to the Sony Conference.

Unfortunately time had got the better of us and we arrived literally as the show was starting,  just in time to witness David Cage take the stage to show us Beyond: Two Souls, his latest Heavy Rain-esque title. Graphically it looked like an updated version of the aforementioned title. The atmosphere was tense as a young girl talked to a Police Officer. Cage talked about how the game would look at the mystery between life and death or something equally cryptic. He went onto confirm that actress Ellen Page would play the main character Jodie Holmes, using new motion capture technology that Quantic Dream were developing. While the details aren’t clear at this stage, it appears that Holmes will have some sort of telekinetic powers and is a danger to other people.

From there we were treated to a look at Super Smash Bros Melée on the Playstation. Except that they’ve called it All-Stars Battle Royale. It’s unfair for me to compare it to this in some ways. I applaud Sony for giving this a go because I don’t doubt it will be enjoyable. It’s always going to be compared to Smash Bros though and its going to be a tall order to beat it. They did confirm Nathan Drake and a Big Daddy from Bioshock as playable characters, which was a nice reveal.  Not as nice as finding out that all the attendees would be getting a free year of Playstation Plus. That was an extremely generous offer from Sony and went down very well with the crowd, as you can imagine. Considering the number of people present, that can’t have been cheap.

I could sit here and talk about the other things we saw: Far Cry 3 co-op, God Of War: Ascension, that Wonderbook thing but all of it was fairly underwhelming. The co-op left me wanting, Ascension looked like any other hack and slash game and the Wonderbook looks to be something the little humans will enjoy.  My favourite bit of the show was easily the footage of The Last of Us. My initial concerns about it being too much like Nathan Drake’s treasure thieving quests in Uncharted were put to rest. I still have some concerns it may be a little easy, but the combat is vicious, the stakes high and the atmosphere always tense and on edge. I loved every second of it and it has confirmed itself as something to certainly keep an eye on.

With the show ended we headed to the Cheesecake Factory, where I ate possibly the nicest pizza I’ve ever eaten. Ever. We were just preparing to leave for day one of the show as Nintendo were self destructing on a screen beside me. I was going to E3 for the first time and Nintendo were shooting themselves in the foot. The old saying has never been so true: the more things change, the more they stay the same.

Last five articles by Chris

• My friend, David.
• Meridian: Squad 22 - Review
• It Was Him or Me
• Coming Full Circle
• Ellipsis - Review