I’m finally recovering from E3. (Travelling sucks, but it was good to see a bunch of friends.)

We spent a lot of our time showing off Deus Ex PS2. I also sat on a panel with Ken Levine and Rob Fermier, talking about New Opportunities in Storytelling. (Another of the proposed panel members dropped out and our moderator didn’t show up until halfway through the talk, but Ken, Rob and I just ran with it and had lots of fun.) I finally got to meet (the tall, cool) Dave Perry, if only briefly.

Interesting games I saw at the show:

Republic
This is the most ambitious game I’ve ever seen. It’s a strategic simulation that allows the player to use various stylistic approaches to siezing power. I met Demis and Joe from the Elixir team–both cool, smart guys. I cannot wait for them to finish the game. The Republic demo implies incredible depth and freedom of expression.

Rubu Tribe
RT is a really gorgeous looking console game with some cool environment and ecology manipulation implications.

Startopia
I love games like this–imagine running a space station. From my perspective, the biodeck looked like the coolest aspect of the game.

Interesting things that happened:

Two cool Russian journalists (who are super fluent with all things DX) gave us 2 awesome, handmade awards from Game EXE magazine.

The Academy of Interactive Arts and Science delivered the awards for Design Innovation and Action/Adventure Game of the Year. Clearly, they have the sexiest award–two furled metal wings enfolding a crystal sphere.

At the restaurant McCormick and Schmick, our waiter overheard us say, “…the industry” and assumed that Warren was a film producer bigwig. After that, the waiter was drooling and dropping all these little hints, like, “I’m an actor! Want to see my headshot photos? I was in an episode of Star Trek once!” It was amusing. Ah, LA.

Elijah Wood (from the Lord of the Rings movie) came by the Eidos booth. I was busy at the time–Warren and I were taking possession of our AIAS awards–so I did not get the chance to see if “Frodo” was carrying The Ring. (If he had been, I’d have been forced to take it…)

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As an aside, let me just thank Joss Whedon (and the cast) for 5 great years of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. It’s hard enough to create something good (and get it in front of other people), but to sustain the quality of that show for that long is just miraculous. Great ending to the series–very touching. (I’d love to think that, reciprocally, someone involved with the show plays computer games and liked Deus Ex. Wishful thinking, I’m sure.)

Harvey Smith
ION Storm Austin
Director, Deus Ex 2
Lead Designer, Deus Ex