This is the last time I'm going to say this: Sorry this picture is so blurry. It's hard to keep your hand perfectly steady when taking a digital picture. I don't know how anyone ever does it. You'd think that for $400 I could get a camera that could auto-stabilize, but no. Unless there's a way to do it and I am just too not-reading-the-owner's-manually to know. Anyway, moving on:



ELECTROPLANKTON! Nintendo's minimalist non-game music / interactive art experiment was present and playable. I'm reminded of Katamari Damacy, which was shown at last year's E3 to gage interest; it ended up making the top of "BEST OF E3" lists with surprising frequency, inspiring Namco to do their risky North American localization and budget release. As I'm sure you're well aware, that risk paid off. I'm assuming Electroplankton's appearance this year is a similar experiment. Nintendo could quite possibly be crazy enough to have solid plans for a US release already (the English text in the game was encouraging); I'm hoping they do, because E3 is not the best place to get people into Electroplankton. For one thing, it's based completely on sound and music; for another thing, it was wedged between much flashier things. Nintendo should have been thoughtful enough to hook up a set of good noise-canceling headphones for this one. I'm hoping this actually gets released here, because as cool as it is, I'd rather not pay $60 for the import. "Boo boodoo boodoo-doot boo doo boo doo, Electroplankton YEAH!"



Many observant people were all "Welcome Chang 3 haha WTF," but it seems many people don't remember Sony's "urnote" campaign for the original Playstation. But that's not too surprising, I suppose, since people have to stretch way back in their minds to remember the Dreamcast. Anyway, this is a fairly standard E3 picture. Convention center: check. Nerds: check. Giant tanker truck pretending to be full of Mountain Dew: check. Incidentally, the line to get free Mountain Dew and possibly win a game that can otherwise be purchased at a store was frequently longer than the line to get inside the building to see all the great new games that aren't out yet. With logical decision-making skills like these, it's a wonder the entire nerd population can still function in society and hold jobs. ("Sorry boss, can't come in today... I'm standing in line to buy a Pepsi... Yeah, I might win a song from iTunes... What? Whaddya mean, 'fired?'")



You don't need to say it. I know. Would it help if I claimed to be conducting an experiment in conducting pure dorktricity through my fingertips? No? I should have stopped typing? You're questioning the wisdom of including this picture at all? What's that? I still haven't stopped typing? ...Whaddya mean, 'fired?'



Nintendo's use of Sharp Aquos LCD display screens made me sadly aware of the levels of texture detail and crisp text that I've been missing out on by playing Mario Parties 1-6 on an old-fashioned CRT television. Anyway, I still like Mario Party (seriously!) and I have no regrets whatsoever about giving Nintendo $50 every November to keep making them. Seriously, I'm not kidding! Those of you who have concerns that, now in its seventh year, the Mario Party team might be running out of ideas can put those fears to rest. There was a game about trying to stay on a treadmill, a game about punching the other players out of an arena, and a game about pressing the A button as many times as possible within the time limit! And as this thrilling screenshot indicates, there are now 8-player minigames, with eight players each utilizing one half of a controller. The more obsessive WarioWare fans can testify that this concept can work, albeit somewhat awkwardly. However, the real obstacle to fully enjoying this feature is: where am I going to find seven other people that aren't sick of Mario Party yet?



Check it out! It's the new Game Boy Micro!