Behind E3's Closed Doors: VIP-Only Games, Works In Progress
05.20.2005 11:46 AM EDT
Even in gamers' paradise, titles such as 'The Godfather' are off-limits to most.
With hundreds of games available to play for free on the show floor, this week's Electronics Entertainment Expo (E3) is a game nut's paradise. But even in this gaming Shangri-La, there are some elusive treasures: hidden games shuttered behind closed doors. While sometimes these games are too early in development to show to the mass of industry professionals in attendance, they are often also the most exciting titles to be found in the Expo's cavernous carnival of games.
Last year, a handful of reporters returned from E3 buzzing about an Electronic Arts game called "Black." There had been no sign of "Black" on the show floor, but the inside word was that the game — a hyper-charged first-person shooter by the makers of the critically acclaimed crash-racing game "Burnout" — had been the one to see. This year, the game returned to E3 and the buzz is strong once again — even though the game remained invisible to the average show-goer.
"Typically there's one title that we'll put behind closed doors in part to help build excitement," said EA spokesman Tim McDowd. But McDowd wasn't even talking about "Black," which was secured alongside an upcoming game called "Spore" in a darkened and highly exclusive zone upstairs in EA's booth.
McDowd was stationed at floor level in a room modeled to look like the den of mob boss Vito Corleone of "The Godfather" book, movie — and now — game. Like "Black," "The Godfather" couldn't be played on the show floor. But a trailer ran near a main walkway to whet appetites. And in McDowd's mob room, VIP guests could get their hands on a controller and try the game out. McDowd said the special room helped explain the game's detailed story. And did the line of people waiting to enter the don's hidden back office build some hype? "That helps too," McDowd admitted.
"The Godfather" may have benefited from the backroom atmosphere, but Ben Judd, the head of localization at Capcom, acknowledged that keeping a game backstage also helped protect a game's weaknesses. He was set up behind closed doors at Capcom's booth with an Xbox 360 game called "Dead Rising." The part of the game on private display featured a man in a convenience store getting swarmed by a pressing crowd of zombies. "If you show it and you can't explain it, someone might look at it and say, 'Oh, these graphics are crap. You could do this on the original Xbox,' " Judd said as the game's hero, with detergent in hand, fought his way down what might have been a store aisle.
Judd acknowledged that his development team had yet to include a physics program that would let the boxes and cans on the store shelves tumble and pile as zombies were thrown into them. And he pointed out that the Xbox 360 prototype his development team had used to create the E3 version of "Dead Rising" was one-third as powerful as the final hardware would be. Sleepless nights leading to E3 had put the squeeze on the development team, but Judd said that a choice had to be made: Show the game in a controlled environment and hope its best qualities catch on, or miss the chance to show the title at all in the biggest preview event of the gaming year.
Some games at E3 weren't completely off-limits to non-VIPs, but still took some work to see. The interactive version of Peter Jackson's "King Kong" could only be seen — and not even played — in special theaters (out of which stretched lines of anxious attendees). The longest line on the show's first day was for Nintendo's "The Legend of Zelda: The Twilight Princess," where the wait to play the game exceeded two hours.
That games such as "Spore," "Black" and "Zelda" — all hidden to varying degrees in their chambers of secrets — are in the running for Best in Show is no great surprise. During two of the last three years, the official top E3 critics' prize went to "Doom III" and "Half-Life 2," both of which could only be seen in special theaters.
But how secret can a game at E3 really be? Consider "Metal Gear Solid 4," a game that was at E3 without really being there at all. Announced on Monday as a title for next year's PlayStation 3, "MGS4" was only shown at E3 in trailer form, first at a pre-E3 event staged by publisher Konami, and then on a big screen near Konami's booth during the show. The catch was that the demo wasn't even made on the PS3 — impressive as it was, it was designed on the PS2. Still, Konami treated the game as one of E3's most precious treasures. When we tried to procure a tape of the demo for broadcast, a Konami rep instructed us to follow him closely as he darted in and out of various rooms. At the sharp turn of a hall corner, he spun and shoved the tape at our chest, covered it with a folder and walked away wordlessly.
"Everyone was asking me for a copy of that tape," he said. "I couldn't let them see that I gave it to you." That's an E3 secret game for you.
Check out Gideon Yago's video reports from the heart of this year's E3 on Overdrive, MTV's new broadband video channel.
— Stephen Totilo
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