BlueAlien.org

Here we go. I hit the deck running and spun the guns around at 5:30 this morning and haven't slowed down since. Please read more to vindicate my lack of sleep.

We had meetings with Bethesda software and BioWare/Pandemic Studios today. I managed to get into Nintendo's demo pavilion and play some Wii demos and a sample of Red Steel before running to swap out cameras and demo Mythic's upcoming Warhammer Online MMORPG.

We interviewed Pandemic/Bioware about their upcoming game Mass Effect, an XBox 360 exclusive.

We also spoke to them about Jade Empire for the PC, formerly an Xbox exclusive. There are a few changes made in the port, check out our article for more details and screenshots.

We spoke to Bethesda about three of their upcoming games - a Pirates of the Caribbean franchise game and two Star Trek games -Star Trek: Legacy for PC and 360 and Star Trek: Tactical Assault for PSP and DS. When asked if they had anyone prepared to comment on Fallout 3 we were informed that there were no prepared comments or material at this time. They did however have a poster of album

I spent some time with Relic talking about their upcoming MMORPG Warhammer Onlne: Age of Reckoning. Of all of the "press only" booths I have to say that the Mythic booth was most impressive as it was set up like a fantasy tavern from the Warhammer universe.

A visit to Sega netted me a few minutes with the upcoming Medieval: Total War II, the latest installment in the Total War franchise. I spoke to one of the designers for the turn based or campaign part of the game and learned a bit about some of the new feature. The papacy will be a full on power and rulers will be expected to maintain good relations with the church and to help stamp out heretics and witches. A new economic system has been implemented with merchants as a special character. Diplomacy has been changed to allow for more varied responses leaving us with a much more robust diplomacy engine than in other Total War games. There are also two kinds of provinces now - cities and territories. Each of the two will provide different resources and allow for the recruitment of different kinds of units. Recruiting times will also be sped up a bit allowing you to build two units a turn instead of one. I didn't spend any time with the battle sequences but the engine looks shinier than ever before. The release date is November 2007, we hope to have a review of Medieval: Total War II for you by then.

I got some play time with Wii. It wasn't easy - I got in two hours before the general admissions but the line was still at least an hour.

I spoke to Namco about the upcoming Warhammer: Mark of Chaos an RTS based in the Warhammer Fantasy Battles Universe Visually the game looks very impressive. Mechanically the game is a welcome respite from click and twich resource gathering RT"S"s instead focusing on the actual direction of units in a real time manner. The release date isn't until the end of this year.