Tipping Goat Goes To E3 2016 part 1
Two years ago when this all began, I went to E3. Now that Tipping Goat LLC is a real game company, I had the industry credentials to go to E3 again.
Monday
First stop was badge pickup. It really is a cool feeling to answer the question “What company?” with “Tipping Goat!”
There wasn’t much to do since the hall wasn’t open on Monday so I wandered around to see what was around.
There was a giant Doritos themed arcade machine, and a giant robot guarding Microsoft:
I grabbed some lunch, met up with the guys behind Armed and Gelatinous (Three Flip Studios) and tried to get people to watch our trailers on a tablet the Three Flip guys brought. Then it was time to head back to my friend’s place and rest up for the big show.
Tuesday
Time for the show! After some delicious pancakes for breakfast with Three Flip, we hurried to the convention center. They had never been to E3 before!
The place was packed, so we wandered towards some less busy stuff in the back. All the quirky booths at E3 used to be down in Kentia hall but I think that’s a parking lot now. I managed to find some of the good stuff though!
8bitdo, makers of fine retro styled Bluetooth controllers, was showing off something that could change your life. Instead of adapters that let you play retro controllers on modern devices with USB, this adapter let’s you play NES with a wireless PS4 controller. A little further back you can see the Wii U Pro controller connected wirelessly to a SNES. They had several different types of these adapters for different controllers and retro systems. Very cool! Also this was going on:
I got to look at a few more booths, including Mayflash, makers of my favorite Gamecube to USB adapters. But before I knew it, it was time for my interview with NVIDIA about the NVIDIA Shield release of Super Slam Dunk Touchdown.
After the interview I dashed back to the West hall to check out the Xbox booth. One cool thing they were showing was a ton of custom color options you have with the Xbox Design Lab. This is seriously rad. Along with Bluetooth support, and textured grips, the new Xbox One controllers can be designed in any color combination you like! The greatest controller on earth just got better.
The new Xbox One S looks very slick, and with 4k video options and a much smaller footprint, I have to say this is a good move for Microsoft. Scorpio sounds great as well — I am very much in favor of consoles going forwards-compatible like PC and Android games, but we’ll see if that’s the long term plan.
I checked out Forza, which was a lot more fun than I was expecting due to the rewind mechanic. I’m not a huge racing fan, but being able to get a do-over is always nice, and the game was beautiful and fun to drive. Another game I got to check out was Everspace, which looked like a space combat sim combined with FTL, though I didn’t get to play enough to really get the objective, it was fun and peaked my interest. The controls were a bit strange, emphasizing strafing and forgoing momentum for “space friction” but it worked well in the small crowded areas of asteroids and bases the game was showing off.
And I can’t neglect to mention Worms: W.M.D. I absolutely adore worms. It is one of the finest local multiplayer games ever made, and the new version is everything you loved about the Worms franchise with better graphics, loads of new crazy weapons, vehicles and more!
Also a huge thanks to the guy working the Team 17 booth, he held my bag that I forgot while I ran around like crazy trying to retrace my steps.
That night we headed over to Button Mash, a bar-cade with a surprising hip “Pwn Shop” and an amazing food and beer menu.