From Kanto to Hyrule, Mobius to Santa Destroy, Planet Reach to Little Big Planet, Cinema Student, Screenwriter, and all around gamer, Eric Parra is a bad enough dude to bring you your weekly fix on relative gaming. Whether it’s reviews, previews, or FAQ’s, matters that are professional or just personal, make sure you check Neon Tommy every week for all sorts of interesting tidbits in the world of video games. And remember, it’s dangerous to go alone.

E3 being held at the Los Angeles Convention Center

As a quick form of reference, the Electronic Entertainment Expo is an annual fair for game news of all sorts. Game companies come and present whatever they think will please the crowds, usually new games or console announcements, and the press eats it up so that fans can get all the news as quickly as possible.  The convention is being held in the Los Angeles Convention Center from June 5th through June 7th.

The main show floor holds all of the booths, demos, models, and swag. Each major company puts up what they can and tries to get the most attention for their biggest announcements. The ways of going about such a task have varied from publisher to publisher, usually in epic proportions. Booth babes were once a popular crowd pleaser, dressing up models as game characters to provide more awareness, but were eventually prevented along with public entrance to the expo due to the unruly nature of many fans, and then brought back at personal discretions through invites. Complimentary game related items and gift bags have also been given out, plus many level inspired show rooms were created to play demos and watch secret footage in, such as the Zelda “Twilight Princess” inspired forest back in 2005.

Then there are the main conferences, where each big company shows everything they have to offer in one big swoop. Although several big name publishers that get their own spotlight for a while (Konami, EA, Ubisoft) the big three are those that have the consoles: Old and true Nintendo with their radical ideas that somehow always work regardless of how senile you think they’ve become while they still manage to make you smile with a good classic tale, veteran Sony that thinks on its feet with something new but still safe, only willing to take chances on an idea that’s surefire anyways while ready to pull back when the world proves it’s not yet ready, and Microsoft, the original newcomer that wants to match its predecessors while also making a name for itself, which it pretty much has  by now, ignoring their attempts at copying Nintendo’s innovations and taking Sony’s exclusive games, which really worked out better than their past E3 demonstrations would have you believe. 

So what does all of this mean to the average gamer?

First up are the new games. Big titles that have been in development for a while have gotten and will continue to get some new trailers, some of which have already gone live, like the “Tomb Raider” reboot (which I’m particularly excited for), “Kingdom Hearts 3D,” “Metal Gear: Revengence,” “Hitman: Absolution,” and plenty more. There should also definitely be expectations for new info on “Deadspace 3,” “Far Cry 3,” “Assassin’s Creed 3,” “Halo 4,” “Resident Evil 6,” and probably even Naughty Dog’s “The Last of Us,” all with trailers or at least something new to go off of. Aside from more “Tomb Raider” announcements, I’m still hopefully expecting something big about “Bioshock Infinite,” but only time will tell.

A bingo card so you can play along at home, from the mind of ArchangelUK of Sonic Wrecks

Then there’s the consoles. Sony has allegedly been going on about a Playstation 4 in the works for a while and there’s speculation that the rumors will be put to rest this week. Will Sony outshine the inevitable groundbreaking news on Nintendo’s Wii U? Will Microsoft bring anything to the table? Will Valve possibly (though unlikely) wow everyone with a crazy console announcement? Again, hopefully these questions will all be answered.

And of course, there’s always a bunch of little games either new coming, newly translated, or just plain new, that are known as the hidden gems of E3.  Along which will be terrible games that get ignored by most or made of fun by others, great games that you’ll probably miss or not care about at a first glance, and live presentations to demonstrate whatever’s going up and out, be it casual gamers trying to show off that they’re as worthy as any hardcore level 99 expert mode master by using a new “Kinect” game, or hardcore gamers trying to grab the attention of the mainstream audience with their integrated level designs and core mechanics that won’t alienate anyone unless they’re not ready for 60+ hours of gameplay. 

So stay tuned for any developments, and I’ll be back with whatever news I can gather from the outskirts of the convention site (I wasn’t invited in).