Gabriel briefly discussed the Buddy System on Monday, and the rules for this system are uncomplicated. There are but three tenets:

I just got off the phone with Matt, producer for the title, and he told me some pretty dope shit. I was thinking about how the readers of this site allow us to lead a truly ridiculous life, and so I thought, hey, maybe they will want to know this stuff.

I just wanted to comment quickly on some of the other titles I saw at the show that really impressed me.

Let me tell you of the wonders I beheld at this year's Electronic Entertainment Expo.

A lot of people have asked so I will just say that yes I saw the Matrix this weekend and I thought it was awesome. I know the popular opinion among dorks is that it wasn’t very good. Maybe I’m not a very good dork because I loved every bit of it.

I actually got to sit down and talk with the new President of SNK Ben Herman and their V.P. of Sales and Marketing Eric Feiner. I had a lot of questions for them as an SNK fan and they answered all the ones they could. A lot of what they told me ended up being stuff that I can’t talk about on the site just yet. There are a few nuggets thought hat I think I can share.

The games

No Bluetooth on planes, at least not today. Hm.

I hadn't heard this until just now, but apparently Triton Labs - i.e., the Afterburner guys - are cooking up a wireless solution for the GameBoy Advance. Hot damn, that boy is crafty.

Gabe will be in a better position to tell you about the Sonic games on the floor than I would, as Sonic has been his thing from way back. Altered Beast was just a video that didn't really elucidate anything. Billy Hatcher was inexplicable. Otogi continues to hone Sega's edge on visually striking action games.

The thing about E3 booths is that they often shaped in a very strange fashion, so that approaching them from this or that angle will sometimes reveal games you missed, even though you were quite certain that you saw all the stuff. The density of the stimuli compounds this effect. In any case, I saw a game called Culdcept in the Capcom booth long after I'd considered it "done" that really aroused my curiosity.

This may be a long post.

I've figured some things out about this.

Two new maps, two new mechs, Capture The Flag gameplay mode, and assorted improvements including a "Rematch" button are all available for download.

Gabe's baseline impressions of E3 - Best, Most Surprising, Most Disappointing - are now available. This will be followed on Wednesday by my own answers to the same questions, with only one overlapping title.