Tiny Diggers – An iPad Construction Truck Game for Kids Age 2-5

So when is a press event not a press event.  Well, apparently when Activision throws it.  I had no idea what I was actually in store for at the Activision event, as it was my first trip to an Activision party/press event at E3.  I assumed it would be similar to what the other companies do, showing off games, some dry humor and who knows, a media kit at the end of the day.  Activision seemed to think that throwing a ton of stars at you via a free concert, while occasionally showing you some gameplay footage was the better way to go about it.  Don’t get me wrong, I enjoyed the hell out of the concert, but it just lacked a lot of information on the games.  See more after the jump, including an assload of photos.

Well for starters we got a long ass wait.  The event was scheduled to start at 9PM, with a 7PM check-in and 8:30PM warm-up with DJ Z-Trip.  That said, we did not actually get into the event until almost 10PM.  That said, I got a ton of free soft pretzels, Sour Patch Kids and Coca Cola.  These guys really need to learn to start things on time.  I saw them testing some of the event earlier in the day through a windows of the Staples Center.  You would think it was all good at that point, but nope, they were still having difficulties with certain parts of the show.

After DJ Z-Trip was done filling our ears with explicit rap music (man, Rapmaster Scott still kicks ass – The Roof is on Fire, We Don’t Need no Water Let that muthafucka burn…..), we had our first performer of the night in Lady Gaga.  Gaga came out and did one of her less that wholesome hits, Just Dance or something to that effect.  I am not a huge fan of hers, but she did put on a good performance, and she was photogenic to my camea.

Other notable acts for the evening were Chris Cornell singing Black Hole Sun, Jane’s Addiction doing Been Caught Stealing and Mountain, Dave Guetta mixing up albums as he only can do, and some Usher.  It was an amazing thing to see and really was an exciting experience.  However, I did notice one thing that was lacking, and that was a complete lack of game footage.  Sure there was some DJ Hero 2 stuff at the beginning, but it seemed that we only got game footage at small bits.  Activision seemed to be tripping over its mega-star listing to actually get to some games.

We did see the new Tony Hawk game, and Tony and his crew were suppose to do some as neat tricks in the Staples Center, but apparently the track they had was not functioning corrrectly and instead of something cool, we have something that was completely average at best.  It also did not help that they showed the board that is full of technology with a new red sskin.

We also had some True Crime which looked good as well as some Guitar Hero: Legends of Rock.  The demo for Guitar Hero was pretty awesome with all the GH characers performing Bohemian Rhapsody.  It looked good, but never really caught me.

What is funny is that Activision was one of the characters that complained about E3 being too big a few years ago, and today they release this spectacle upon the world.  It was expensive with free food and drinks on the house for the night.  Needless to say that the delay almost assuredly ended up with a surprising amount of drunk people. Also, I enjoyed the hell out of myself, but the whole event seemed to miss the point.  It was like, “here is all this star power, enjoy and do not look behind the curtain, aka lack of games.  As a concert, it was easily an A+.  As an informative presentation, I would go with a D+.