After registering for E3, they send you your press pass in the mail, and I can't tell you how many times I checked my bag to make sure it was still there as I traveled from New York City to Los Angeles. See, once you actually get to the convention center, you just show them a photo ID and they give you the little plastic holder on a strap you slide your press pass into. This, you must wear everyplace, because security is tighter than on the Death Star.

I landed in LA early Monday evening and camped out in the hotel room until Fruit Brute finished with his day's work of press conferences and meetings so we could both grab a badly-needed bite to eat. See, even though E3 was technically scheduled from Tuesday to Thursday, a lot of companies — Microsoft included — actually held their press conferences on Monday. Rude! By the end of the day, Pixel Poet and Tiny Dancer had arrived, and we put our heads together to formulate a plan of attack that basically came down to making sure everyone knew what meetings they were assigned to attend.

Luckily, the first thing I had to do on Tuesday morning was the Nintendo Press Conference, and I had E3 veteran Fruit Brute at my side. Well, technically, the first thing I had to do was go to the Los Angeles Convention center and pick up my press badge holder. The first signs of E3 were the giant posters adorning the building and some of the ones around it. Seeing the Ecto-1 parked outside promoting the Ghostbusters game was pretty cool, too. Inside, I saw plenty of check-in booths, but Fruit Brute directed me to the correct one, which was actually in the press room that was set up. We all got our badge holders and then staked out a few desks. The press room has free WiFi, but that can get sketchy, so the desks with Ethernet cables are your best bet. Because basically any free time you have between appointments, you should be posting all the breaking news to the site. So maybe "free time" isn't exactly the right turn of phrase...

Nintendo's press conference was actually at the nearby NOKIA Theater, which was thankfully within walking distance. Even if we did have to go out a back door and navigate some behind the scenes trailers and cables and whatnot to get there. As we checked in and got our color-coded wristbands, it was kind of fun to watch people be pulled out of line and directed elsewhere as we were allowed all the way in. Made me feel special. Taking a seat, I got my pad and pen ready to take furious notes during the conference, but as soon as the lights went down, I regretted not using my laptop instead, because it got wicked dark. I already covered the press conference, but I did think it was funny that after chatting a bit beforehand, the guy sitting next to us asked where we were from, and after we told him, he replied that he was from Family Friendly Gaming. Awkward! Seriously, though, nice guy. Not awkward at all.

Following Nintendo's announcements, I was sent back to the press room to post some of the awesome trailers they premiered and write up a recap of what they showed off while Fruit Brute hooked up with Tiny Dancer to head over to Sony's event. Oh, neat side note: Nintendo handed out cards with links to their press materials that were printed on seeded paper. I can't wait to plant mine and see if Pikmin grow! I did have a little trouble getting back into the convention center because I retraced my steps and discovered that while the back doors make a great exit, they're not so much an entrance. Luckily, someone else was coming out at the same time, so I was able to slip back in. I furiously posted my articles before scurrying to an upstairs meeting room with Pixel Poet for our meeting with Take 2. This was also when I was able to grab my first refreshment, grabbing a bottle of water from their snack area both before and after one of the briefings. After this, I had a wee bit of time to check out the cafeteria, but I have a moral objection to paying nearly $10 for a turkey sandwich, so I decided to just head straight into the South Hall instead. Besides, who can eat when videogames are calling?

E3 is so big that it's split up between two separate enormous halls, West and South. My next appointment was in the South Hall, so I headed inside, trying not to be distracted by the giant banners advertising the new Final Fantasy and Mass Effect games, or the Rock Band stage Pepsi had set up. I managed to squeeze in a little lap around just so I could finally check out the booths. It was insane. Obviously, the bigger publishers dominate, with EA's in particular being a massive ode to sound and fury. Nintendo's might have been bigger, but it was at least a little more pleasant and inviting. But the entire hall is just a massive cavern of videogame entertainment. After a little more writing in the makeshift South Hall press area, I headed for my next appointment, which again was thankfully with another writer at my side, and again thankfully provided snacks to keep my blood sugar up!

Since my next appointment after that was in the West Hall, it seemed the perfect opportunity to check out what was hiding in there as well. It was just as spectacular, although Sony basically had no competition for biggest, craziest booth. They also regularly had lines around the booth to play their games. Also, despite what I'd heard, I found that it never really got that stuffy or smelly. At least not on the show floor. In closer quarters, yeah, there were times when others got a little ripe and had me wondering when a game developer would give away travel-sized deodorants as swag. After my last appointment of the day, I barely had time to write one last article for the site before they closed down the press room and we were sent back to the hotel to regroup, grab dinner and head out to the Bethesda Party. It was my first time in California, so as you can imagine, I was a total tourist as we rode in the cab to Hollywood, noting famous landmarks like the Capitol Records building. The party was a blast with open bar, great wings, karaoke and a mechanical bull, all of which I availed myself of, although not necessarily in that order.

Of course, you couldn't party too hard, because Wednesday was actually more jam-packed than Tuesday! At my very first meeting with SEGA, I looked out of the windows in their meeting room at the show floor, and wondered why I was looking down at booths I hadn't noticed while I was making my lap the day before. Somehow I'd missed an entire back corner! Meetings can be intimidating, because it's either just a small group or even just you alone with the developer or PR person. Sometimes you get to see them demo the game for you, and sometimes you get to actually play it yourself. But being on the show floor is just complete sensory overload. There are games everywhere vying for your attention (sometimes with the help of scantily-clad and vaguely embarrassed-looking booth babes), and there's simply no way to see everything. There were a few games I was determined to get my hands on, but while there were some I happened to stumble across, I've no doubt there were a great many I might have enjoyed... had I actually known they were even there!

I finally had my first celebrity sighting when Jigsaw from the Saw movies appeared at the Konami press conference to talk up the new Saw game. Although to be honest, I feel like Hideo Kojima was the bigger celebrity in my eyes. Needless to say, I was more than disappointed when Tiny Dancer revealed he'd encountered the awesome Eliza Dushku. Oh, and as if that wasn't bad enough, everyone else seemed to be getting way better swag than I was. I guess I wasn't trying hard enough. Visiting the Square-Enix booth, I did find it odd that the crowd seemed more interested in watching the FFXIII trailer projected on the IMAX-sized screen on a loop than the demo stations for the actual games nearing release. Oh well, that just means no lines to wait in! In the evening, there were a bunch of competing parties again, and the one we attended was very LA. Was it a bar or was it a restaurant? At any rate, it had a pool on the patio outside, and I felt bad for the poor bikini models forced to play in the water despite the overcast skies and occasional rain. Although I suppose I felt worse for the clueless guy who didn't quite get our comment that the bikini girls weren't our type until we told him what Website we worked for. Hee!

You'd think that cocktail party noshes wouldn't be enough to sustain a grown man, but I discovered at E3 that adrenaline and videogames are a potent combination that can keep you going with only the bare minimum of actual food. Well, Pinkberry helps, too. Seriously, I never even really felt hungry. It was weird. I think my stomach shrank from the awesomeness of the whole experience. Wednesday night, we wrote up a storm, and then Thursday I only had one appointment before I had to leave for the airport and my flight home. Luckily, it was Sony and I got to play Heavy Rain. Then I toured the floor again, snapping photos and checking out whatever last bits I could before rushing back to the press room to pound out another story before I had to say good-bye. I really hated to leave, and I wished my flight was later. I know I saw tons of awesome games, and even got to play some of them, but there was so much I didn't get to see. E3 really is like one giant candy store of videogames, and I was the lucky little kid set loose inside. At least now I know what to expect next year if I get to go again, and hopefully I've been able to share a part of this amazing experience with all of you. I'd love to share a complete play-by-play of every moment, but first of all, the whole thing is such a blur I'm not sure I could remember every moment, and secondly, this article is long enough already!