Electronic Entertainment Expo - E3 2009

The Game Critics Best of E3 Awards Nominees were named today, an EA was the publisher with the most games nominated!  (18 nominations total!) Stay tuned, winners will be announced Tuesday June 23.

In the meantime take a closer look at EA's nominees for the Best of E3!

For those of you who pre-ordered Brutal Legend from Gamestop/EB Games, you have the chance to win a customized Brutal Legend guitar. The neck of the guitar touts Tenacious D and the body sports some nice custom design work. The pictures show an unfinished version of the guitar, but Tim Schafer says the final guitar will be a full finished working guitar.

Please come by the EA booth (South Hall #1501) to check out EA’s E3 Live stage show presentations with special guests, interviews and game presentations from the EA line up all hosted by Mythic Creative Director, Paul Barnett.

Tuesday, June 2:

12:30 PM
Brutal Legend – Be sure to catch Double Fine’s own Tim Schafer and the brand new trailer from Brutal Legend, as well as an entirely new Brutal Thought with Jack Black entitled “Human Video Game”. Also, Tim will reveal exclusive photo’s of the Tenacious D inspired Brutal Legend guitar, which one lucky person will have the chance to win at http://e3.brutallegend.com

2:00 PM
Tetris® Turns 25!—Video game industry legends Henk Rogers and Alexey Pajitnov celebrate Tetris’ 25th anniversary at E3! IGN’s Levi Buchanan interviews the two men behind Tetris as they reveal what it took to create and publish the world’s most popular casual computer game. Join the celebration as Rogers and Pajitnov sign autographs, award prizes, and premiere their documentary, “The Tetris Effect.”

3:00 PM
Star Wars: The Old Republic – come by and witness the world Premier cinematic trailer from BioWare and LucasArts, “Deceived,” which showcases events around the destruction of the Jedi Temple. It was the crowning achievement of the Sith Empire’s ambitious military strategy and the moment that changed the history of the Old Republic forever. You may have read about it before, but our first cinematic trailer captures this event with breathtaking action and beautiful detail.

4:00 PM
Spore Galactic Adventures- Find out what planetary rest stops, pig weddings, and banana monkey wars all have in common during a stage demo of Robot Chicken missions in the upcoming expansion pack, Spore Galactic Adventures! Writers of the Emmy-winning stop-motion animation pop culture parody series, Robot Chicken, will be discussing their involvement in the creation of these outrageously funny missions, which will be available as free downloadable content when the game launches on June 23. Expect hilarity to ensue!

5:00 PM
All Points Bulletin – Conflict, customization and celebrity, the three C’s that define All Points Bulletin, the latest game from Realtime Worlds. Join Realtime Worlds own Dave Jones as he walks you through the mean streets of San Paro and introduces you to the Criminals and Enforcers that make up this modern, crime-ridden city.

-On Stage: Tom French-The Saboteur, have your way with Paris!

-On Stage: John Riccitiello- EA Partners

-On Stage: Tim Schafer, President of Double Fine Studios, Brutal Legend

-Lita Ford, Ozzy Osbourne and Jack Black in game.

-Brutal Thoughts by Jack Black video

-On Stage: Cevat Yerli- Announcing Crysis 2! Will be simultaneously available on PS3, PC and Xbox 360.

-New partners for EA: Realtime World

-On Stage: Dave Jones- Game announced: APB (All Points Bulletin)

-On Stage: 20 STAR WARS stormtroopers and light sabres, Daryl Rodrigues (LucasArts) and Ray Muzka (BioWare)

-Star Wars: The Old Republic.  The first fully-voiced MMORPG.  May be the biggest voiceover project in history for videogames or any entertainment.

-First Star Wars cinematic trailer plays.

-Farewell from John Riccitiello.  Stay tuned for more at the show!!!

Brent Dady, Marketing Product Manager for Brütal Legend, is gearing up to head to E3 and showcase this highly anticipated heavy metal epic. Brent took a few minutes to answer some questions about a game he is clearly very psyched to be working on.

Q: What’s the basic premise of the game?
A: Brütal Legend is very much a JRPG with deep emotional themes like unrequited love between emo spiky-haired teenagers. Actually, it’s the exact opposite of that--the game follows a heavy metal roadie, Eddie Riggs, who gets sucked back in time to an ancient land of heavy metal. When he wakes up in this over-the-top universe (Six-legged mastodons? Check. Mountains made out of amplifiers? Check.) he finds that he has to use his skills as a roadie--organizing headbangers, fixing stuff, facilitating the majestic power of rock--to free a subjugated race of humans from an evil demon overlord.

Q: What’s Jack Black’s involvement in the game?
A: Jack plays Eddie Riggs the Roadie. He’s contributed his voice and has been involved with Tim Schafer and the geniuses at Double Fine Productions since pretty much the beginning of the project, so his persona really comes out extremely well in the pixels.

Q: What’s the Deuce?
A: So the axiom at Double Fine has been if it’s cool for a heavy metal album cover then it’s cool for the game. The Deuce is Eddie’s chromed-out hot rod; metal music and roadsters have been intertwined since the beginning and this is the whip a metal God would crash onto a stage as his intro act before performing at a concert.

Q: Who are some of the Gods of Rock we can expect to see in the game?
A: We’re announcing a few of the rock Gods with our E3 trailer--check out e3.brutallegend.com for breaking coverage. (Yes, I work in marketing.)

Q: What’s your favorite thing in the game?
A: It’s an extremely ambitious game, so there’s a lot of awesome gameplay hooks, hilarity, and a huge variety of badass characters, but I think Eddie is a totally rad, sympathetic protagonist that I want to see win.

Q: What’s it like working with Tim Shafer (the man behind Grim Fandango, Monkey Island, etc.)?
A: Tim Schafer is the man--humble, super funny, and another guy I’d like to see win.

Q: What’s been the coolest thing for you in working on the game so far?
A: Learning how to properly use the term “nutshit,” which Eddie employs in the first hour or so of the game when he’s assembling his first small strike force of headbangers.

Check out more from brutal Legend at E3!  http://e3.brutallegend.com/

With E3 2009 less than a week away, Brütal Legend is preparing to take its Heavy Metal road show online, unleashing upon the masses http://www.brutallegend.com.

Featuring an exclusive live chat with Double Fine's own Tim Schafer via Twitter, the world premiere of a brand new Brütal Legend trailer, and a new installment of "Brütal Thoughts with Jack Black", entitled "Human Video Game". And if that wasn't enough to get your fists in the air, one lucky person will win a real guitar, six strings and all, inspired by none other than Tenacious D!

For your chance to chat exclusively with Tim Schafer immediately following the first day of E3, logon to Twitter at 6pm PST on Tuesday, June 2^nd and send your questions about Brütal Legend to @BrutalLegend using the following Twitter hashtag - #E3BL. Then from 7pm to 8pm, Tim Schafer will join us live to answer all your questions about Brütal Legend. Don't have a Twitter account but got a question for Tim? We’ve got you covered, just head over to the site and submit your question. The full interview will unfold exclusively on the @BrutalLegend Twitter feed as well as on the site.

Sign up for your chance to win the exclusive Brütal Legend/Tenacious D guitar, with the lucky winner selected randomly on July 10^th, 2009. For complete rules please visit http://www.brutallegend.com/rules/