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Tekken creator and former director Katsuhiro Harada shared a post reminiscing about E3. This includes his PC Gaming nerd out experience.

Link - (twitter)Harada_TEKKEN/status/2052456067292913890

> I think it was around the third or fourth year after the show that used to be called CES became known as E3. > > Back then, someone from the event staff asked me something like, “Some American celebrities are here ! do you want to meet them?” But I was just a hardcore game developer and self-built PC nerd who had absolutely no understanding of the value of meeting celebrities. So instead of paying attention to famous people visiting our booth, I only remember running straight to the Half-Life booth and the pre-release Baldur’s Gate booth. > (Actually… I still wonder what celebrities were even there.) > > At that E3, NVIDIA’s RIVA TNT graphics card was an absolutely massive topic of discussion ..at least among people like me ,,and I remember standing there staring at the demo endlessly. > I think my body temperature was probably three degrees higher than normal at the time. > > And younger people today may not know this, but back then there was a video card called the Voodoo2 that every PC gamer in the world knew about. I was completely obsessed with the idea of buying a second Voodoo2 card at a Fry’s Electronics store in the US. > I needed that second card. The meaning was a bit different from what people today think of as SLI, though. > but at the time almost every PC gamer belonged to the “Church of Voodoo.” > Eventually I converted to NVIDIA later on, though. > > Honestly, my head was so full of “I need to get to Fry’s” that I barely even remember the reaction to our own game titles. In those days, unlike now, our schedules weren’t packed from morning to night with interviews. > > Every year back then, I’d run around to other companies’ booths, play demos, stare closely at the technology, and then head to Fry’s the next day. I remember once going there to buy a Santa Cruz sound card, and seeing an employee casually put what appeared to be a returned product right back onto the shelf. I was genuinely shocked by how different that was from Japanese retail culture. > > Also, in the 1990s, arcades still barely survived in the United States, and there was still a real arcade versus culture there, so I used to go watch it. This was something I did from the very beginning. What always surprised me was that, unlike Japan, players in American arcades often played sitting directly side-by-side on linked cabinets. I would always think, “These guys are sitting this close to each other… how are they not constantly getting into fights?” > > In Japan, the players usually sit facing each other with two arcade cabinets physically separating them, so if someone gets angry, the most they can really do is throw an ashtray or kick the cabinet to indirectly express their frustration. > > I also used to visit stores and tournament organizers who were running major events, bringing posters, small printed character CG posters, and Japanese prize goods, telling them, “Please use these as tournament prizes.” It was a very grassroots kind of support activity. > > And speaking of memories from those days …I remember seeing Masaya Nakamura, the founder of Namco and the company president at the time, bringing Japanese instant udon with him on business trips to Los Angeles. After seeing that, I started copying him and did the same thing for years. > > I guess those are the kinds of memories I have from that era. > AH!! I just realized something ….apparently even at this age, I’m still the same hopeless game nerd at heart. > The moment someone asks me even a small question, I immediately start rambling on forever about tiny details nobody even asked for. >

Getting out of this first - Marvel's Midnight Suns is a great superhero game, it should be counted among greats like Batman Arkham, Spider-Man 2018, Guardian Of The Galaxy. However, this game is less for Marvel fans, but rather more for RPG sickos, specifically those who love Persona and Fire Emblem Three Houses.

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Background - My experience with Marvel are the 90s/early 00s animated shows, some comics from that time period, video games. I had to watch handful of live action ones, but I've forgotten most of them.

I went into Marvel Midnight Suns thinking it's just XCom + Marvel Ensemble. And the first impressions are not great. Dialogue is needlessly cringe and off-putting like many modern mainstream media can get. But after getting the first taste of combat, progression and hub exploration, I was HOOKED.

• Combat is turn based Open field battling, utilizing positioning and environmental hazards, with deterministic outcomes (how much damage you'll do for given attack, which enemies will attack which heroes etc). Similar to Into The Breach . Your hero abilities are represented as cards, having creative ways to dish damage or give defensive options. Because game is so deterministic and only randomness are card pulls, a lot of cognitive burden gets offloaded and only fun remains. As someone who was overwhelmed by XCOM 1/2, this was easy to get into and immediately have fun.

• Progression + Hub exploration : All heroes rest, improve their cards and stats, and bond over at the Abby. Moreover, exploring Abby ground for resources + requires Zelda style abilities to unlock new areas.
  IT'S ADDICTIVE.
  Improving cards brings new combat tactics (and every improve bring further separate improvements to team combat), research enables different features. Exploration leads to collectables, recipe books for new combat items (bonus buffs during combat), and all of it combined by a narrative throughline. There is LOT of text in this game, most of it fluff, though adding to Marvel lore.

• Character interactions - there is where the game surprised. It's actually good. Not only do all heroes open up in meaningful ways, sharing insecurities and fears they carry with their powers, there's also themes touched here - like motherhood, leadership, student mentor relationship etc. There's also the tussle between the popular Avengers and underdogs Midnight Suns group, very real clash of egos. DLC characters are somehow even better and integrated nicely with the base game.
  Player character has some JRPG-like main character phenomenon, because every hero gels up to your really fast, and trust you immediately. I just thought it was funny.

• LOT of details - In-game social media (one of the best implementation of the idea I've seen), dynamic music (changes based on if you're in forge, war room on somewhere else), characters commenting after big story moments, spooky "Arkham Asylum" vibes from Abby etc.

BUT

BUT

What holds this back (and shows this was clearly a first attempt at a much better game)

• Bad kind of Grinding + Repetitiveness - Despite praising the progression, the path to progression is painful. You need to do lot of non-story missions to earn resources, you need to keep exploring Abby for herbs, secrets, chest rewards to be able to keep up. It was because the upgrades were so enticing and the combat so fun, I kept up with it.

• While lore, character interactions and backstory were great, main plot felt weak. I can't say if it's emblematic general comic superhero stories told these days or what.

This game was clearly first attempt at, where the second attempt would turn into a modern classic. Which is never happening since this game underperformed and lead director left the studio.

I highly urge you all to check it out. First few hours don't make the best impression, but once you get ropes of the combat and progression, you'll be hooked.