Anthony Perez

The Electronic Entertainment Exposition, better known as E3, kicked off last week in Los Angeles. Every year, game journalists and game retailers flock to the Los Angeles Convention Center to see the latest games and hardware coming out in the next couple of years. Some of the hardware is never made or bombs, while some of the software is cancelled or fails to meet expectations, but each year, without fail, industry insiders oogle at all the goodies of the event. Some products make quite the impression, while others leave a sour taste in attendees mouths.

There are quite a few outstanding games each year, and this year was certainly no different. Nintendo showed off a ton of new games including a new "Mature" themed Legend of Zelda and a new Zelda for the Game Boy Advance. Metroid Prime 2 was also on hand. Sony showed off Killzone and Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater, which blew away everyone at the event. Microsoft continued to improve its software by presenting Doom III, an incredible Halo 2 demonstration, and a couple RPGs that are sure to help the dry genre on the console. PC gamers were treated alot of good games as well, including the amazing Half-Life 2 demonstration.

An emphasis on hardware was evident across the board as nearly every company showed off some new hardware. Both Nintendo and Sony unveiled their relatively secret handhelds, the DS and PSP respectively, and both displayed some impressive graphical capabilities. The PC had a few new hardware improvements as well. Sapphire announced a new line of ATI graphics cards, while Alienware debuted a new dual CPU, dual graphics card motherboard called the X2. The Phantom was finally unveiled and it is actually quite impressive, especially amongst all of its detractors over the last couple of years.

Inside Gamer Online was on hand for it all, and we're here to take you deep into E3 2004.