Soon we found a mostly empty walkway, and made our way out of the hall, passing through the Nokia N-Gage booth, which was long on style and short on substance—just like the N-Gage itself. In the convention's main entry hall, we saw a sign advertising a video-game history exhibit in the smaller Kentia area. Kentia is the decidedly low-rent hall at the L.A. Convention Center, and it usually has lots of those games you'll find in kiosks in the mall, or in questionable downtown areas where you can get a Social Security card with your copy of Grand Theeft Autoo and all those still-in-the-theater movies that the local video store never seems to have. But I'm a sucker for classic games, and I thought I might get some material for a future Games Of Our Lives column, so we made another detour.
"Maybe my story is going to be about how I kept trying to get to Guitar Hero II, but never found it because this E3 actually had a lot of cool stuff worth seeing," I said, as we passed a booth selling a full-body sensor suit for fighting games. (Yeah, about 10 years too late, guys.)
Before I could write down this hilarious observation in my notebook, we turned a corner and ran right into the RedOctane booth. Four televisions, eight guitars, and a small crowd stood beneath a mockup that looked remarkably like a concert stage. I could hear Kiss' "Strutter" being played with varying degrees of proficiency as Gen-Xers rocked out in the highly anticipated co-op mode.
"Hey, isn't that Guit—" Spencer asked.
"Muh… guh… huh…" I answered, walking on autopilot to the front of the booth.
"Hi, I'm Wil Wheaton," I said, "and I love your game." Probably not the most professional way to introduce myself, in retrospect. "I'm writing about Guitar Hero II for The A.V. Club."
"We love The A.V. Club!" replied a young man, whom I later learned was Corey Fong, RedOctane's "Band Manager." "Do you want to play a demo?"
"Muh… guh… huh…" I stammered. "Uh, yes. Yes, I would. Very much." In my mind, I wasn't in the Kentia hall; I was backstage at West Hollywood's legendary club Whisky A Go Go, getting ready to take the stage. My lip curled into an involuntary sneer, and my shoulders hunched ever so slightly, in perfect rock-star posture.
"Okay," he said, walking me to the front of a short line. "I'll just give you a press demo."
Wait. He's going to cut me to the front of the line? The imagined cheers of a club filled with nubile groupies faded from my mind with the jarring scratch of a needle across a record.
"I can't cut in front of people who have been waiting," I said. "That's just not cool."
"Are you sure?" he asked. "We cut press to the front all the time."
"Yeah," I said. "I can wait." I took my place in line and waited my turn. Very un-rock-star-like, but, you know, karma and all.
When I hit the front of the line about five hours and 50 minutes quicker than those suckers at the Nintendo booth, I could choose bass or lead on the Guitar Hero II version of Van Halen's version of The Kinks' "You Really Got Me." I picked bass, which I played in high school, but haven't picked up in more than a decade, and set it on "medium." The 23-year-old hipster kid who was positioned to play lead sneered at me from beneath his Von Dutch cap (ironically cocked to one side, of course): "Medium?! Ha." He set his guitar to "hard," and the song began.
In my mind, the fluorescent lights of the Kentia hall faded, and the smell of burning popcorn was replaced with the smell of stale beer and cigarette smoke. My nerdy Konami Code T-shirt was replaced by a sleeveless Union Jack top, and I was cool, man. Also, I had a flat stomach and my hip didn't hurt all the time.
Twenty notes in, the song failed. I looked over at the kid playing lead, and smirked. "How's that 'hard' setting working out for you?"
"My fingers just slipped up." He selected "retry," and I dropped back into my imagined Whisky set. He made it to about the same place, then failed again. This time, he reset his difficulty to "medium," and we took a third shot. We played the entire song together, activating Star Power with ZZ-Top-like guitar flourishes, and seriously rocking out. We drew a very small crowd (someone pointed out, "That guy from Stand By Me is playing over there!") and I played to them, just like I play to the imaginary audience in my living room. During a break in the bass action, I said, "I think I need a bottle of Jack Daniel's to make this more authentic," a reference to Van Halen bassist Michael Anthony that nobody got. But I didn't care; I got my rock on, and it was good.
I was about to put the controller down and give someone else a turn when Corey walked up. "Do you want to give it another try, this time in lead?"
"Really? Is that okay?" I looked back at the line.
"Yeah. I'll play bass and you play lead."
"Dude, that would rule!"
We switched places and began to rock.
Just like hitting up-up-down-circle is the closest I'll ever get to pulling a 720 with Tony Hawk, hitting green-green-redredred-yellow-yellow-green is the closest I'll ever get to successfully playing an Eddie Van Halen guitar lick, and I'm cool with that, especially after experiencing the adrenaline surge that comes with jamming a Guitar Hero II song and scoring five stars with 98 percent of all notes hit. I put down the guitar controller, my heart thrumming in my chest like a Dick Dale solo, and high-fived Corey.
"That was awesome!" I said.
"You seriously rocked," he said.
"Thanks, man. Is it November yet?"
He laughed. "Everyone keeps asking that. No, it's still May."
I picked up my Guitar Hero II T-shirt and flew out of the booth. When I got out, I saw that my friends had departed, and I vaguely recalled Sean telling me he had to leave, and Spencer waving goodbye while I rocked. Desperate for someone to share my excitement with, I pulled out my cell phone and called my house so I could tell my stepsons, who play Guitar Hero with me almost every night, how I'd done. My younger stepson Nolan picked up, and relayed my 98-percent completion and five-star rating to his brother, Ryan, who wanted to know if I was bringing a copy of the game home with me.
"No, we still have to wait until November," I said.
"Okay. Mom wants to talk to you."
A second later, she was on the phone. "So I guess you got to rock out, huh?"
"Yeah, I totally rocked. Oh my God, it was so much fun. I played…"
"Wait. I have to tell you this: The plumber just left, and it's going to cost $2,000 to repair the shower, because they have to cut through the tile."
While I was busy pretending to kick girls' underpants off an imaginary stage, my wife was dealing with repairs that we can't afford on our 58-year-old house. The joy and childlike excitement I'd felt just seconds before was crushed out of me by harsh suburban reality. I sighed. "Okay, I guess we'll all keep sharing the one shower for a while."
Behind me, I heard the first few notes of Rush's "YYZ" boom out of the RedOctane booth, a brief reminder of my 10 minutes in blissful rock-star oblivion. The reality of my adult responsibilities contrasted heavily with my momentary rock fantasy, and I began to feel their weight as I headed toward the exit. On my way out, I saw about two dozen classic arcade cabinets, set on "free play." I smiled to myself, shrugged off the plumber, and recorded a Top 10 score on Tempest (imagining I was in Sunland Discount Variety, between the Mr. Do! and Stargate machines, of course) before bidding farewell to E3 and heading back out to suburbia.
E3 is pretty much all about marketing, but there's a reason people like all the games on display in this orgy of lights and sound. Whether by skating with Tony Hawk, wasting zombies with a fictional photographer named Ken, rocking out to Van Halen, or just slipping back to the uncomplicated days of youth with Tempest or Pac-Man, for a few moments, we can leave the real world and all its responsibilities behind, and just play. I'm cool with that.
Wil Wheaton mows his lawn on Sunday mornings, and rocks out to Guitar Hero every night.
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