The only game in town

Hollywood has been given a facelift but, like most plastic surgery, the operation has only served to highlight the neurosis of the patient. Opposite my flea-bitten hostel stands the renovated Kodak Theatre, site of 2003’s Oscars, and its glitzy companion, Hollywood & Highland Entertainment Centre.

Armies of tramps and religious nuts prowl the Boulevard, talking to invisible friends and screaming Jehovah at the smog-lit sky. Alongside them are midwestern tourists who line up to have their pictures taken with celebrity lookalikes. Elvis is kicking back on his patch with the Incredible Hulk (“Uh, don’t make him mad, darlin’, you wouldn’t like it when he gets mad. Uh-huh-huh”) and an Asian Luke Skywalker wipes the sweat from his forehead with Batman’s cape. We walk over the handprints of Cary Grant and spit on the name of Big Bird and, in the hills beyond, the Hollywood sign stares down on us all.

In Los Angeles, people = meat. The first ten pages of L.A. Weekly are consumed with body enhancement adverts: boob jobs, tummy tucks, botox injections, hair transplants, knob lengthening, vagina reconstruction. What’s the doctor’s opinion? Go see the plastic surgeon because, hey, maybe you are only 21 but you need some work done…

And if you’re over 30 and you’re not living in Beverly Hills with a swimming pool and a Hummer and a Playboy girlfriend and a penchant for $130 Cuban cigars? Fuhgeddaboutit. Hollywood is reserved for the young, hard-bodied and tattooed; it’s for the filthy rich and immorally wealthy. Bret Easton Ellis’s novels make sudden terrifying sense in this town, the place where dreams are made then shattered in a heartbeat.

It comes as both surprise and relief, then, to discover a week in the middle of May every year when cool is old-school and geeks rule the roost. They come in droves from as far afield as Ireland and as close as Compton to grope the videogame industry’s vast array of ware (both hard and soft) which is primed for success in the coming months.

The Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3) is the biggest, loudest and brashest trade fair on the globe. Gaming may not be the new rock ‘n’ roll but it’s definitely the new cinema and as videogame sales begin trouncing box-office receipts, studio execs are left scratching their hairplugs in confusion.

The three manufacturing supremos – Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo – shake their bootays at conferences prior to the Expo, trying their damnedest to dazzle attendees with outlandish displays of visuals and sound.

This year, Sony play a trump card by announcing their first handheld console: the PlayStation Portable (PSP). Tentatively scheduled to hit shelves in late 2004, the PSP hopes to steal the throne from Nintendo’s Gameboy Advance. The GBA’s dominance of the handheld market has been further challenged by Nokia’s announcement of an October 2003 launch for their N-Gage platform. A bunch of top-notch third party games (including Tomb Raider, Sonic and Red Faction) are now promised for the console which also plays digital music, serves as a stereo FM radio, and works as a tri-band GSM mobile phone.

Despite heightened terrorist alerts in the US, E3 2003 must be the safest place this side of Camp David. The Los Angeles Convention Center, located downtown, is surrounded by enough tanks and troops to conquer a small country. Special Forces ops are gliding from helicopters onto the promenade outside the building where they wave their rifles dramatically. All this to promote the US military’s videogame title: America’s Army. Still, it is effective - the geeks who normally jostle each other to gain quick entry stand in line politely, while journalists are visibly relieved that their hotel isn’t located nearby.

One of E3’s more amusing perks is celebrity spotting - some are well known, most frustratingly obscure. If you find yourself face first on the convention floor, covered in your own PR swag, there’s every chance you’ve just tripped over Gary Coleman. Gary Busey, who provided voice acting for Grand Theft Auto: Vice City, strolls around the convention floor with hoards of attendees in his wake whispering, “Psst… there’s Nick Nolte.”

Paula Abdul is slagging off wannabe crooners trying their hand at Codemasters’ American Idol videogame; MC Supernatural is spinning tunes at the Midway booth. One of the forgettable oafs from N-Sync - Lance Bass - is on hand to announce the winners of the G4 (US videogame TV) Awards, but sensible folk are already at the Microsoft booth where Jane’s Addiction’s Perry Farrell and Dave Navarro are singing ‘Love Shack’ on the Xbox Music Mixer, and Snoop Dogg is hosting the Xbox Live Ultimate Championship.

Jada Pinkett Smith (Will’s other half) slinks her way around the Enter the Matrix booth and Vanessa Carlton is huffing through her song written for Midway’s SpyHunter 2. This hack is rather chuffed about meeting Robert Rodriguez’s Spy Kids, who are promoting the game tie-in for their latest movie, Spy Kids 3D: Game Over.

“You really remind me of Alan Cumming! You’ve got the voice and the funny head,” says Spy Kid Carmen.

Thanks… I think. You’ve worked with a heap of famous actors. Was Alan your favourite?
“Sure, he was one of them,” adds pipsqueak No.2, Juni. “You could be, like, his head stunt double. Ha ha ha.”

Xbox live up to the hype surrounding Halo 2, Doom III and Star Wars spin-off Republic Commando (sure to be a top seller in West Belfast) by taking me out to dinner. Waltzing into Beverly Hills’ Ivy restaurant rocks, especially when model Sophie Dahl is still waiting for her table and Martine McCutcheon is frowning at her dessert.

While the clatter of namedrops is ever present, homegrown is what makes E3 2003 worth its weight – and we’re not talking about the kind that makes you cough or see pink flamingos. Enter the Matrix creator Dave Perry was a child genius who began crafting games at school in Belfast before forming Shiny Entertainment in the US. His multi-platform Matrix game takes the uncharted route of complementing the movie with a new story and an hour of exclusive film footage, rather than simply emulating Keanu’s big screen bonanza.

“The game was written by the Wachowski Brothers [Matrix’s directors],” Perry explains. “With them comes everyone else. All the actors, all the sets, stunt people and costume designers. While making Reloaded and Revolutions, I don’t think they told the actors exactly what each scene was for. Many scenes ended up exclusively in Enter the Matrix.”

Peter Donnelly, a Northside Dub, is Executive Producer behind Xbox’s most anticipated RPG title, Sudeki. Now based in sunny California, Peter reckons that more could be done to develop Irish talent.

“Ireland’s position as an IT leader is there for us to exploit, but we’re not doing so and much of our games-development talent is emigrating,” he says. “The battle for the living room is a million-dollar industry and it’s growing by the year.”

Soon E3 is over. The last bespectacled, Atari t-shirted fanboys have left the building and Los Angeles returns to its dreams of celluloid and silicone. I check out of my hovel and wave goodbye to my new friend Elvis where he strikes a pose on his Boulevard patch, oblivious to the gurning Hollywood crazies that stagger ever closer.