E3 06: Hydras, aliens, and sweaty tights at THQ's booth

LOS ANGELES--If nothing else, THQ's Electronic Entertainment Expo booth is eye-catching. Coming from the front of the South Hall, visitors are greeted by a pair of life-size anthropomorphic vehicles from the Pixar film Cars, behind which stands a bank of playable demos for the publisher's game adaptation of the film.

Beyond the cars is a theater disguised as a bombed-out shell of a building. Inside, THQ reps are screening a trailer of the company's next-gen first-person shooter Frontlines: Fuel of War. The other side of the building is built up to look like a massive dual-barreled battleship cannon to help hype the PC real-time strategy game Supreme Commander.

Next to that centerpiece for the booth is a Destroy All Humans! 2 display. It features a burned-out double-decker bus on one side and a destroyed building on the other. Perched on the building rooftop is the game's alien antihero, Crypto 187, poised to shoot passersby with his ray gun. Spanning both sides of the structure is a UFO with a beam of light stretching to the show floor.

A hydra looks out menacingly at visitors to the display for the PC action role-playing game Titan Quest, which is set up to look like a Greek temple. The display for the Xbox 360 free-roaming action title Saint's Row is set up in a wall made to look like a sleazy alley outside of a pawn shop and tattoo parlor. Silhouettes of fake raucous partygoers could be seen in the upper floor of the building.

There was a small museum of WWE memorabilia in glass cases to promote THQ's upcoming multiplatform grappler SmackDown! vs. Raw 2007. Visitors couldn't get their hands on a playable version of the game (it was shown only on a video screen). However, they could get close looks at small pieces of wrestling history, including a Louis Vuitton-designed Rey Mysterio outfit, the Iron Sheik's headdress, and Greg "The Hammer" Valentine's trunks.

Check out the photo gallery for a closer look at the THQ booth, and check back throughout the show for hands-on impressions from the publisher's lineup.