There's No Business Like E3 Business

There's no business like E3 business, and there was plenty of it going on in Atlanta last week - from the throngs at the Georgia World Congress Center, to the loud parties, to the sweaty backseats of cabs.

As a first-time attendee and E3 News contributor, I think the show is best recalled as a series of moments. If ViewMaster were to make an E3 '97 reel, here's what it would contain:

1. The action at the Virgin/Westwood tent centered less on games like Sabre Ace and Blade Runner than it did on the complete Starbuck's coffee outlet Virgin had built inside its booth, complete with frappuccino, Starbuck's baristas, and a long curving bar inset with game screens. No wonder security was so tight.

2. Two anatomically correct male and female ice sculptures served more than titillation at the Eidos party. Bartenders poured booze down icy tunnels that ran down the center of the statues, where the libations emptied - by way of the appropriate genitalia - into waiting glasses.

3. Fireflies and sheet lightning lit up the Chattahoochee River and the MicroProse party guests chowing down on ribs and salmon alongside it. It was a night of raft-to-raft watergun fights while drifting down the river - followed up with warm towels, glasses of wine, and a feast.

4. What was up with the fetishwear leather babes passing out pens at the Eidos booth? Geeks loved them, but they didn't look anything like our favorite buxom-but-plucky star of Tomb Raider II.

5. A moment of silence, please, for those companies with booths in the Georgia Dome - a low-traffic zone of children's and edutainment titles, plus hardware manufacturers. Anyone who walked into there with a press badge was fallen upon with glad cries.

6. The Activision booth showcased a killer lineup, topped by Twinsen's Odyssey and Quake II. The latter title had the most bug-eyed observers for its sheer realism and weaponry - including a railgun. Could the year's Quake killer be Quake itself?