N-Philes has been going to E3 for years now, but for Jared and myself, it was our very first and we were newbies in every sense of the word. You see, what with our virtually non-existent public relations department at the time, we didn't really know how to (or even that we should) set up appointments to meet with various companies at the convention. We just figured that simply going to E3 was enough for us; we'd get to see all the upcoming games, play enough of them to at least be able to give our impressions upon our return, and all in all just have a fun time rubbing elbows with people in the industry. Boy were we ever naive.
Our friends over at Binary Culture took pity on our pathetic planning skills and let us sit in on an interview with one of Nintendo's PR representatives. It gave us the chance to ask some very intelligent questions on Nintendo's press conference and upcoming games, and it also gave us a practice round to start from since at that point we'd realized the importance of scoring interviews. After hearing, "I can't tell you anything about that," for twenty minutes or so, we adjourned the meeting at which point Jared and I seperated from the Binary pack to hop around for press kits. I headed up to the Atlus room to grab a press kit and see if someone could somehow squeeze us in for an interview before the convention was over. So after pushing through the crowd of goobers hoping to win an iPod shuffle from some tournament they were holding in Puyo Pop Fever, I made my way up to the PR booth and asked if Atlus had any openings for our world-renowned Nintendo fansite. The man behind the desk flipped through a tiny appointment book and then told me that their public relations guy wasn't in because his wife was actively giving birth. Well, I sure picked the wrong place to try to get our first official interview from, or so I thought. See, I had been downstairs playing Trauma Center: Under the Knife on the Nintendo show floor and absolutely fell in love with it, and knowing how our fellow director NightsB loves the Puyo Pop series, I wanted this company to be N-Philes' first interview this year. The desk jockey kept flipping through his datebook when he stopped, perked up his eyebrows, and said, "Hey, I can get you in with Bill Alexander tomorrow at 2:30 p.m. He doesn't do PR, but I'm sure he can answer probably most of your questions." Well hot damn. I had him pencil me in for the appointment and handed him one of my business cards (which I designed myself; trust me they look hip). He, in turn, tossed a few of the Shin Megamit Tense: Nocturne soundtracks my way, and from there I was on my way to find Jared to let him know we got the interview with the only company we were really trying to get in an interview!
The next day we headed up to the Atlus room once again, excited and, at least on my part, nervous about out first interview. As soon as we arrived I realized that I had left my notepad in our hotel room, so I had to scramble through my backpack to find something to write with. That didn't really help with my nerves or feelings of unpreparedness. What also didn't help was that apparently I had mistakenly written down the time for the appointment as 2:00 instead of 2:30, but at least it beats being late. As we waited for the next half hour to come around, Jared played some Puyo Pop Fever that they had kiosked as I stood watching the Shin Megami trailer on a huge wall screen. Eventually, after seeing the trailer about thirty times, this adorable girl who was working the booth beckoned me over and said that Bill Alexander would be right out. We gathered ourselves up as young-looking man walked up and introduced himself to us as Bill Alexander (the one and only! [actually there are probably many others!]). He then led us back behind a Japanese wall screen into a cubicle with a TV/DVD player setup and a handful of chairs surrounding a small round table with a GBA sitting on it. The GBA contained a working copy of future game release Riviera, an RPG that wasn't playable on the show floor anywhere; in fact, the only demo copy of the game was that cartridge right there, which Bill had for his interviewers.
Our first surprise came immediately, as Mr. Alexander revealed that he'd heard of N-Philes, telling us that he had known that we are one of the last and best-known Nintendo fansites and asking how long we'd currently been at the helm. Somewhat shocked that he'd heard of us, we explained in a nutshell the quirky history of N-Philes ownership, and then we told him that we had asked our forums to send in any questions they'd like answered and that we'd be relaying those questions as well as our own. He seemed fairly surprised that we didn't just have the standard run-of-the-mill techniques for an interview and asked us a little bit more about our site. We explained (well actually, most of the communication came from Jared, since I was suffering from a severe case of smog-induced laryngitis, damn you Los Angeles) that we focused soley on Nintendo related news, and that we were also had such a large and committed fanbase through our forums that we really had to include them in our process.
What with all non-Nintendo projects being scratched off the plate, Bill told us that Atlus of America had two games coming out for the Nintendo DS, and one for the GBA: SnowBoard Kids DS, Trauma Center: Under the Knife, and Riviera, respectively. We immediately perked up at the mention of Trauma Center and told him that it was the project we were most interested in talking about, and we nearly jumped into talking about it before he got a chance to start his schtick. He laughed and suggested we go through the DVD he had of the various trailers so that he could explain them a bit easier, before jumping right into the Q & A. Jared and I sat back, eyes glued to the screen.
We started with the trailer for SnowBoard Kids DS, telling us as the video went on what to expect from the title. Bill told us that it was the followup to the highly regarded SnowBoard Kids 64 for the Nintendo64 and that this game would appeal to a wider audience, since most of the fans from the N64 version had grown up, yet were still hungry for a sequel. The game had an updated, less cartoony look to it, partially due to style changes and partially because in the game, the "Snowboard Kids" themselves were supposed to have aged since they're more Little Rascals-esque debut. What we saw looked like a solid snowboard racer with moderate DS graphics, and Bill explained that it was still in fairly early stages, so it would only get better. Jared explained that he'd played the game on the show floor and that for the most part it played a lot like a MarioKart-styled action racer, which is always a good thing.
