The guys over at Sony Online Entertainment have an interesting concept on their hands with the Agency. Hal Milton, lead designer on The Agency, told us a lot about their design philosophy. The game mechanic that involves hiring or finding NPC’s called ‘Operatives’ seems to have a bigger impact on the gameplay then we assumed. Check it out.

The Who man. The fricking Who were at the Rockband Bash during E3. Everyone who was there will tell you that it was a historical moment for the E3, if not the entire game industry! We looked up Harmonix’s Sean Baptiste the next day to talk about the company’s growth, the lessons learned with Rockband and the situation with Europe. You’re glad to know Harmonix sticks to their roots and have some strong ideals that other game companies could learn from.

Trivia: Dave Grohl once walked up to Sean during an MTV party and told him he looked very handsome.

Before I start throwing the huge collection of stories that I gathered at Comicon, here’s a quick run-down of our entire E3 experience:

Getting into the E3 spirit

Getting into the E3 spirit – part deux (with beer!)  

E3 Day #1 – The event has changed, thank god the people haven’t!

E3 Day #2 – Work hard, play hard and party hard!

E3 Day #3 – Enjoying the social warmth of E3. Work pays off.

E3 Day #4 – Saying goodbye and planning ahead.

VGV @ E3: Explore our complete photo coverage of E3 2008!

E3 VGViews #1: Warhammer is just like Batman. Wait. What?

E3 VGViews #2 – Expanding the user’s experience is key to movie games

E3 VGViews #3: Ultimate Band & the challenge of going non-peripheral

E3 VGViews #4: Camera shy? How about camera tired?

E3 VGViews #5: We’ve only seen less than 25% of Dead Space? OMG!?

E3 VGViews #6: MK vs DC Universe is one big negotiation

E3 VGViews #7: This is Vegas has some aces up its sleeve.  

This isn’t even everything! If you can read Dutch, check out these in depth interviews I personally did for Gamerush.nl

And I still have stuff I haven’t started on yet…

Though I was one of many  at E3 who were quite sceptic about Midway’s new sandbox title, Alan Patmore and his team clearly aren’t lounge lizards. He promised that the game will cater the core demographic of the mature open world action game player and will consist of action packed content for more then 70%. The casual mini-games suddenly appear like a pleasant addition to the more intense gameplay elements that are yet to be seen.

Niko Bellic should’ve moved to Vegas.

They sure are trying to redefine the franchise with this one. Ed Boon and his team picked a tough a road ahead of them, full of challenges and compromises, but they’re chugging along quite well from the looks of it. Their focus on bringing downloadable content to the game is also very ambitious, but will we see downloadable fatalities and other finishing moves? “You know what, that’s a really good idea! That’s something we definitely have to keep in mind,” Ed answered.

I’ve had my eye on Dead Space since I first saw EA with a little booth at Wondercon, showing off a short concept trailer and their #1 issue of the prequel comic. I had a chat there with Alex Charlow, one of the game’s developers. We talked for almost an hour before I realised I should have been recording it all! This senior producer Chuck Beaver steps up to tell us more about the development of Dead Space.

They have a lot of cool stuff planned for Comicon, so stay tuned! Oh and ehm, EA. Loved your showroom at E3 and all, but the changing colours had kind of an unusual effect on our interviewees .

During the second day of E3, it struck me. I had gotten tired of watching myself over and over during the editing process of all the VGV footage I’ve ever touched. I bet Chris felt the same, having filmed more then 12 hours of my blabbering since we first started. Lucky for me, that was about to change. Hallelujah!

I would also like to thank Rob Welkner from Coin-Op.TV for all the of inspiration, help and advise! See you at Comicon dude!

The guys over at Fall Line Studios did something that people such as Nolan Bushnell and Gene Simmons have taught me to do: find a hole in the market, cater for it and believe in your own ideas. Ultimate Band for the Wii has all that. Intended for teens and people that don’t have room for an entire Rockband set, like almost all Japanese people. Let’s ask Tim Huntsman how they pulled it off.

Disney Interactive Studios must be really happy with Tim and his buddies.

Derek Dutilly wants you to rise up from your couch and get engaged with his newest movied based game: High School Musical 3. He also let us know that it’s important for Disney that the game expands the user’s experience of their franchises, which have almost always involved music and dance. Derek, the floor is all yours!

I wish all game demo sessions at E3 were like Derek’s.

Paul Barnett, creative director for Warhammer Online, has single-handedly convinced me that Warhammer Online is definitely worth our hard earned cash. How? He puts the W in wittiness.

What’s wrong with the pogo stick anyway? I love the pogo stick!

It’s all on DailyMotion for now. YouTube’s been screwing up the sound for some strange reason. If you know how to fix this, please let us know!

Jonathan did a great job capturing the E3 from our team’s perspective. While many are discussing the quality and usefulness of this year’s E3 setup , we here at VGV would like to show you the event through our own eyes: an optimistic focus on all the great things that were taking place, the great people we’ve met and the joyful moments that we’ve had together.

The good times strongly outweighed the bad for our team and as you might have noticed while scanning through our E3 coverage, we just totally had a blast.

We do really advise everyone to also read up on the critique surrounding the event’s shape and role in the industry. We REALLY recommend you read Colin Campbell’s enlightening take on this E3 over at Edge-Online.com

E3 got me thinking. A lot. The entire experience taught us a lot, which eventually forged a strong personal format in my mind last night. Here’s what I think our E3 preview commercial would look like if it ever appeared on television. Or Youtube.

I was inspired by the [adult swim] shorts I recently saw on TV. I call the style ‘Simplicity Awesome‘. Let us know what you think in the comments. Your opinion is worth more to us than gold!

Just when we thought it couldn’t get any better for us, it did. With the Who’s performance in hindsight, we entered the LA Convention Centre one more time in search of last minute interviews and meetings. If that wasn’t the case, we made preparations for VGV’s attendance of both Leipzig AND the Tokyo Game Show. Most importantly, it was also time to say goodbye to many of our colleagues, whom we have gotten to meet, game with and get to know better during these past four days.

We would like to thank everyone who we’ve met at the E3 for their hospitality, friendship and support! While many people have spent the entire E3 working, we are just at the start of processing our own coverage. Check back in the next couple of days for the final complete collection of Jonathan’s E3 photo coverage on VGV’s behalf and our own upcoming video coverage of the E3 event.

We’re glad to say we’ve made some very good friends in the process.

Best symbolized by the performance of the Who at the Rock Band Bash here at E3. The crowd loved it and it was great to see how friends and colleagues went wild during the performance. I love my job. Like a fish in the sea I tell ya. Fish in the sea.

Thanks Harmonix & MTV Games. There’s no better reward after a hard day’s work at E3 then this.

Also, Jonathan just can’t stop capturing the most brilliant moments in time during this E3. Today wasn’t any different, but we’re still working on the pics. In the meanwhile, we hope you enjoy his marvellous photo coverage of the Who’s performance, right here.

Heavy ass paparazzi style professional cameras weren’t allowed, but the security guys told Jon’s was just about ok.Thank god!

Update: The E3 day 3 pictures are up!