Technically, Activision isn't participating in this year's E3 videogame summit in Los Angeles. But amidst the hoopla of this year's show, the publishing giant -- for whom the acquisition of Vivendi and Blizzard just became official last week -- is holding a press conference at the Vibiana in downtown L.A. We're not entirely sure what we'll be seeing tonight, but you can follow along as the news breaks with our live blog below.
7:10 P.M.: The event was supposed to start at 7:00, but things are predictably running a little behind. The Vibiana, which is a converted church, has a bunch of folding chairs set up in the center and some large couches on the perimeter and surrounding the stage, for developers and random VIPs (in addition to media, there's a separate investor relations check-in at the front). Now we just got the announcement that the show will start in 10 minutes, so we've got some time to kill.
7:15 P.M.: To the right of the stage are a bunch of the Neversoft team, who'll be demoing Guitar Hero World Tour at some point tonight. There's been very little released on the set list to date; hopefully we'll see more info on that front.
7:20 P.M.: Off to the left is military advisor Hank Keirsey, who's been involved with the Call of Duty games as far back as we can remember. Call of Duty: World at War will undoubtedly be a big part of tonight's presentation; it'll be interesting to see how much new info or footage is revealed tonight.
7:22 P.M.: Even among the media, there's been much speculation about exactly what's going to happen tonight; namely, if there would be any stations set up to demo the games ourselves, which is pretty common for press events but not big press conferences. It doesn't seem we'll be doing any playing tonight.
7:24 P.M.: We're starting, and kicking things off is comedian Nelson Diaz. I'm already starting to have fears of a repeat of last year's Activision conference with Jamie Kennedy, which, let's just say, didn't go well.
7:26 P.M.: Activision's CEO has taken the stage, and opened with a joke about this being an old church, being nervous about showing off shooters, but it being okay since there are confessionals here. Of course, it got crickets. Dear Biz Guys: STOP TRYING TO BE FUNNY. YOU'RE NOT GOOD AT IT.
7:28 P.M.: The schpiel continues: the success of Guitar Hero DS, the transformation of the industry and Activision, the future of Activision Blizzard, and phrases like "geographically balanced" and "robust long-term licenses."
7:31 P.M.:: Okay, we're ready to talk games. There's Singularity, a new IP being developed by Raven Software, which gets me interested, at least. I'll have to admit to getting a little worried when they mention the game will play with time, but now we're seeing a trailer.
7:33 P.M.:: These aren't full-blown presentations yet, just short introductions and trailers. Next up is Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2: Fusion, which has a pretty brief and unrevealing trailer.
7:34 P.M.:: Speeding along, we're talking about the upcoming Wolverine game that will tie into the upcoming movie, Activision's partnership with Hasbro, and more from the Transformers series. And with that, it's back to Nelson Diaz and the start of the demos.
7:37 P.M.:: First up is Treyarch studio head Mark Lamia to talk about Call of Duty: World at War. Of course, it's time for a trailer.
7:40 P.M.: It would be impossible to describe the trailer in detail, other than that it looks as impressive as CoD4, with some nice scripted sequences. Afterwards, Lamia announces that Kiefer Sutherland ("24") will be voicing one of the key characters , and now we're seeing a gameplay clip of the game's co-op mode, with Sutherland as one of the two principals. Yeah! Jack Bauer kicks ass in WWII!
7:44 P.M.: We're getting a pretty meaty look at this co-op mission, although it looks extremely similar to one we saw during our CoD:WoW preview last month, with players scrambling across a large battlefield with a flamethrower and setting tanks on fire. It generally looks like the kind of set pieces we're used to from the CoD series, and hopefully the game can live up to the bar the series has set.
7:47 P.M.: Next up: Spider-Man: Web of Shadows. Interestingly, for the first time in years, this game isn't based on or around any movie, but a new and original storyline. That storyline, apparently, involves a major symbiote invasion that will require Spidey to eventually team up with other heroes and even villains. Right now, the focus of this presentation is on a revamped combat system, which was something that always paled to the webswinging in previous Spidey games.
7:52 P.M.: I'm not exactly sure what we just saw: I know it was a boss fight with the Vulture on top of a skyscraper, but it seemed like Spidey was switching between his red and black suits on the fly, and then there were enemies on goblin gliders, and, well, I just fail at blogging, apparently. Just give us some fun webslinging and decent boss fights and I'm there.
7:57 P.M.: It's time for Bond, namely Quantum of Solace. So of course, we're going to watch a trailer. A movie trailer. And now someone from the group that controls the Bond franchise is talking about family values and why they decided to jump to Activision. Is this really a press junket, or a shareholder meeting?
8:00 P.M.: Hey, now that we've wasted five minutes talking about the Bond franchise -- hello, we know it's great and people are excited about the reinvented version with Daniel Craig -- it's on to the actual game. Or not. Now we're talking about the CoD technology being used to power this latest Bond game.
8:05 P.M.: At this point, I'm completely confused. We're watching a game clip from something being referred to as "Casino Royale" -- which as far as I know, isn't any game we've ever seen. Is it a part of Quantum of Solace? Is it the first level? Is the game actually two halves (since "QoS" the movie is just a continuation of "Casino Royale")? I'll have to apologize if I'm blowing this one, but no one around me here at the conference seems to understand what we're seeing, either.
8:10 P.M.: The gameplay we're seeing looks pretty straightforward -- FPS action with Bond shooting down bad guys. And now we're going to see a new trailer, which turns out to be almost the same exact movie trailer with a few game clips put in.
8:12 P.M.: Finally, something approaching news: id Software's Todd Hollenshead is on stage talking about the new Wolfenstein game, being developed by Raven Software.
8:14 P.M.: We've just seen a 30-second trailer for the new Wolfenstein. Before that, however, Hollenshead mentioned that in addition to the game's single-player mode, it'll also contain a multiplayer mode akin to what we had in previous games like Enemy Territory.
8:17 P.M.: Now it's time for Guitar Hero World Tour, and Neversoft's design lead was just greeted with a huge silence after mentioning Metallica's new album will be available as DLC the day World Tour launches. It pains me to attend these press conferences and see people fail so badly at working a crowd. Don't hold for applause, guys: Just do your presentation and stop if it's needed.
8:21 P.M.: We're now getting an extended look at the new drums, and one cool feature is two jacks for bass pedals, so you can buy a second pedal and do double bass... like for Metallica. You'll also be able to plug the drums into other modules and use it as a drum controller (although it's a little hazy exactly how that will work). And now we're being treated to a drum solo -- no game, just one of Neversoft's team showing off the drums working on their own.
8:24 P.M.: Onstage: former Blink-182 drummer Travis Barker, whose likeness is in the game. He's chatting with Diaz about how he got involved with GH: World Tour.
8:27 P.M.: Predictably, we're now being given a demo of World Tour's music studio, where you can record your own songs and upload them to an official site for others to download as free DLC. That means we're 10 minutes into this demo and we've not seen any actual gameplay, or any talk of new songs (other than the Metallica announcement from yesterday).
8:31 P.M.: We're still going with the music studio demo, which is beginning to feel like a Jan Hammer concert. Activision really wants people to make free DLC.
8:35 P.M.: We're still watching a demo of the studio. Words fail me.
8:37 P.M.: It's probably worth sharing at this point: This is the same exact demo we saw last month for our Guitar Hero World Tour preview. Except we actually saw three songs performed that day.
8:39 P.M.: Hey, it's cute flame-haired singer Hayley Williams from Paramore, who apparently has a song in the game, with Williams as a playable character.
8:42 P.M.: OMG, news! The Neversoft band is playing a song from the game: Van Halen's "Hot For Teacher." Awesome!
8:44 P.M.: The band is playing on Expert, and just got through the intro, which has insane guitar and drum parts, eliciting one of the biggest cheers of the night from the crowd. I can't wait to watch the solo.
8:49 P.M.: We're wrapped up here -- the crowd gave the Neversoft band a semi-standing ovation for their pretty impressive performance, and we're outta here. Thanks for reading -- we'll have more info on Activision's game's a bit later.
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