GE3kin' Out At The Convention Center: The Militant Takes On The E3 Expo!

This week the Militant satisfied his inner geek as the Electonic Entertainment Expo, otherwise known as E3, descended upon the Los Angeles Convention Center.

The international trade-only convention, geared towards the video game industry, is one of the largest annual events at the Convention Center and has taken place here in DTLA for most every year since 1995 (it was held in Santa Monica in 2007).

Admittedly, the Militant may or may not be a diehard video gamer (well, he definitely was one back in the day), but definitely wanted to see what all the noise was all about, especially since an unspecified sibling of his got him a convention badge hookup on Thursday.

The West and South halls of the Convention Center were a whiz-bang whirlwind of lights an noise, as if a thousand video arcades blew up at the same time. For the past few years, the focus has been on the Big Three video game console manufacturers: Nintendo, Sony and Microsoft (makers of the Wii, PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360, respectively). This year, Nintendo showed off their new 3DS portable gaming system; Sony unveiled its PlayStation Move motion controller (pictured right) and MS wowed all geekery by one-upping Sony with its Xbox Kinect controller-less motion controller.

One of the highlights of the convention were the premieres of cinematic-style video game trailer presentations (much to the same degree movie trailers are presented) -- most notably, the Tron Evolution and Star Wars: The Old Republic game trailers had the most OMG factor in the show.

The rest of the show featured free swag (the black convention bags were of the same design as reusable shopping bags -- the Militant grabbed a few!), hot chicks passing out free swag, robot statues, and even the random celeb sighting (LeVar Burton of Star Trek: The Next Generation and Reading Rainbow fame was spotted hanging out at the IndieCade booth, pictured left).

It wasn't just the Big Three consoles represented, though, video games of all platforms and genres were featured, from PCs to iPads to a few arcade games (such as the 4-player Pac-Man game - now there's some games the Militant is familiar with...uhhh wait, did he just give away his age there?).

The Militant also found the time to meet up with some of his operatives who work in the video game industry. No word yet on whether a Militant Angeleno video game will or won't be released (but if it will, expect some freaking awesome combat action against a backdrop of beloved Los Angeles locales).

Thursday being the final day of the convention, come 5 p.m., the noise died down, the colored flashing spectacles gave way to the sobering houselights and the throngs of attendees spilled out of the Convention Center, only to cross paths with the throngs of purple-and-gold-clad ticketholders bound for the Staples Center to witness the Lakers usher in a back-to-back NBA championship. In other words, the scene on the street at 5:30 p.m. was, "LAKE3RS."

Next year, the mighty Lakers may or may not Three-Peat. But E3 will return, June 7-9, Twenty-Eleven.