I love E3 time again. There were a couple of years there, where they tried to get all business-like and serious, that it got a little boring, but the show has largely returned to its former glory. It’s the big week to see all the new games, and find out about all the big new plans.

There is one thing that’s always sort of amused me though, and it’s getting stuck watching footage of bad players playing games at these shows.

Now, I’m no pro gamer. And I can speak from personal E3 experience when I say it’s loud, there are often crowds or lines around the games you’re looking to play, and there’s little in the way of instruction. So it’s entirely understandable that you’re not going to be an expert in the game the first time you pick it up in this sort of environment.

On the other hand though, you’ve got someone filming these people running in circles, running into walls, dying repeatedly, etc. Then this footage gets spliced into an interview by Gametrailers or wherever, where a developer is trying to promote and show off their game. And people are watching the video because they want to find out about the game, or catch some new footage.  don’t begrudge anyone the pitfalls of learning a new game, but I don’t think watching someone fumble around for two minutes is the greatest promotional material.

And speaking of promotion, there’s a game called El Shaddai that I happened across in the demo section of XBL a couple of nights ago that seems to be receiving very little of it. In fact, I’d never heard of it before. But it looked kind of neat, so I downloaded the demo. I’m really glad I did.

It’s out in Japan already, and coming stateside next month. I don’t know how well it did over in Japan, but I really dug the demo. The fighting system and animation, combined with some very interesting weapons made for really enjoyable combat, and the whole visual style of the game is incredibly eyecatching.

I don’t know if the PSN has the demo, but if you own a 360 and you like God of War type brawlers, I’d suggest giving it a look. The voiceacting was a little goofy, and the demo was short, but I really liked what I saw so far.