Greetings humans, Monki here with my first update from the E for All Video Game Conference going on right now in Los Angeles.

I'm going to try to break down my general experiences away from my actual play experience on games to give you a general idea of both the conference itself and the titles that are playable here.

Stepping into the L.A. Convention Center was like a quick jump back to last May for me. The comparisons between E for All and E3 are going to happen...same venue...still about video games. Once inside though, the differences become pretty obvious.

First: the good. The chances for people to walk in and play titles has jumped tenfold. There are kiosks and opportunities to get your hands-on experiences everywhere. You wanna check out the new Smash Brothers title? Stand in a line only two-deep (as opposed to last year's 5 hour wait for Wii-time) to get your chance to waggle your Wii-mote and destroy with Sonic.

Another positive...this show is all about the fans. The official kickoff of the entire festival began with a cosplay parade. Now, I'm not a huge cosplay guy myself, but the fact that the festival openly embraces this aspect of fanboyism is pretty sweet. That being said, there were some pretty cool costumes, and some that...well...not so much...

As far as the bad side...the size difference is pretty clear. You could fit all of E for All into the last E3's Kentia Hall...it's tiny. You can walk the entire show floor in about 20 minutes if you wanted to. The lack of booth's from Sony and Microsoft leave you wishing for more.

This is still a young show. Even though it is only in it's first incarnation, I believe E for All could take the place of "big California show" pretty quickly. I wouldn't be surprised at all if Microsoft and Sony join in for next year's event. There is still plenty of room to grow here and catering to the fans is the absolute best way to go.

As I said earlier, it's relatively easy to get some time with some of the most anticipated titles of the year. One thing is for certain, if you like Guitar games, you'd be in hog heaven here. Rock Band and Guitar Hero 3 are all over the place. I counted ten double-sided Guitar Hero 3 kiosks and at least six full Rock Band setups. And to think, just two years ago Guitar Hero was just a little title that was buried at E3...what a monster.

Rock Band is going to be the ultimate party game. I took my turn playing the guitar, bass and drums. I would have tried my hand at singing but a line began forming before I had the opportunity to embarrass myself. Damn.

The guitar itself is a bit more..."tight" than the Guitar Hero 2 controller's we're all used to. The strum bar is thinner and requires a bit more force to strum. The buttons on the neck are wider and are actually the entire fret as opposed to a button placed on top of the fret. There is another set of fret buttons down towards the base of the neck but honestly I can't imagine ever using them in the game. Why re-learn your finger locations just to use another set of buttons? Then again, I'm a guy who can barely eek through hard songs...maybe the expert hammer-ons and offs will require these buttons?

The drums...oh man the drums...I can't wait to get more time with these. First impression, very very tactile. Hitting on them feels like hitting a real drum. One problem though, after running through a song, your shin hurts like hell. It's one heck of a workout but I'm sure after a while you'd get used to it all.

While playing the drums to My Name is Jonas with three other strangers, we all got into a rhythm and the game kicks into sort of a bonus mode where the sound from the guitars pops a bit more, the drums hit with more force and the mic actually throws a bit of echo into the mix. It's badass. I can't wait to sit around with some friends with a few beers and really dive head first into this one.

I'll start with the controller. Like Rock Band, we're dealing with a new axe here. Nothing too radical as far as changes go. The one I played with was black and the frets were now solid black with the button colors just on the outline of the actual buttons. It felt a bit heavier than the older controller as well. I didn't mess with the removable neck bit at all, but it seems pretty simple...hit a button on the back of the base of the guitar and the neck can be pulled off...easy storage!

The game itself is pretty much identical to Guitar Hero 1 and Guitar Hero 2 or Guitar Hero 2: The 80's. You don't mess with something that works pretty flawlessly. That being said, it's pretty much the same with shiny fancy graphics. Judy Nails has never looked better and the background action is pretty crazy, at one point towards the end of "Rock You Like a Hurricane" a fan climbed onto the stage, pumped his fist into the air and then stage dove. (All in game, mind you.)

The two-player modes are pretty sweet. The competition modes now include a battle mode where you receive "weapons" as opposed to star power. These powers range from a "lefty flip" weapon that will swap your opponents frets around, a "whammy" weapon that forces your opponent to tweak their whammy bar before being able to continue and many others...

This whole competition mode is one of the main keys to whether or not this game will succeed...personally I prefer the co-op aspect of the game and I'm looking forward to trying out some of the co-op campaign.

The set list is pretty solid and gets bonus points in my book for including a Tenacious D track...all I ask for is a downloadable content pack of Flight of the Conchord tracks.

The more and more I had seen of this one, the more I wanted to check it out. With over 40 minutes of new footage produced specifically for this game and over 5000 lines of dialog recorded by the original performers...it has a lot going for it.

I didn't get a lot of time on this one, but the time I did get was pretty sweet. You start off on a tutorial level that is a recreation of Homer's chocolate dreamworld (the one where he takes a bite out of the dog and it runs off). The gameplay itself is pretty easy, simple jump, punch, special move type stuff throughout the game. You run around in pairs and use special techniques like Bart's ability to go into his Bartman mode where he can fly or Homer's "Homerball" ability where he just smashes through whatever is in front of him.

Some of the cooler aspects of the game were the "cliches" that pop up as you play along. Basically it's like an achievement but instead of getting gamerpoints, you get the comic-book guy popping up pointing out video game cliches like double-jumping or exploding barrels. I think there were 50 cliches to go through, so it should be fun going through and trying to find them all.

The best part about the game was the fact that it is actually fun! For the first time in a long time I was playing a licensed game that didn't suck balls. Here's hoping this is the start of a trend.

One day down, three more to go. Tomorrow should be pretty good but I can imagine it's going to be pretty insane this weekend. I can't wait.

Oh, there is a woman doing a chalk drawing out in front of the convention center, here is her progress so far...I'll try to get a few more pictures as she continues.

Alright, I'm going to get a bit of sleep before hitting the floor running tomorrow. If you are at E for All or have something you are showing off there, drop me an email and you can buy me a beer...(they cost like $9 in L.A.! What the hell!?) Until then though, back up the tree I go!

-Monki