E3: Outlandish Sights From the Show Floor

Welcome to the 2011 Electronic Entertainment Expo, where dreams come true--if you're dreaming about new Nintendo and Sony consoles, anyway. This is the entrance for the West Hall, which is home to the Sony and Nintendo booths. Behind those doors lie scary monsters, fierce warriors, and more crazy model guns than anyone ever needs.

Twisted Metal didn't make it into the Sony press conference proper, but Sweet Tooth's ice cream truck was parked in the lot outside--a nice teaser for the new Twisted Metal game they had on demo.

A massive dragon guards the rune-carved walls of Bethesda's Skyrim booth. Those runes you see are physical replicas of the Word Walls that players will have to track down while playing Skyrim in order to learn the secret words of power that are the birthright of the Dovahkiim, or Dragon-Born. Got all that?

Natsume brought a bumper crop of cute stuffed farm animals to promote the latest iteration of the Harvest Moon franchise on 3DS, Harvest Moon: The Tale of Two Towns.

Sony is known for spectacle, and nothing says extravagant like hiring dancers to perform on stage...after the company's giant press conference is over. This dancer performed for an hour or so during the post-conference hands-on session, but most of the attendees opted to pay attention to the games behind the stage instead. For what it's worth, Jane's Addiction wasn't able to pry us away from Street Fighter X Tekken or Twisted Metal, either.

There's another Sonic the Hedgehog game coming out. Will it be the Second Coming of Sega fans' spiky blue savior? Probably not, but this ridiculously oversized SEGA booth statue was pretty impressive.

World of Tanks had a big presence at the show, which was reinforced by some very large tanks hanging out on the show floor. One of their representatives kindly informed us that they were rented from some sort of tank-rental company, and apparently one of them actually still works.

Along the border of E3's South Hall was a retro video game museum exhibit, complete with the Descendants of Erdrick video game tribute band rocking out to covers of retro game tunes. Yes, those are real guitars, and no, Guitar Hero was nowhere in sight.

E3 is big business for game buyers, game developers and entertainers (not to mention tech writers) but there's also a fair share of die-hard enthusiasts who come to worship at the altar of their favorite franchises. This statue of Dom in front of the Gears of War 3 booth was one such sacred place.

Before the show started, Entertainment Software Association president Mike Gallagher boasted that there would be 35,000 screens for 45,000 attendees this year. Sadly, the lines were still very, very long--probably because most of the screens were used for looped demo reels rather than live play stations.

Here's some bad-enough dudes standing tall amidst the post-apocalyptic wasteland that was the RAGE booth here at E3 2011. RAGE is being developed by id Software and published by Bethesda Softworks.

This was the first year the IndieCade Festival brought live-action game Ninja to L.A. for E3 attendees to play.

Two more tanks courtesy of the game World of Tanks were parked outside the convention center. Not sure what kind of parking permit you need for that, but we want that permit next year.

This poor Sony employee wandered the floor in a Ratchet costume all day, loaning out his giant wrench and posing for awkward pictures with anyone who asked.

Hanging from the rafters of Nintendo's booth were two very large birds poised to attack each other. They really tied the room together.

PCWorld Staff Editor Patrick Miller found a Nintendo Power Glove lying in the Video Game History exhibit and couldn't help mugging for the camera.

The odds at E3 favor dudes: The show floor had lots of women walking around in skin-tight outfits, wearing stiletto heels, and accessorizing with a two-foot-long blade attached to each wrist. Perhaps the odds aren't that good, at that.

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