Editor's Note: This is not meant to be a complete guide to any of the three E3 Expos it covers. My goal is to give you a sense of what it's like to cover and be at E3, and also the immense effect this experience can have on a person. I know that my life has changed drastically for the better in the past three years, and part of that is due to E3 and everything that goes along with it. I hope that you all get to experience E3 for yourself one day, but until then, I humbly offer this account as a glimpse of what this big building full of people and games can mean to one person.

Let me set the stage for you: my N64 fansite, the Nformant, was about three months old in May of 1999. I had been online for about six months total, but even my inexperience didn’t hinder the incoming excitement about my very first live Electronic Entertainment Expo. Of course I wasn’t actually going...that would be absurd. But for the first time ever, I would be following the event as it happened, soaking and loving every single tidbit of Nintendo information that entered my scouring browser. My previous knowledge of E3 was limited to a few paragraphs in the previous year’s Nintendo Power coverage, but pre-show news reports and previews were all over my favorite websites, which included IGN64, Nintendojo, and the Nintendo 64 Underground (now called Nintendorks). We were all coming off a wonderful high from “Zelda 64”, as everyone seemed to be calling it, and the air was just laden with hope that ’99 would be a big year for the Nintendo 64 and its fans.

Covering the event with me, working mainly as a news scout, was my new Internet friend Evan. Evan was an unofficial, behind-the-scenes Nformant employee LONG before I handed the site over to him fully in late summer of 2000. (I wish now that I’d set up an E3 section or something, because all our hard work was poured into the non-archived news page and numerous defunct previews.) He and I had a great plan for E3 coverage...we both would surf all over the net for news, especially our favorite Nintendo sites, and I would write up everything notable and put it up at the site. Actually, I bet a lot of you reading this have done the same kind of thing, so you know where I’m coming from. To most people, staying glued to the Internet and writing like crazy for three or four days might not sound like much fun, but we were as excited about E3 ’99 as anyone was, and dammit, we were going to have the best N64 coverage around!

Prior to E3, Nintendo held its traditional pre-show press conference. That day, they (sorta) unveiled the next big Nintendo system: Project Dolphin. All we learned was the name, a few interesting specifications, and a fall 2000 release date (heh). Still, the news sent major shockwaves through the industry, and Evan and I covered it with great excitement. Little did I know how important Project Dolphin would eventually be to my online career...

The biggest developer for N64 that year was Rare. After just a handful of N64 games in the system’s first three years, Rare was showing a trio of new games at this E3, all playable and supposedly due out by Christmas of that same year. Perfect Dark was not only sequel to the extremely popular Goldeneye 007, but was even showing off an unheard-of feature. You could take a picture with the Game Boy Camera and stick it on your character’s face! Donkey Kong 64 couldn’t have had a more exciting debut than the single, mysterious, exclusive screenshot in Nintendo Power’s Jan. 1999 bonus issue. Though more media had been released since then, Rare had still revealed almost nothing about the game right up until the press could play it at the show. With the massive success of DKC 1-3 on the Super NES, this new 3D entry to the series was expected to be nothing short of revolutionary. (~Ahem.~) Finally, the underdog of Rare’s E3 lineup: Jet Force Gemini. We knew that it would be the first of the group to be released, we knew it had very cutesy (this was before the redesign) characters and very gory gameplay, and we knew it had three playable characters. Other than that it was pretty much unknown, and for the most part, ignored. Detailed impressions of the game were hard to find after E3, and many players didn’t seem to understand the controls or get the joke with the contrasting kiddie/mature styles.

Even though I wasn’t actually there (that would be absurd!), E3 ’99 was a turning point for me as a gaming journalist. It made me realize how exciting the field can be, and that very hard work can be very rewarding. I also learned a lot of dedication...covering E3 from home requires a round-the-clock vigil and eager fingers whenever something turns up. Working so closely with Evan also fortified our young friendship, and although I still haven’t gotten to meet him in person, the experience of realizing that Internet personalities are real people turned out to be quite appropriate just a few hundred days later...

The biggest disappointment about E3 ’99: the coverage! I mean goodness, there were plenty of game impressions and stuff, but decent pictures and journal-type stuff was impossible to come by. The only decent, personal, intimate account of the whole show came from Carl Johnson, and that unfortunately took weeks to make it online. It was worth the wait though. Finally, something that spurred my imagination, made me feel like I was really at the show, gave me an inkling of what it feels like to stand in Shigeru Miyamoto’s presence and to wait in line to play a game that was never heard of just hours before. I vowed that if I ever got the chance to attend E3 myself...I may not have the ability to write a massive special like Carl did, but I would infuse into everything I did the goal of making E3 less a dream and more a reality for everyone who couldn’t pack up to Los Angeles and go themselves.

I honestly wish I could remember more about that year’s expo. To some extent, the fading of those memories is due less to the passage of time and more to the drastically different viewpoint I have now. To truly recreate those days in my mind now, I would have to put myself back into that ’99 Jonny, and that’s very hard to do. I’ve changed so much...hell, E3 has changed me so much since then, that it’s almost hard to imagine a time when I had such an innocent and clueless idea of what the show is all about, and what it can mean to a person over the course of time. But, to all of you who have covered E3 from home, much props to you. I understand what you went through, and I hope you are as fortunate as I’ve been in actually attending the show in the coming years. It’s a totally different experience from the other end of the Internet, but you’ll never forget and never regret the time and effort you spent to cover E3 from your home computer.

Part 2 coming soon!