After two exciting, but admittedly grueling days of E3, Reuben and I were exploding balls of energy first thing Thursday morning. Or at least, that’s what I thought we were until I crawled out of bed and decided the end was nigh. I didn’t quite feel like death warmed over, but the convention plague was attempting to make me its boy toy. Needless to say I wasn’t having any of that.

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A few vitamins, some preventative meds, a jolt of coffee, and I was on my way with Reuben in tow. The first meeting we had was with Bethesda to get another look at The Elder Scrolls Online. Since I had already gone through the higher level areas a few weeks prior, the team was kind enough to allow me to create a brand new character and start from the beginning. Check out my thoughts on the game later today!

After playing The Elder Scrolls Online for well over an hour (time seriously flies when you’re playing that game), Reuben went off to gather some awesome info about the newly revealed Warhammer 40k: Eternal Crusade MMO (check out his interview here). He then went to go get some hands-on time with the re-envisioned Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn (see what he thought) while I went in search of the CCP meeting room.

Once there, the team gave me a nice presentation on what’s currently going on with EVE Online and DUST 514 along with what’s in store for the future of both games. The real treat of this appointment though was not only getting a look at their internal-for-fun-only game they created for the Oculus Rift virtual reality headset but actually getting to play it. All I’ll say for now is, “Holy crap, please release this and take my money now”, but be sure to tune in later this week for my EVR article.

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After talking some more with the CCP folks, I made my way back over to the South Hall and caught up with Reuben at the meeting room of CI Games for a look at Lords of the Fallen. The game looks like a pretty cool action-oriented RPG that will definitely stay on my radar. There didn’t appear to be anything truly groundbreaking with it, but that’s not always a bad thing. It looks like they’ve taken concepts from a number of different games and merged them into a pretty impressive package. I’m looking forward to seeing more about the game as their marketing team begins to spin up the hype wheels later this year.

And that, my friends, was the end of that. Reuben, being the machine he is, went back to the hotel to write some articles while I took some time to head over to the SWTOR Community Cantina event and hang out with some old friends and former coworkers of mine. Not only was it a good time, but by being there, I was able to score us some sweet preview information you can see here! Eventually, Jeff and Dee Dee of TORWars.com were kind enough to drive me back to Santa Monica so I could get a few hours of sleep before an ungodly early flight.

All in all, it was a great week. Extremely tiring, extremely busy, lots of long hours and hard work… and I wouldn’t change it for the world. It’s an exciting time to be back on the press side of the game industry and I’m stoked Reuben and I have been able to bring you so much information. If you’ve missed any of our E3 coverage from last week, be sure to go to this page and get caught up. Believe me, you don’t want to miss any of it!

PS – Avoided Brujah capture. Had to destroy all backup documents in Team Hammer Mobile Command Center. Mission complete.