E3 usually conjures up images of flashy lights, over the top booths, loud music, and of course, booth babes. I witnessed none of those things this year at E3. While the other Frag Dolls were miles and miles away over at Barker Hangar, I spent my entire three days cooped up in one room at the Loews Hotel, just one of the many locations where E3 was being held. It was just me, my amp, and Jam Sessions - oh, and a few other games were nearby that you may have heard of: Rayman Raving Rabbids 2, Naruto, My Word Coach, Assassin’s Creed…

Ok, back to Jam Sessions. This is not so much a “game”, but more like turning your DS into a musical instrument. It’s really just a matter of hitting a direction on the keypad to pick the chord you want to play and then “strumming” with the stylus. So, for those people who have never played a guitar, this is an easy way to sound like a pro; for those musicians out there, this is the tool for you. You have all your fancy built-in chords (Bm6, Asus4, E4-5/98dim… you get the point) that can be accessed by just dragging and dropping; you have a record function that you can use anytime, anywhere (for those musicians composing on the run); and you also have cool effect pedals for those electric guitar players - literally a guitar in your pocket!

Since this is such a cool game, I was requested to demo it for none other than Shigeru Miyamoto. The demo was going to be held in a private showing on the last day of E3. I was stoked. When Friday came along, everyone was asked to leave the room so he and his entourage could see some demos. Well, I was one of the lucky people who got to stick around. The folks from Montreal demoed Rayman Raving Rabbids 2 first, which was a great way to start out since I’ve always been curious to see if Miyamoto would find Rabbits washing underwear amusing. Well, he did! It was great to see him laugh at the silly rabbits and to see him drumming along to the beats of the rabbit rock band mini-game, especially since he had such a serious presence in the room. Unfortunately though, because time was short, the Miyamoto party had to leave in order to be able to catch the Assassin’s Creed demo. Boo hoo. I admit I was really bummed not to be able to demo for him (I was totally ready to rock out with him!), but hey, at least I can say I got to sort of hang out with him!

He’s on the right in case you’re not sure

Miyamoto is not amused...

Ah, much better!