E3 Day One (15)

The trailer opened, and to everyone's surprise, it was neither CG nor in-game footage.

It was a live-action recording.

The rough, grainy image quality of handheld DV footage.

The camera swayed as it moved through a crowded street.

Overhead, a dense forest of neon signs—free information centers, nyotaimori, pachinko parlors—interwove, staining the night sky a decadent pink.

Scantily clad hostesses by the roadside covered their mouths and giggled at the camera, while men in black suits smoked at alley entrances.

Shinjuku Kabukicho Ichibangai.

A stir ran through the audience.

Americans knew little about Japan's yakuza culture, but they had an extremely sharp nose for scenes like this from a red-light district.

"What game is this? An interactive live-action film?" EGM's editor-in-chief turned to ask his deputy. "Is Sega putting adult content on consoles?"

"This looks familiar." A GamePro reporter beside them cut in. "The nightlife in Los Angeles's San Fernando Valley is about on this level too. The Japanese really know their stuff when it comes to this."

Several people let out knowing chuckles.

Before the laughter had faded, the live-action footage on the screen changed.

The camera zoomed in and passed through a rain-speckled glass window.

In that instant, the visuals made a seamless transition from live action to real-time 3D rendering.

It was still that same street, still those same neon lights.

But now, they had become a digital world built from polygons and textures.

Puddles on the asphalt reflected crisscrossing red and blue signs. A pair of leather shoes stepped into a puddle, splashing water and shattering the reflection.

The camera panned upward from the shoes, settling on the back of a man in a gray suit, the outline of a tattoo showing through his clothes.

There was no specific UI shown, nor was there a conventional