After last year's detour to Santa Monica, E3 returned this year to its traditional home at the L.A. Convention Center. But the more things stay the same, the more they change, as they say (if they're a bit confused). Despite the return to the old location, much of this year's E3 had an empty, ghost town feeling when compared to E3s past. The general lack of participating developers and publishers, combined with the strict, invite-only attendee list combined to make a show that seemed incredibly small in the incredibly large convention center. To see just how small, check out our "E3, then and now" gallery, which compare scenes from previous E3s to similar scenes from this year's show.

Each week Mark Methenitis contributes Law of the Game on Joystiq, a column on legal issues as they relate to video games:

As we wrap up our E3 2008 coverage here at Joystiq HQ, I thought it might be a good time to take a look at what makes many of E3's big surprises possible: the non-disclosure agreement. Non-disclosure agreements, or NDAs, are common not only in the gaming industry but in virtually all industries, and I've drafted my fair share of them. However, they are exceedingly prevalent in the game industry because of their application to not only game company employees but also members of the press who are given early access to titles subject to media blackouts, which are just another form of non-disclosure agreement.

So, what is an NDA? At the simplest level, it's just another contract, but one that limits someone's ability to share certain information, sometimes with anyone and sometimes with certain designated people, for a set period of time. The NDA arose because companies have to share information with employees and outsiders, and those companies need to manage the risk of having that confidential information leaked to the public or to competitors. NDAs may be stand alone contracts or provisions of larger agreements, largely depending on the context in which they are needed.

Real Time Strategies have never been a good fit for consoles, thanks to their over-reliance on a mouse and keyboard. The Creative Assembly are hoping to change that with Stormrise by creating a fully intuitive, pad-based control system. Unfortunately, we didn't get a chance to try the controls out for ourselves, but from what we saw it has some potential.

Selecting units is as simple as flicking the right analogue stick. Holding it in any direction will bring up a radar screen, showing your troops throughout the level relative to your currently selected unit. Rotating the right stick will let you highlight your units and, letting go of the stick, select them. Quickly "whipping" the right stick in any given direction will select the nearest unit in that direction, allowing you to switch between units swiftly.

Once selected, the game's viewpoint switches to above and behind the unit, allowing you to see what they see. They can then be moved to any visible ground using a 3D cursor. This seemed to work well, but there are also other methods of controlling units that seemed to work even better, depending on your play style.

Sonic has had a hard time since he discovered the third dimension. Not only is he now chubbier, but his adventures in 3D-land have been met with lukewarm reception. The general consensus is that the last great Sonic game was on the Sega Genesis. With Sonic Unleashed Sega are hoping to reinvigorate the franchise with a focus on speed and platforming, as well as evolving the character (literally) into something unique.

The first thing you notice about Unleashed is that it's very pretty. Even with rough shadows and unfinished lighting physics, the game looks gorgeous. It looks like it might also play quite nicely, depending on controls. There are two different styles of gameplay in Unleashed which, together, could satisfy most Sonic fans.

For a lot of people the name Sonic is synonymous with "speed," and the day-time missions in Unleashed reflect this. The first level seemed simple enough -- hold the analog stick in the right direction and watch Sonic go, making sure to jump in time. Obviously, this won't be true throughout the game, later levels will feature more precise platforming sections and less non-stop running. There are also different routes to take throughout the levels, which require a specific button combination press in order to reach.

Volition's decision to change the perspective in Red Faction: Guerrilla from the first to the third-person couldn't have been an easy choice to make, but it seems to be the right one, something that even now feels strange to put to words. Even as a fan of the developer's terrain-deforming original, it's difficult to look back on Red Faction without qualifying my enthusiasm with the promises and potential of what might have been.

However, after sitting down with Volition senior artist Jasen Whiteside over a hurried E3 lunch and actually playing the title, it's evident that action game fans shouldn't feel at all awkward about adding Red Faction: Guerrilla to their list of titles to look forward to in early 2009.

Each week Dennis McCauley contributes The Political Game, a column on the collision of politics and video games:
For more than a decade the Electronic Entertainment Expo was a must-see event for game retailers and media types. While it's true that in recent years E3 had become an exercise in wretched excess, that was, in fact, a large part of its charm. By day E3 featured massive, massively noisy game displays laid out end to end to end in the cavernous main halls of the Los Angeles Convention Center . By night dozens of game industry parties kept L.A.'s bartenders and sushi makers off the unemployment lines and gave a generation of scruffy game journalists an all-too-brief taste of the good life. In 2006, its final year as an extravaganza, a reported 80,000 people streamed past E3's exhibits.

But beyond that, E3 put the modern video game business on the map. You could be certain of national T.V. coverage from all of the major networks. The top newspapers were there as well. The media coverage of the show's bright lights, booth babes and nonstop bells and whistles made mainstream America sit up and take notice of a form of entertainment it had previously held to be child's play, and for geeky children at that. Of course, the gaming press went absolutely nuts during E3 week, pushing screen shots and trailers and interviews and whatever else it could get hold of to millions of eager readers.

To paraphrase Mick Jagger, I used to love you, E3, but it's all over now.

With the App Store open for business, games are finally headed to Apple's iPhone, and the unit's multitouch interface, accelerometer, and built-in mic and speaker make it perfect for gaming. THQ Wireless is one of the many companies getting ready to try and cash in on the first generation of the App Store -- after making games for a lot of other mobile devices, Director of Global Production Brad Pitser is excited about finally releasing software for the iPhone.

Joystiq got to play two different games in THQ's demo at E3. De Blob is a handheld adaptation of the Wii game, and uses the accelerometer in the iPhone and iPod touch to do a little light platform puzzling. And Force Unleashed attempts to recreate the upcoming Star Wars action title, by using a touchscreen gesture system to try and make you feel like a Jedi. impressions of both are after the break.

Thanks to the dedicated blogging of the folks at Behemoth, we pretty much knew everything there was to know about Castle Crashers coming into E3 -- it's the followup to Alien Hominid, a game that started out on Newgrounds, and ended up on the XBLA. It's got tons of playable characters, lots of "animal orbs" you can recruit to fight with you, and a great art style and a sly sense of humor. In fact, the only thing we didn't know about it was probably the most important thing: how it actually played.

After playing it with Microsoft Director of Digitally Distributed Content Scott Austin here at E3, we can safely say it's going to be one of the biggest XBLA titles of this year (it's due out before September 21st). Castle Crashers is crazy good button mashing fun, and we can't wait to lay down our hard-earned Microsoft Points for it.

For some unfathomable reason, we've recorded a second E3 2008 podcast. Not only that, but we've uploaded it onto the interweb and constructed a largely vacuous paragraph urging you to listen to the show. What can you expect? There's talk of Prince of Persia, Mirror's Edge, Tom Clancy's Endwar and boring press conferences, not to mention a strict adherence to our remarkably high audio quality and professionalism. Ahem.

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Upon walking into the tiny room Sega had Platinum Games crammed into in their closed-door section of the E3 floor, we thought that Bayonetta would be the only title on-hand. Then, our wildest dreams came true and we were graced with what is sure to be a day one purchase for us: Wii title MadWorld.

We're not kidding. You'll want to buy this game.

In the madness of E3, we got 10 minutes with Rock Band 2's Senior Designer Dan Teasdale. We rattled off a bunch of questions and jotted down his basic answers. Full quotes? We don't have time for full quotes! Check out the rapid-fire Q&A after the break.

We'll make a promise to you: not once in this preview will we reference the "Things that occur in Vegas" advertising slogan that seems to pop up every time someone mentions the mecca of mischievousness in the middle of Nevada. Except for that one time. No more.

This is Vegas is a game dreamed up by an assistant. Senior Associate Producer Trevor Ellington told us the real story behind the Sin City-based open-world humor game: an executive assistant at Midway came up with the idea of a game that replicated all of the wild fun to be had in Vegas, and thus was born TiV. During the demo we saw here at E3, the game presented four various scenarios: Fight, Party, Game, Drive, but by the time the game is released in 2009, they'll all be melded into what's supposed to be a sandbox of a good time.

Vin Diesel's gaming company, Tigon Studios, is trying to make good with Wheelman, a Driver-esque, open world action/driving experience due out from Midway. There were a few... interesting innovations in the game (instead of stopping your car to steal other vehicles, you can now hijack any car on the road while in motion), but this was mostly a case of "we saw it being played so you don't have to."

Still, Producer Pall Palsson was kind enough to show us what his team has been up to lately, so check after the break to see both what Wheelman has to offer, and what it doesn't (hint: realistic physics).

6:55 pm PT: We're inside the Vibiana awaiting Activision's press conference. The place looks like a renovated church. Along the middle are rows of chairs, and at each corner are L-shaped couches with tables filling the square, covered in sushi and edamame. The music just changed from Santeria to Foo Fighters' "Everlong." As a reminder: this it, folks, for Activision, so any big announcement they have will likely come out in the next hour or so.

7:08: We've moved to a what is the equivalent of the third row inside of a horseshoe of couches. Still nothing but the Activision (and not Activision Blizzard) logo across all the monitors throughout the venue.