When major game publishers choose venue-cities for their various events, demos, launch parties, "Editor's Days" and other assorted industry to-dos throughout the year, there are some definite patterns, tendencies and old standbys: The San Francsico Bay Area is always one popular choice, due largely to the relative proximity and density of game companies and publications; and obviously, New York City is the King Kong Central of media outlets, so a good two-day media tour through there can likewise net a savvy publisher a lot of coverage for their Next Big Thing in gaming.

There's also one other very regular, popular venue-choice for publisher events, one which has none of these obvious editorially-focused advantages: Las Vegas. So when you're a major game publisher showing off your big-gun upcoming titles, one of which is "This is Vegas," an open-world/Grand Theft Auto-ish action game whose entire raison d'etre is to exaggerate and glorify the crazy, glitzy-casino fantasy-life of the world-famous Vegas Strip, why, the clear best choice is to fly in gaggles of gaming-press from both coasts... and then promptly shuttle them past, away from, and well beyond the aforementioned glitzy Strip! And on out into the desert! To a self-contained resort on the fringes of civilization, where you can damn well keep some kind of eye on your more easily-distracted press-geese ("no nine-mojito-fueled-quickie-weddings-to-a-stripper-named-Dallas for you, you freakin' nerds: Now sit here, have an h'orderve, and watch this game demo, dammit" -- y'know, maybe these industry-veteran PR people are getting to know us a little too well).

Actually, despite its considerable remove from the mental default-image of "Vegas," the Red Rock resort was an interesting, classy place: New enough to be fairly (eerily) quiet at certain wee hours, even on the gambling floors, spacious enough to be fairly self-contained with casinos, indoor shopping, clubs, spas, pools, golf-courses-to-be under construction for what seemed like miles around, a gobsmackingly-massive bowling alley in which fellow editor Joe Dodson and I sustained minor injuries around 2:15 AM (largely through failure-to-launch difficulties vis a vis the bowling balls, a whole other story), and, most importantly, lots of ballroom and outdoor-patio demo space for a heavily-attended videogame sneak-peek.

After an introductory press-conference (during which, to my surprise, actual TNA wrestlers pimp-rolled down the aisles, joining TV sports presenter Jeremy Borash onstage to announce the forthcoming TNA Impact Wrestling games), we were turned loose downstairs on game-demo stations that dotted a suitably-dark nightclub and spilled out into a sprawling pool-patio in the warm Vegas evening.

I am happy to report that not a single one of those expensive flatscreen displays out there got knocked into the dangerously-nearby swimming pools that evening -- a fact that surprised many of us almost as much as the announcement of Midway's crossover fighting title Mortal Kombat Vs. DC. Yeah, as in Superman and Batman in a classic, bawls-out brawler. Fer real.

Moving on to the games lineup proper, next up is a sampling of the things we got our eyes and/or mitts on, before things got irreversibly blurry.