Why Is Paris Hilton Hanging Out With These Geeks?

Stars are flocking to the E3 gaming conference

Paris Hilton, Eminem and a two-story stripper pole?

This can only mean one thing…

…the gaming conference known as E3 is on and it's ready to party. But if you're like us, you don't have time to spend to check out everything at the event—except maybe the booth babes and odd Michael Jackson game—so we've assembled the essentials for you now:

Celebrities Got Game: With Paris Hilton and Vanessa Hudgens in attendance, Activision put on a mega show featuring Usher and Will.i.am, Jane's Addiction, Soundgarden, and a performance by Eminem and Rihanna. Plus, an aerialist on a two-story stripper pole

Why? So you'll check out games Call of Duty: Black Ops, Guitar Hero: Warriors of Rock, Tony Hawk's new game and DJ Hero 2. As if you wouldn't have anyway…

Lookout, It's 3-D: Sony showed off exclusive PS3 3-D games, but the tiny Nintendo 3DS was the standout. It seems impossible for a portable to do all it does, but we've seen it and the 3-D actually looks pretty rad. Plus, it has built-in lenses so you can take 3-D pictures!

Total Circus: Microsoft's expensive Cirque du Soleil presentation for their new Kinect product—an infrared beam that reads the player's body movements for Wii-like fun--found hipster icon Michael Cera hanging with Billy Crystal. Massive and crazy, the whole thing felt very Avatar…and probably cost as much.

Yarn! Hands down the strangest game of the show is Kirby's Epic Yarn due later this fall for the Wii. You control a piece of yarn and uses the power of string to defeat baddies. Think Loco Roco meets Paper Mario, but it might be even better than those classics.

Franchise Favorites Return: Some franchises never die and we're fine with that! Gears of War 3, Killzone 3 (in 3-D!), Metroid: The Other M, Dead Space 2, a new Zelda and Portal 2 all looked stellar. And while the 007 movie franchise is on hold, '90s classic Goldeneye 007 returns for the Wii with a Daniel Craig makeover.