Danny @ TGS – Round-Up

Well, Tokyo Game Show 2010 has come to an end and the time has come to reflect on it.

Saturday and Sunday were the public days, meaning that the amount of people crammed into Makuhari Messe multiplied a few times and the queues even more so.

The games line-up this year was not as strong as it has been in previous years. With no truly killer titles, Sony were focusing heavily on the Move while Microsoft did its thing with Kinect. Nintendo no longer attends TGS for reasons unknown, so the 3DS was not playable either. While I tried a few Move and Kinect titles, I left the show floor feeling unconvinced by many of the interactive games on offer. There is no doubt that PlayStation Move is a lot more responsive than the Wiimote and some Kinect games are very involving, but one can’t help but feel it was all done four years ago with the Wii, or even seven years ago with the EyeToy. Do we really need jazzed up old hat?

The latest trend in 3D titles was also evident on the show floor. Maybe it’s something to do with my colour-blindness, but 3D effects take a while to start working with me, and when they do, the effect is much like a pop-up book. Unconvincing and largely unnecessary.

Few publishers pulled out all the stops in their areas this year. In fact, the only area that really did was Capcom’s. The Monster Hunter Portable 3rd, Dead Rising 2, Ace Attorney Investigations: Miles Edgeworth 2, Mega Man Universe and Marvel vs. Capcom 3 areas were all spectacles to behold. Sega came in second with its Ryū ga Gotoku (Yakuza) booths for “Of the End” (PS3) and “Black Leopard: New Chapter” (PSP).

My one true escape last year was the Family Area. With only parents and the press able to enter, it is the only place with room to breathe. This year there was a little too much room. Both literally and figuratively overshadowed by the Tougeki Super Battle Opera, the area sadly had very little going on. With fewer arcade cabinets and promotional game stands the area seemed a little sad. Cooking Mama, Tamagotchi and a couple of Inazuma Eleven (a popular Football RPG for the DS) characters cheered the place up by wobbling around in their suits, though.

While the public days last year had me queuing for hours to get elusive Ubisoft tees and whatnot, this year none of the prizes really grabbed me. Most were throwaway postcards and keychains. Magpie that I am, this let me down a little so I spent a lot of my time on the public days attending shows that were in the back hall and checking out the cosplayers.

The Cosplay part of TGS was heavily promoted this year, however, no new special area was set up for cosplayers. This meant that the areas between the event halls were the only place for them to set up and pose, meaning things often got a little pushy. My pick for this year was between Pyramid Head and Cutie Honey from Fighting Vipers, just for the sheer retro Sega awesomeness. The Pyramid Head, corpse and nurse combo was believable enough to genuinely freak out a poor kid dressed up as Snow White who ran away screaming and crying. Guilty as everyone felt, we all had a bit of a chuckle.

The Tougeki Super Battle Opera, a hardcore arcade fighting game competition, was remarkably well-attended considering the pricetag to get in – fifty of your British Pounds. That isn’t including the cost of TGS either. Press didn’t get a free ride either, as it was a separate event. Instead, I spent a fraction of this on an official Tougeki tee and bandana (don’t tell anyone I didn’t actually attend any of it!).

On Saturday evening, CosPlay@TGS2010 was a surprise hit. Hosted by Yunmao Ayakawa, of Japanorama fame, the event was a rather strange mix of cosplayer line-ups, Hatsune Miku: Project DIVA 2nd (a PSP rhythm-action game) advertising and a surreal Dance Night where dozens of cosplayers spontaneously started dancing to trippy techno remixes of videogame beats.

On Sunday, the Japan game Awards 2010 took place. It may sound odd, but the only reason I attended them was to see Shinya Arino in person. Unknown outside of Japan, he is the presenter of Game Centre CX – a TV show where Arino-san plays old, often very poor, games all the way through despite not being very good at them. Worthy winners included El Shaddai: Ascension of the Metatron (Ignition Entertainment), Ni no Kuni (LEVEL-5/Studio Ghibli) and Ryū ga Gotoku Of the End (SEGA).

The main highlights of the show for me, aside from the games, of course, were seeing and meeting stars from the games industry. Interviewing both Hidetaka Suehiro and Takashi Iizuka was a pleasure. I even managed to sneak in a copy of Red Seeds Profile (Deadly Premonition) to get it signed by SWERY and a copy of NiGHTS to get signed by Iizuka-san. Visitors to The Behemoth’s booth were lucky enough to meet their in-house artist, the charming Dan Paladin, and get a picture drawn and signed right in front of them. I requested Alien Hominid, naturally. Nearby, at Irem’s Disaster Report 4: Summer Memories booth, singer songwriter Mai Iida played and sang the game’s theme Finally, on Sunday afternoon, Toshihiro Nagoshi made my day by showing up outside the Ryū ga Gotoku area to have his photo taken with fans.

Only a few games at TGS caught me off guard. And these are the three that I recommend you keep an eye on. The first is unlikely to ever make it to the West, but the other two have a fair chance. Enjoy!

Catherine [キャサリン] (PS3/360):

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E0tyx_Jj2rA[/youtube]

Disaster Report 4: Summer Memories [絶対絶都市4: Summer Memories]:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D7M-2QJd61A[/youtube]

Yakuza: Of the End [龍が如く Of the End] (PS3)

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zzfsq3C4aHY[/youtube]

A final note…