Tokyo Game Show...
 

I'm just taking a breather from the showfloor at the TGS pressroom.
After last nights mad Karaoke session ( you just have to hear the Japanese cover version of "Smells Like Teen Spirit" )i didnt catch much sleep at all.

The show just opened its doors for the public so its getting pretty insane in here..the crowds are crazy.

A LOT of quality software out there...especially from Sega and Sony
s got some cool voice/recognition software going on..

The new MGS2 trailer...MAN!!!
Lots of characters are shown like Otacon who is talkign to a parrot..looks like hes got a message from Snake or something. The vampire looking guy is in there and there were a few scenes that showed a massive research complex on water...kinda like the one in Deep Blue Sea. Snake also swims around a bit, so there
s plenty of action happening outside the boat as well. There were just so many jaw droppingly cool scenes there..Ocelot battling against ninja, Snake being surrounded by Ninja looking guys...very cool.

Gamecube is all over the stores in Akihbara but its not selling very well it seems..very few stores had it out demoed...mostly its PS2 games and Wonderswan.

XBox is big at TGS, lots of games, the new Microsoft/Dreamfactory beat
em up was running and it looks pretty ****ing amazing. No rough edges anywhere unlike most of the XBox games shown. Jet Set Radio Future was great, had lots of slowdown but the amount of geometry and textures separates it from the DC version..played well enough.

Squares Disney RPG looked like lots of fun..superb animation on especially Pluto.

Allright back to work...sorry for the very writing error laden text but i
m in a hurry and working on a Jap/ish PC.

Hey, thanks for the post Thomas...again, you are the envy of all your friends, getting to visit Japan - during TGS, no doubt! http://www.veforums.com/smile.gif

I wondered how that Dream Factory game was going to be...I always thought Tobal and Tobal 2 were really under-appreciated and a lot of fun, but after The Bouncer I was a little concerned that gameplay went straight out the window in favor of eye candy. If you get a chance to play, I'll be real interested to hear what you think of that.

MGS 2...mmmm...

Anyway, when you get some time after working the show, you oughtta write a little post with what you thought were the coolest games and notable items at the show! Jason called me tonight, excitedly talking about the colored PS2 shells...hehe.

Oh, and also...what do you think of the Japanese XBox controller, as opposed to the American one they showed at E3? It sure looked a lot more comfortable/smaller in the photos...

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Kevin, the erstwhile "Hi-Fi"
www.videowrestling.com

Man, judging from the updates I've looked at from TGS this year, Microsoft really put a lot more time/effort into planning their Japanese trade show appearance. I suppose they realize how important it is to wrangle a bunch of sales in Japan, and with the weak performance of the Game Cube so far, I've got to believe there are a lot of Japanese gamers willing to give the XBox a shot.

Should be real interesting to see what happens. I'll be curious to hear what Thomas thinks after the show!

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Kevin, the erstwhile "Hi-Fi"
www.videowrestling.com

At the pressroom again with the IGN journos and a few Italian ones. Karaoke last night, beer and some crazy Japanese taking us out...its all good.

I saw VF4 yesterday on the PS2 and Suzuki/San was demoing it. Now, ALL the geometry from the arcade version was in the PS2 version and the characters were just as amazing looking. The resolution is low right now which I]m pretty sure is due to the very early nature of the code. I should be able to see and play the game next wee so I can check it out in more detail.

What is clear is that VF4 looks far better than Tekken4 especially in motion.

XBox was out in force but the games werent convincing everybody. Only a handful of games looked like really good xbox console games. The K1 fighter was looking good as was DOA3 but certainly in light of VF4 on PS2 these games didnt blow my mind. Gunvalkyrie looked hot and I played quite a lot of ( ie 4 minutes ) Jet Set Radio Future. Now that game while suffering from slowdown, was putting the XBox to good use with MASSIVE enviroments, tons of geometry and textures...and the gameplay was hot.

Virtua Tennis 2 is tha bomb!

I'm sorry I missed this TGS, because it sounds like there is some amazing stuff on the floor... and if you believe IGN, everything is a "masterpiece." Tools.

Methinks I will be procuring an X-Box, thanks to Sega's announcements. However, I doubt I'll take one home until 2002, when the Sega games really start flowing. I just hope that Sega isn't putting all it's eggs in the wrong basket. Of course, with VF4 on PS2, it looks like they aren't... but I'm not expecting a big pop for the X-Box in Japan, at least not at first. I think that Sega's support will certainly help MS, though... and Nintendo. Super Monkey Ball is an awesome game, but it isn't the biggest brand out there.

Is anybody curious why the hell Sega is releasing another Space Channel 5 game? Uh, the first one tanked. Hard. Same as the new Jet Set Radio. Now, I loved the first Jet Set--I think it was a great game. But it didn't really set the world on fire, unfortunately. This new game had better be something special to warrant the expense on continuing the shaky franchise. Of course, if it's anything like the original, I'll buy it day one, but I'm just curious why Sega gave it the greenlight. And don't gimme that crap about Sega taking care of gamers, because if that was the case, they wouldn't have cancelled the DC version of Shenmue 2.

From the looks of it, I'll be importing an XBox controller when I buy the US system...that thing just looks better designed and more comfortable than the unweildy American version. There are definitely some good games on the way, though...Microsoft is starting to win me over, little by little. I'm still not liable to buy one right away, because most of the stuff I really want won't be out till next year - but I don't think Microsoft really has to worry about the system failing.

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Kevin, the erstwhile "Hi-Fi"
www.videowrestling.com

Just spent a day at Sony witnessing some amazsing technology stuff with USB cameras. They could do those nifty Lawnmover Man/Johnny Mnemonim onscreen virtual by interfaces easily..you could play pong by waving your arms in front of the tv set...amazing stuff. they had a kick ass voice recognition game in the works as well which they showed for the first time to anyone outside SCEI. You are a detectiuve who commands his trusty dog around..you can give coice commands to it ...it was all very innovative and fun...and early.

Saw Soul Calibur 2 on PS2 at Namco on Monday. Forget about the GC version, Namco is doing it on the PS2 and then its goign to port it over to GC and XBox..it will take a while before the non-ps2 versions will surface. The game was 45%, so it
ss got ways to go. Xenosaga is just an brilliuant looking rpg...80 heads working on that gaùme...the devstudio was depressingly similair as 99% of devestudios..small cubicles and tons of action figures.

I got to go out with sojme old skool Namco people last nite which was amazing. They te
told me all about the Nintendo Namco rift...and they arent very confident at all in XBox and despite the lagging sales, 90% Japanese developers prefer to work on the GC games or PS2...so its an uphill battle for XBox in Japan. Theres some pretty cool games coming for it...we didnt get to seee the new Ridge Racer, it doesnt have a launch datge even yet, but its oone big project and Namco really wants to compete with GT3 in terms of popularity. Namcos new tennis game was brilliant, its very much like virtua tennis now instead of the big head small body stule smash court of the old.

Sounds like you had a pretty productive trip Thomas...that's good to hear! I can't say I'm all that surprised about the response to the XBox on the part of developers in Japan; to this point, they've been supporting consoles that had their ORIGINS in Japan. An American manufacturer coming in asking them to develop for their new console wasn't likely to be greeted with a lot of smiling faces. Whether they like it or not, though, America has become the dominant consumer in the video game industry over the past 3-4 years, due to the PlayStation's enormous popularity. They'll fall in line...economics will dictate that they must, and the bottom line here is always money - not philosophy.

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Kevin, the erstwhile "Hi-Fi"
www.videowrestling.com