Every year, a huge show hall in Tokyo gets rented for a few days, and the big names of video game production go wild, making the most elaborate stands and cramming as many wide screen TVs as they can into one space. Then an obscene number of people come to the hall, try the games out and have a great, if claustrophobic, time. Today I went along with the volunteers and ex-volunteer Mike to the show, to see how little of it I would understand. Turns out: very little.
I made a video which is on Youtube, which shows what the event is like, but to avoid legal issues and boring people who aren’t interested in particular games, I cut a lot of footage out. So I’m going to post the video here, then do some reviews below on the blog. So if you’re interested in particular titles, I advise you read on!
Ok, reviews then. I’m not up to date on gaming, nor am I a console warrior or brand addict, so I’m just going to bust out one or two line reviews for each game / product I saw. If you want more info, leave a comment!
Assassin’s Creed 2 looks, stylistically, as cool as a cucumber. The gameplay again was hidden so it was just promo videos, but the game looked wonderful. The PSP game didn’t look quite as shiny (obviously) but overall it hit home nicely. The PS3 version was getting colossal lines to try it out (like over 3 hours!) whereas the 360 version wasn’t quite as popular. I don’t know why.
Dirt 2 is not really my cup of tea but we played it as the queue was short and it was suprisingly fun. If you like cars. Or crashing into things.
End Of Eternity / Resonance Of Fate was the most awesome looking game I saw. It looks, stylistically, like Final Fantasy meets Devil May Cry, and that’s kind of how it plays. A lot of dashing around, but with numbers. Very fast paced too. Plus the soundtrack was unbelievable. I hate myself for saying it but with Playstation 3s being so cheap nowadays I could see this sealing the deal for me…
Final Fantasy 13 was, of course, looking amazing but sadly they only showed us promo videos, no game play, but what I saw was great. Again, the soundtrack made me a happy happy orchestral bunny.
Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker was *really* hard to play. I’m not a huge MGS fan but I really didn’t get to grips with this in the fifteen mins I had to play it at all. But I don’t really know much about the series so I don’t think I’m really the one to talk about it.
Quantum Theory was the biggest letdown. It’s a mix of Gears Of War-esque 3rd person shooting, but with a more alien feel to it, and a girl who runs around helping you like the girl from Prince Of Persia. It was clunky and not much fun. I guess if you like Gears you might enjoy it.
Tekken Six is more of the same but the change is big enough to justify a whole new game – the return of the side-scroller ‘Tekken Force’ is back (in 3D!), and it has co-op now! I played it for about 5 minutes and the new characters were all nice and unique, and visually it’s an amazing upgrade.
So that’s my erratic and nonsensical coverage of Tokyo Game Show 2009. Hopefully next time my blog will be so famous I’ll get into the earlier, quieter, press and business only day and be able to shoot a video that doesn’t shake all over the place. So someone ring Sony and tell them to hurry up and make Final Mike: A Doomed Fantasy.
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I’m so jealous! The footage they showed on FF13, was it all new or the same old? I’m only buying a PS3 when Tekken 6 & FFV13 comes out… or else, saving my money! :)
MaiaX3: I really don’t know. Square Enix were just running videos for different games, a few of them I’d never heard of before. I *think* the FF13 footage was a boy falling through the sky, and then he clips a sword into something on his wrist (??) and fires it at something (??)
I don’t know if that’s new or not.
I easily get addicted to PSP games and i am always updated with the newest PSP games in town.,,`