This post has not been edited by the GamesBeat staff. Opinions by GamesBeat community writers do not necessarily reflect those of the staff.
Editor’s note: Nicholas delivers a community look at this year’s Tokyo Game Show. He got a chance to play a couple of the show’s big games, like Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker and Gran Turismo 5. -Jason
I’ve made it to the 2009 Tokyo Game Show! And you know the motto was this year: Game, it’s so energetic!
After a day at the show, I decided that the motto should rather be: Game, it’s so…OK.
Allow me to walk everyone through my day.
The first thing I noticed was that a lot of white people were at TGS. And that it was megacrowded. I’ve been to E3 before, but this was insane.
Look at how many people are in this image. Now, that’s energetic!
The next thing I find is a little troublesome. At the convention’s entrance, security was performing bag checks. For readers who haven’t been to Japan, all Japanese men carry a manpurse. All of ’em.
Security had a nice stash of confiscated material — here’s a picture.
A) What kind of cosplay character carries an iron? Either someone wanted to make sure their cape didn’t get wrinkled, or the iron was a leftover weapon from Dead Rising.
B) That’s a lot scissors, and again, why would someone bring scissors to a game show? I can understand the drumsticks — maybe there’s some sweet new Rock Band game — but scissors? Then again, maybe they’re just a blatant weapon.
C) You’ve got to be kidding. Could you imagine if you brought an AirSoft Fun BB gun to E3? I don’t think you’d make it through South L.A. There must’ve been a gunless Dante somewhere on the show floor.
The two biggest attractions inside were Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker for the PSP and Bayonetta.
I spent the first hour of the show simply walking around the show floor. I thought that maybe Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 would be playable, so I looked everywhere for it. After about 30 minutes of walking around, all I found was disapointment. The only thing at TGS about MW2 was the same demo shown at E3 looping over and over. This was sad.
Oh, and in case you’re wondering why I don’t have a picture of the platform, it’s because no pictures were allowed. That’s understandable, because god forbid a leaked video of a 6-month-old trailer hit the Internet.
I wanted to see if EA was around. There’s been a lot of buzz about their second attempt at Battlefield: Bad Company. It’s supposed to give COD a run for its money. But I couldn’t find Bad Company 2.
I asked all kinds of media and press members if they saw Bad Company 2. Apparently it was shown Friday at the press conference, but nothing was on the floor for the public. Anyway, I saw this…it looks rad [via GameTrailers].
What also struck me as really weird was that Nintendo didn’t appear to be there. One of my teachers told me that the Wii considers itself a family system. And apparently Nintendo doesn’t view the Tokyo Game Show as a family event, therefore they wouldn’t be attending the convention. Drag.
Time to make the best of this show.
I was able to get a “Fast Pass,” for Left 4 Dead 2. Similar to its Disneyland counterpart, the Fast Pass let me come back at a scheduled time to play the game. While waiting to play L4D2, I went to the Sony booth and found a playable version of Heavy Rain.
Everything about this game is difficult. It’s difficult to walk, to look around, to put on your magic sunglasses, to pick a fight, to pick up objects, to pick your nose. Everything is difficult. I felt sorry for the poor Japanese female employee showing the game — she showed endless patience as she tried to walk me through the demo.
The controls were wonky, visuals that were once real impressive don’t catch me anymore, and I couldn’t hear anything (like it mattered — I don’t understand dubbed Japanese…or regular Japanese, even). I hope this game shapes up to be good; I have high expectations for it.
Left 4 Dead 2 was the highlight of my trip, limbs down. Once in the booth I was able to interview the nice Valve woman. She answered all of my questions about the game and then let me play the Haunted Carnival demo. Afterward, she gave me a T-shirt, and I told her to tell Gabe Newell that Half-Life changed my life.
For the sake of time, I will write a full review of my L4D2 experience in a few days.
Lunchtime. There’s nothing quite like sitting on the floor with a bunch of other people and eating dry noodles and drinking lukewarm Coca-Cola. Now, on to Gran Turismo 5.
I wasn’t able to play the game. I talked to a few that did, and they said it was absolutely incredible. They also mentioned that playing with the steering wheel was a real plus. I know GT has a lot of loyal fans, and they should be real excited for this one.
I decided to then give Bayonetta a chance. It had, after all, one of the biggest booths at the show. I shamelessly waited about 90 minutes to play the game.
I had low expectations for the game. I thought it was a Devil May Cry clone. Once I started to play the game, I was taken by it. The game is over the top.
The beginning of the demo has you falling from the heavens and riding a giant broken grandfather clock similar to England’s Big Ben while fighting hordes of demons. The music was loud and “goddy.”
Though I enjoyed being overwhelmed by the opening, its gameplay was a little strange. Here I was doing all kinds of combos, such as throwing baddies into coffins, onto guillotines, and having a dragon come out of my…? And eat a demon? But I had very little idea of how I was doing any of it. I lost interest in the game pretty fast.
Fans of Devil May Cry may like Bayonetta. But I always liked DMC because Dante was effin’ cool! I don’t find that same sense of badassness in Bayonetta.
I wonder what Bitmobbers would like to see from the show? Cosplay.
I dig the girl who dressed as Yoshi!
This one just freaked me out, but I thought you’d like it.
OK, this isn’t cosplay at all. In fact, it’s Morgan Webb from G4TV. I couldn’t help myself — I had to take a picture. She’s a lot smaller in real life. I always thought she had shoulders that could take out a linebacker. But in real life, not so much.
Back to the games. It’s time to play MGS: Peace Walker. I really hoped that I would be able to play the game on the new PSP Go, but I wasn’t able to. The game’s a co-op version of the MGS series that’s intended support up to four players. I wasn’t able to try to co-op because I was alone.
The single-player was good; the graphics and gameplay reminded me of Metal Gear Solid 3 on the PS2. But the controls were a killer. I don’t own a PSP, so I had a really hard time trying to figure everything out. I gave up after 10 minutes. Then I got some free shwag for my nonexistent PSP.
All in all, TGS was preeeeetty, preeeetttyyy, pretty good. I don’t know if I’d say it was “so energetic,” but it was good. I was disappointed by both EA and Infinity Ward. The fact that the two biggest attractions were another PSP version of MGS and Sega’s Bayonetta was a little disappointing as well.
But beggars can’t be choosers. Twelve dollars to try out new games is a deal anywhere in the world. I got to experience something that most people only dream of, and for that I’m grateful.
If I didn’t touch on something you’d like to hear about just drop a comment. Lance: There was nothing about Metroid: Other M, Dead Rising 2, or The Last Guardian. I checked around. I’m sorry.
