TGS 2011 - Day One Round-up

My feet ache, the bag I dragged around all day has left a large imprint on my red-raw shoulder, I'm far too drunk for a weekday evening and I probably don’t smell too sweet either. Nevertheless, I still have a smile plastered across my face after an exciting first day at Tokyo Game Show.

I'll have to keep this brief if I'm to get any sleep tonight before heading off for day two, so for now here are just a handful of thoughts on day one. Plenty of in-depth previews will follow over the coming days and I'll continue to tweet tomorrow at toomanywiresUK.

A. As expected, the volume of exhibitors was noticeably less than in previous years. This was partly by design – conserving energy in the wake of the March earthquake and tsunami – but also in part a reflection of the state of the industry. Many publishers had significantly smaller booths, in particular Microsoft and Koei Tecmo, and others grouped together, such as EA having their own corner of the Sega stand. Others had no presence at all, such as TGS regular Level-5. On top of this, mobile phone games continued their encroachment onto centre stage, claiming almost as much floor space as traditional, console gaming.

B. The hall was far too hot, and I swear some of the enclosed booths were running heaters. I'm planning on wearing underpants and a vest tomorrow to combat this heatwave.

C. There was some nice Metal Gear Solid merchandise up for grabs, including a fetching key-chain that I just couldn’t resist. Unfortunately, there was no new Moogle plush and therefore no new editions to my substantial mog collection. I did however score some excellent/shit swag that I will be disposing of shortly.

D. I was able to squeeze-in a fair few games today, in between sweating my arse off and trying to keep notes. In no particular order:

Final Fantasy XIII-2
Binary Domain
Sonic Generations
Lollipop Chainsaw
Final Fantasy Type O
Peace Walker HD
Onechanbara Z Karuga
Biohazard Revelations
Silent Hill Downpour

I'll be posting impressions on most of these games in the next few days. Binary Domain was probably my favourite of day one, despite the fact that the demo was co-op based and required Japanese voice commands to communicate with your fellow gamer, which I well and truly fluffed. Matters were made worse by the windowed booths which encouraged an audience to gather for my impressive display of Jenglish. I took some solace from the fact that I was the first attendee of the day to successfully complete said demo, and the lady-helper was clearly impressed by my ability to shoot cyborgs in the face.

E. There may have been 80 PS Vita demo units, but unfortunately I didn't get my grubby hands on any of them, thanks to the 60 minute queues for even the most unappealing of Vita games. I will remedy this tomorrow, when I shall make a bee-line for the Sony booth as soon as the doors open. Uncharted Golden Abyss, here I come!

F. The outfits of the female booth attendants continue to get skimpier by the year. One girl in particular was showing off a fair amount of crack, and it seemed to be drawing plenty of male attention to her section of the Sega booth. The takkyubin worker (courier) who was publicly fanning his privates, through his shorts, attracted far less attention.

Check back tomorrow for plenty more Tokyo Game Show coverage and be sure to follow me over on Twitter, at toomanywiresUK.