TGS 2022 - Day Two Round-up

I'm attending Tokyo Game Show on September 15th and 16th and covering the show here, on Twitter and my podcast

Day Two is done. Time marches on.

I did stuff. Stuff like this.

Games

It was yet another productive day. I started the morning off by playing Square Enix's new action RPG, Forspoken. While it wasn't without its charms, overall I was a little disappointed. Resident Evil VR messed me up, mostly in good ways, and I was impressed by PSVR 2. More on that another time. I also had fifteen minutes with Yakuza Ishin! and it's delightful, which I already knew. Just being able to play that in English was enough to make me smile. On the Steam Deck, I tried a few minutes of a bunch of games that you've probably already played, and then I finished off the day with a few more rounds of Street Fighter 6, with the Day-Two addition of homeless-brawler Ken Masters.

I wanted to play a couple more games, most notably Alone in the Dark and Wo Long, but the show opened up to the public from mid-afternoon, after which the wait times got a little out of control so I gave up. 

Stickers

Capcom were on top of their sticker game, handing out adhesive goodies at both the Street Fighter 6 and Exoprimal booths, as long as you played the demo and posted a pic to social media. My daughter has already claimed one pack of SF6 stickers, but I double-dipped on the demo and plan to beautify some of my belongings shortly.

VR Disorientation

The PSVR 2 and Resident Evil Village VR demo was in high demand yet again. As soon as the doors opened I walked, not ran, to Capcom and secured my time slot. I'm too cool to run. The booth is set up in a way that ensures that there are always a couple of people doing the demo in front of the public, whereas everyone else is hidden behind a curtain. I was fortunate enough to do my demo away from prying eyes, which was probably for the best as I must have looked like a prize idiot, stabbing up zombies and pleading for my life.

It was funny watching different people try the demo, as I waited in the queue. You could tell who was experienced with VR, as their movements were controlled and efficient. They rarely budged from the spot on the floor where they started. Other people were all over the place. I couldn't help but laugh at the poor guy who kept trying to walk across the length and breadth of his booth, much to the amusement of the attendant. He really wanted to get away from those vampires!

I loved my demo, but it also left me feeling very disoriented and jelly-legged! It didn't help that my attendant changed, without warning, at some point between me putting on the headset and taking it off. I worried that I'd maybe wandered into a completely different booth! 

Full impressions to follow in a day or two.

MEGA

Mega.

Elden Ring Bricked My Steam Deck

Tempted by the promise of seats and even bean bags, I took the opportunity to try the Steam Deck open demo. Basically a group of us were rounded up, forced to watch a video on a very large screen, listen to some unreasonably loud music, before a wall-covering retracted to reveal several dozen Steam Decks. You helped yourself, took a seat, and could choose from a selection of maybe 10 demos ranging from AAA to indie.

I've been curious to try a Steam Deck. The ability to access Game Pass via Cloud Gaming is very attractive. I've never had a Steam account, nor access to their massive sales, and I've always been a bit jealous of those who have. That being said, I have fuck all interest in fiddling about with a gaming PC. 

With my Vita and 3DS essentially retired, and my Switch being very much my 3rd console, I might be in the market for a handheld. 

Anyway, I was surprised by how big the Deck is. It feels like something from a previous era, the cousin of a Game Gear, Lynx or Nomad. That being said, it's very comfortable to hold and sat nicely in my hands, or at least it did when I was resting my forearms on the table. I think it would get uncomfortable quite quickly held aloft without a surface to balance on.

The screen is big and clear, just like you would expect. I tried Spider-Man, Sonic Origins and Yakuza: Like a Dragon and they all looked and ran beautifully. Unfortunately, the same can't be said for Elden Ring, which bricked my demo unit! I don't know how common that kind of issue is, but I saw at least one other person have to swap out an unresponsive Deck during our allotted time. 

Basically, the Steam Deck was exactly what I thought it would be, for better and for worse, and I'm still undecided whether I'll eventually buy one.

A Quick Trip to Akiba

No TGS is complete without a few beers post-show and, ideally, a quick trip to Akihabara. We arrived late, so we only had time to check three shops, one of which was the console-graveyard Suragaya. They have stacks of junk PS1, Super Famicom, 360, PS2, various handhelds and some rarer hardware too. The shelves are a rainbow of yellowed-browns.

Third Day

I'm already mulling going back for one of the public days, in an effort to stave off my TGS-downer and avoid accepting that the fun is over for another year. That being said, the pictures that are circulating on social media as I write this, showing 200-minute lines, are somewhat putting me off! Maybe I'll go early tomorrow and rinse the indie booths. I think my press pass is good to get me access 30 minutes before the public, though I should probably check that.