The TGS 2015 Roundup!

Well I'm back in Nagoya and I'm recovered from my post show drinking hangover so now I'm ready to share my thoughts on the Tokyo Game Show.  While I had a lot of fun at the show walking around and staring at all the shiny new games, I was a little disappointing and there isn't really all that much I came out feeling excited about.

So, let's gets started with the good stuff. 

The first thing we saw as we came into the entrance this time was the Playstation indie booth thing which contained a number of games made by different people from all sorts of backgrounds.  2 games of note that I got my hands on were Slashy Hero and Illan.

Slashy Hero is a dungeon crawling game for mobile platforms where you control a little dude during Halloween slicing up monsters for candy and collecting loot to progress.  It's free to play, fun to muck about with and the system of changing costume to modify stats reminded me of Costume Quest a little bit.  However, Costume Quest sucked a massive cock and Slashy Hero is actually pretty good.  It's available for free next month and I'd totally recommend checking it out.

A little later in the day I got my hands on Illan: Shades of Memories which was a really cool puzzle platformer for PC.  You control a cute little black thing called Illan and you must solve puzzles and do some light platforming to progress.  Really fun and kind of relaxing to play but taxed my brain just enough to avoid becoming boring, nice and chill.   Right now Illan is not available for purchase BUT if you are interested then it is available for voting on Steam Greenlight, so go hit that vote button and get this thing on the store.

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=507636802

After we left the indie booth we looked at the cosplayers for a while which was your same old attractive Japanese girls wearing either not much or incredibly elaborate costumes.  I snapped a few shots but right now my camera is inside my bag and I'm too lazy to get it out, so maybe I'll upload later.

Next we came across Star Wars Battlefront which looked absolutely INSANE

I don't really need to say much about this one since people are familiar with other games in the series and there's already a lot of excitement.  That said, this thing looks INSANELY fun and I can't wait to get my hands on it.  Tokyo Game Show are very uptight when it comes to taking pictures and videos on the show floor but I managed to get a minute or so of footage of the game play so I'm just going to let that do all the talking for me.

Moving on from there we saw the Sony booth which had a number of cool looking games including a new Star Ocean, some JRPG thing called Exist Archive, new content for Bloodborne, a collection of the Uncharted games and a whole host of VR stuff which unfortunately we couldn't get our hands on.  Other cool stuff included a new game play video for Persona 5 and a remake of a PS2 game I really enjoyed called Odin Sphere. 

The final thing to jump out of my mind was a title called Nioh

A game being developed by Koei Tecmo and what essentially looks like Asian Dark Souls which is not a bad thing.  I'd never heard of it before but apparently it was showcased back in 2005 and then vanished for some reason and now it's resurfaced at TGS which is cool.  Game looks really fun and is just another reason that I need to go out and buy a fucking PS4 already.

Now let's talk about the not so great stuff about the show.

Now I'm not the biggest fan of mobile gaming, I don't mind giving the occasional title a try and sometimes I'm pleasantly surprised but there was SO MUCH fucking mobile at TGS this year.  You couldn't walk 5 fucking minutes along the show floor without seeing a booth that had a fucking iPad hooked up to it.

I can understand why companies may see mobile as a decent platform because almost everyone has phone so your game will reach a much wider audience.  However, you can't get a decent experience from a game on a mobile device.  Mobile is perfect for games like the aforementioned Slashy Hero because that's the kind of game I can muck about with on a train and then put away when I get to work.  But playing RPGs like Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest or god forbid even trying to play FPS games on a mobile platform?  FUCK. THAT.

Call me a purist, call me a snob, that's fine but Tokyo Game Show was fucking drowning in mobile stuff and I couldn't help but feel like it was a bit of a shame.  Hell, one of the biggest games at show was a fucking social RPG from 2013

Now granted, since returning from the show I have downloaded and given Granblue Fantasy a go and it is one of those rare mobile games that is actually pretty decent.  Hell, it even has Nobuo Uematsu and Hideo Minaba of Final Fantasy fame behind it so I guess that has to say something about the amount of effort in it's production.  That said, the game is from fucking 2013, why is it so prominently displayed at a big games con 2 years later?!  It's not new, I go there to see new shit, not to wank over above average phone RPGs from 2 years ago...

Konami was also a fucking disgrace this year

When I arrived at the booth my eyes were greeted with a football (soccer) game, a baseball game and 4 girls (admittedly rather pretty) dancing around and lip syncing to some shitty Japanese J-Pop song.  We were so bored and disgusted that we left after a short time but upon googling something I remember seeing in the background of the dancing girls there WAS actually a game being talked about.

The game is called Tokyo Xanadu, being produced for the Vita and actually looks like it could be kind of fun.  However I wouldn't have fucking know that if I hadn't remembered the title that was hidden away behind 4 girls dancing about.  Fuck you Konami, you're a fucking mess.

The last thing that kind of ticked me off was the content for The Last Guardian

All they had was some fucking projection of the dog-eagle thing that you could stand in front of and it would kind of react to your movements and a short demo video of footage that we had seen months ago.  I'm excited for this game but what was on display at the show was disappointing.

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So that's it folks, my thoughts on TGS 2015.  Not completely shitty but definitely not as good as it was last year.  Few things to be excited about and some cool indie games made it worth while.  Here's hoping that next years show will bring much more excitement. 

I'm not sure if I wrote about everything, I'm going mainly off the top of my head, if I remember anything extra I'll throw it up on twitter.

I'm going to TGS!

So tomorrow I'm going to get on a train to Tokyo and hit up Tokyo Game Show 2015!

It's in this space where I should be writing things that I'm excited for or things I'm going to try and get my hands on but to be honest I have NO FUCKING IDEA what's going to be displayed at this years show.

I've been far too busy with work, streaming, having my parents visit Japan and all sorts of other shit to do any kind of research, which kind of sucks but at least I'll be awestruck but everything they are displaying. 

Expect a roundup post/video about everything I've seen at the event, I'll be getting it up as soon as I get back to Nagoya! 

Akihabara Aint All That

I am now home from Tokyo but before I put that horrible memory behind me I want to tell you a little about a place called Akihabara and how it isn't all it's cracked up to be.

Just in case there are people who aren't clued in on their Japan shit, Akihabara is a bit like nerd Mecca.  If you're into manga, video games or weird shit like maid cafes then people will tell you that Akihabara is THE place to visit if you go to Japan.  This might be the case if you're a hardcore anime fan, but for a gamer Akihabara is a bit of a disappointment.

It's not a shitty place by any stretch and there are a lot of things to like about the place.  For example it doesn't matter if you're into new games or retro games, chances are that if you want something you WILL be able to find it in Akihabara.  The selection on display in some of the stores in this area is nuts, it's the only place I've seen a fully stocked shelf of MSX games and that's just one thing of many.

However, as good as all this may seem, Akihabara is massively overpriced ESPECIALLY if you're into your retro shit.  I found games for 1000, 2000+ that I bought in Nagoya for 100s of yen.  The arcades are overpriced too but not the kind you might think.  Modern games are the same price as they are everywhere else but Akihabara has a pretty extensive collection of cabinets running older games.  In Nagoya, cabs running older games are 50 yen a pop but here they were your usual 100 yen, which is a little bit BS to be honest.

In it's defence, I didn't have a lot of time to truly bury my fangs in and really explore the place so I'm sure that there are places that are actually really good.  That said, there's no way you're going to find these places without a full day to explore and some command of Japanese to help get you round.  So if you're a resident of Akihabara or a nearby area, feel free to comment and call me an idiot but if you're a tourist making a pilgrimage to what is essentially nerd capital, then you may feel a bit let down.

Tokyo Sucks

Right, I'm sorry, I know this isn't video games but I'm stuck here for another couple of weeks so I just want to let off some steam and rant about how much I fucking hate Tokyo.

Tokyo is a shitty place.  It's SO horrible that just the act of going outside of my hotel room is enough to make me fucking miserable.  There's nothing wrong with the hotel I'm in, it's quite nice really.  I can play some games, chat to my family, watch TV and all that good stuff but as soon as I step outside I just want to hang myself.

My first big problem with Tokyo is that it's too fucking busy all the fucking time.  No matter where I can I can't escape large crowds of people and people who walk around the streets of Tokyo seem to have some kind of problem where they can't stop bumping into things or being in the way.  I've only been here for about 2 weeks now and I've lost count of all the times I've been stuck behind large groups of people, been bumped into or pushed around or had to pause because some twatsocket has to stand in a fucking doorway or stairwell to check a map or read his phone or some shit.

Speaking of busy, the trains in Tokyo are the absolute fucking worst thing I have ever encountered in my life and coming from someone who spent 3 months riding around on the PARIS metro then that's saying something.  The Tokyo train system is large, confusing and bullshit and getting lost when trying to go somewhere is really fucking easy.  Also for some reason, on the line into the place where my hotel is, they just decide to NOT announce the stations.  You see in Nagoya, when you arrive at a station an announcement will say something like "You are now arriving at Nagoya" or something, right?  But not here, oh no, the train just stops and you get some vague mumble as the door opens that you can't fucking hear because there are too many people talking or whatever and before you know it BAM! you've missed your stop because you were too busy fretting over the map trying to avoid just that.  Fucking stupid train, ANNOUNCE YOUR SHIT LOUD AND CLEAR.

Also the sight seeing in Tokyo sucks anus, just go to Kyoto instead.  Everything here is way too fucking expensive and way too fucking crowded.  Just off the top of my head as a write this rant, the things that people go and usually see are Tokyo Tower or the Sky Tree.  Both are overly expensive and not worth it because if you pay the 3000/4000 yen to go to the top or whatever then the only view you get is of a big fucking city.  If you live in a big city just go to the top of the highest thing your city has and look at it, it's the same fucking thing.  There's a lot more than just those 2 things but to get to them you have to ride the subway so fuck that shit, just stay in the hotel and eat shitty food from Lawson or whatever, you'll have a much better time.

But what pisses me off more than anything else are the people who come here and then brag about it.  I've met many people in the UK and Japan who are like "uhh, I've been/lived in Tokyo" like it's some kind of big fucking deal.  As if going to the capital of Japan is some kind of massive undertaking and they are so fucking cool for having done it. 

Tokyo is Japan on easy mode to be incredibly honest with you.  This is the city where all the idiots who can't speak any Japanese go because it's the place where the most English is available.  You didn't challenge yourself or do anything amazing by coming here, you did a shitty overly expensive holiday in a city that isn't really distinct from any other shitty capital.

In short, fuck the people, fuck the trains, fuck the sights, fuck the cost of everything, fuck the tourists and FUCK TOKYO!

My Thoughts on Tokyo Game Show 2014

This post is a little overdue since I had to travel across half the country, start a new job and because of the national holiday I was quite drunk and my time for making blog posts was a little low.  However things have sort of normalised now and I can finally talk about TGS.

Just before I get into it, I wanted to have a lot more pictures but I stupidly left my camera in my buddies apartment, so when I get it back I'll upload all the TGS stuff as a gallery post.  Also I'm not going to talk about the games so much as I'm going to describe my experience with the event, I'll do the games on an individual basis later.

I've never really been to any big organized gaming events like this before so TGS was pretty crazy.  It's hosted in a big hall in Tokyo called Makuhari Messe and despite being fucking massive the crowds are so big that it's hard to navigate ones way round all the booths.  Games are also not the only thing on display here with there being another massive cosplay section going on somewhere a short distance from the main floors but still part of the show.  I got some really cool pictures of a few of the people so look forward to seeing that shit when I get my camera back.

If I was to try and sum up my TGS experience in one word it would be "unprepared".  I sorely underestimated the crowds and as a result it was almost impossible to get a hands on with anything.  There was an indie booth where I managed to play a couple of really interesting games but all the big titles like Bloodborne were not only rammed out but I think you needed advance tickets or something.

I was actually really looking forward to seeing all the stuff for The Evil Within but when we arrived at the booth the wait was over an hour long so we just said "fuck it" and moved on.  There were also a number of things happening with developers going on stage and talking about their games but because of my lack of preparation we missed most of them.  We did get to see the demo Resident Evil Revelations 2 being played and we caught the Silent Hills stuff about half way through but that shit was so hard to hear we just gave up on it in the end.

Despite that, TGS was fucking amazing and I'm probably going to go again next year but next time I'll ready myself appropriately so I don't have to make shitty nothing posts like this in the future.  Like I said, my thoughts on individual titles will come later because if I did that here it would take me all evening to type out so watch this space and the pictures should be uploaded around Saturday.