We'd forgotten all about it, but Capcom Japan have seen fit to release the clip - performed by Gagaga SP, in-engine zombie models and all - so here you go. Enjoy, it's amazing stuff.

Interviews
Justify Your Game: Tales of Symphonia: Dawn of the New World
LocoRoco 2's Number One Fan
Last Remnant Team So Cannot Wait For Unreal Engine 4
Justify Your Game Loco Roco 2
But I'm Talking Bout Halo Wars
Justify Your Patapon 2
Fable II Coop Patch Getting Once Over By Msoft, Molyneux "Super, Super Hopeful"
A Fable II Primer for Dog Training
Molynuex More About Emotions, Less About Trees
Molyneux Walks Us Through Fable II's Deep, Casual Combat
What Is Halo 3: Recon? Here's What It's *Not*
Yes You Can Ditch Your Dog in Fable II, But Only if You're Cruel
Why Goichi Suda Brought Beer To The Interview...
Molyneux Frets Over Dangers of Casual Gaming
How Erotic Games Influenced Platinum Games
Microsoft Coy On Future Spring & Fall Upates
Resident Evil 5 Producer Likes New Controls Better
On The Possibility Of 2D, HD, XBLA & PSN Sonic Games
Can Japan's Number One Xbox 360 Fanboy Justify His... Hair?
Justify Your Banjo Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts

It’s shaping up as a safe, safe game. Like most Japanese games on the showroom floor, if you stripped back the graphical improvements a new generation of hardware has brought, you’d be forgiven for thinking you were playing a PS2 game. You still wander a linear overworld, you still encounter enemies, you still engage in closed-off battles with your party, the action is still punctuated by text-based conversation.

Basically, if you like Star Ocean – or JRPGs in general – you know what you’re getting yourself into before you even drop the disc into your 360.

What you won’t be ready for will be this game’s graphics. The in-game action looks crisp and clean, with a vibrant colour palette and bold character designs helping the game stand out on the 360 amongst the its Square Enix & Mistwalker competition. Cutscenes using the in-game engine look even better, with so few ragged edges around the player models that they trump many other game’s rendered sequences.

As for Star Ocean 4’s rendered sequences…they’re simply amazing. I didn’t catch many on the showroom floor, but in an interview with the game’s producer Yoshinori Yamagishi, they had a 50” LCD running the game’s intro sequence. And I know, this was so rude, but I couldn’t help but be continually distracted by it. If you’re the type to grind through a JRPG for the fluff sequences, you won’t find many better than those in this game.

As for the mechanics of the game, new nuts & bolts, etc, sadly the demo ran for only 10 minutes or so, enough time to only get a few quick battles in and go for a run outside before the game shut down. Still, from what I saw, I didn't notice much new stuff. Combat did seem a little easier than previous games, with switching between characters being a lot faster, and there were a range of new charged attacks available for each character, and…that was about it.

As with most JRPG titles this generation, it seemed a case of same old gameplay, shiny new graphics. Which may seem lazy to most (including myself), but hey, to Star Ocean fans, it’s probably exactly what you’re after.

Namco Bandai's Teenage Boy Friendly Line Up Dated
Tetsuya Mizuguchi Is Making New IP
Microsoft Has Over 140 Demo Kiosks, Buddies With Square Enix
Sorry, But Ninja Blade Is *Not* Otogi 3
Tecmo Announces New Third Person Shooter
Monster Hunter Portable 2nd G Sells 2.5 Million In Japan
This is Your Tokyo Game Show 2008
Tekken 6 Coming To Xbox 360
New Xbox Dash Gets Release Date
Halo 3 Expansion Hits Fall 2009
Vague Date for Final Fantasy XIII, Nothing For Versus XIII
These Fighters Are In The King of Fighters XII
"PSP Plus" Brings DualShock Control To PSP
Old Snake, Sephiroth Get Sackboyed For LittleBigPlanet
Classic Controller For Wii Monster Hunter 3
Ensemble Studios May (Soon) Be Dead, But They're Not Out
360 Sales Have Doubled in US, More Than Doubled In Europe, Quintupled In Japan
Bionic Commando Delayed, Coming "Early 2009"
Uncharted Waters Online Getting PS3 Version
Microsoft: Japanese Sell Out Is "Totally Legit"
Resistance: Retribution, Resistance 2 Connect To Add "Infected" Gameplay
Xbox 360: Official Console of 2008 Recession
Konami Whips Up Castlevania For Xbox 360, PS3
Goichi Suda Has Not Given Up On You Nintendo Wii
Bionic Commando Movie Is A Definite Possibility
First Look At Street Fighter: Legend of Chun-Li Movie Poster
Tokyo Game Show Attendance Plummets Again
Revenge Of Public Day: TGS Attendance Rebounds!
Kojima Might Announce New Game At Next Year's TGS
Perhaps Why Tokyo Game Show 2009 Has Been Rescheduled...
Tokyo Game Show 2008 Attendance Actually Up!

The winners are (they're not ranked or anything):

Idolm@ster - Namco Bandai - PSP
Gyakuten Kenji - Capcom - DS
White Knight Story - Sony - PS3
Star Ocean 4 - Square Enix - Xbox 360
Final Fantasy: Dissidia - Square Enix - PSP
Dragon Quest IX - Square Enix - DS
Resident Evil 5 - Capcom - Xbox 360/PS3
Monster Hunter 3 - Capcom - Wii
428 - Sega - Wii
LittleBigPlanet - Sony - PS3
Yakuza 3 - Sega - PS3
Let's Tap - Sega - Wii

[Japan Game Awards 2008]

There is just nothing right about this game. Nothing. As a Castlevania game, it’s…well, as a fighter, it’s not a Castlevania game at all. And as a fighter, it’s one of the worst I’ve ever seen. It’s as though Konami looked at 3D fighters, saw what worked, what didn’t work, and just for shits and giggles, threw in everything that didn’t work.

So what, exactly, doesn’t work? Like I said, everything. It’s like a daisy-chain of failures. Let’s kick things off with the arena. The arena doesn’t work. It’s too large. So instead of fighting for 90 seconds, you end up chasing each other around for 90 seconds. Which is bad enough, but then, the camera doesn’t work. Because it’s fixed, one player will often end up running at the camera, losing all sight of where it is they’re going.

But that’s OK, because you lose sight of where you’re going most of the time anyway, thanks to the woeful controls. The players are locked into only eight directional movements, and also move too quickly, meaning you lose all sense of timing and precision. Which are kinda important in a fighter. But that's OK, since most attacks – activated by furious waggling, no less – are so broad that you don’t even need to be facing your opponent to get a shot in. You just need to waggle and get lucky.

And when you do get lucky…boy. The game has special attacks. You charge them through regular combat. And when you set one off…you get a Final Fantasy-esque cutscene. All the ones we saw (I was playing 2P with Crecente) ran for over twenty seconds. Twenty. Seconds. Interrupting the middle of a fighting game. Oh, and they also take off around 1/3 of your damage, which for a fighter, is potentially game-breaking.

Want to know the good parts? Couldn’t see any. Sorry. It really was that bad. I'd say Konami have a job on their hands trying to get this one fixed in time for release, but with the game due out in the US next month, things aren't looking good.

Using the DS touch screen isn't exactly the best interface for angling your shots, but it's good enough. Just make sure you have a steady surface on which to play.

We were hoping that the excellent dial controller — used in the previous Taito effort Arkanoid DS — would be one of the options on hand at Tokyo Game Show, but no dice.

The scope of the demo was unfortunately very limited, giving us a few dozen stand Puzzle Bobble boards to clear. They came pretty fast and furious, but there was no danger of losing. We didn't notice anything in the way of new gameplay elements; most of the bubble types we'd seen before.

The Space Puzzle Bobble moniker seems regrettably fitting. Taito seems to be keeping the series in a vacuum, with little in the way of new features to keep long time players coming back. Based on the short demo, we were left a little disappointed in what Space Puzzle Bobble had to offer. There may be more to it than we saw in our brief hands on time, but given the enduring gameplay, it might just be "good enough" for forgiving fans to dip into the game one more time.

It’s not fuckin’ Spider-Man. We made a swing mechanism that’s not automatic. This means you have to focus a bit more, because it’s a proper mechanic instead of just a button press; it’s the core mechanic of the game. Everything in the game is built around that, from the environments to the enemy.

It’s really hard to do a good swing mechanic. Not many games have got it right. But we’re all really proud of ours. The original Bionic Commando was skill-based. There was a risk in jumping: you might die, you might not. We’ve stayed true to that core mood and feeling of the original in our game.

That mechanic will be too hard for some. Heck, might be too hard for many. But for others, it'll be a hoot. It’s at least refreshing to see a developer make a decision like this and stick with it, if only so you kids that are always complaining about stuff being dumbed down can take a look.

It’s strange to pick up a PSP and not just play a PSP game, but enjoy it. It’s been a while. But enjoy Macross Ace Frontier I did, finding the game to be one of the smoothest, most responsive and action-packed PSP games I’ve seen in a long time.

Most PSP game are sluggish. This isn’t. Your veritech pitches and rolls quickly and smoothly, with a consistently high frame rate untroubled by the enemies and missile trails flying around you.

Controls are of course a little tricky – made trickier by having three separate schemes for each transformation mode – but if I can get the hang of them in a 15-minute presentation without knowing any Japanese, they can’t be too hard. Those worried about input, know that the PSP’s awful analogue controls are used for toggling stuff, not for movement, which is handled surprisingly well by the d-pad.

As a Macross game, this is the best one since Super Dimensional Fortress on the PS2. I couldn’t really make out things like music (too loud) or plot (it was in Japanese), but it certainly looks the part, and the battles are fast enough to pay their respects to the franchise. Letting off a salvo of swirly missiles before transforming into robot mode and blasting with your rifle – the kind of little touch that’ll make all the difference to a Macross fanboy – is both easy and really, really satisfying.

One thing to note, though, before you think of importing this: it’s heavy on Japanese text. As an example, you don’t just jump in and start shooting; missions are precluded by a “hangar” mode, where you need to go through a ton of menus and screens configuring your payload, craft, etc. Sure, you could hope and pray for a Western release, but with that looking unlikely your time would be better spent brushing up on your kanji.

Tokyo Game Show 2008
10/9 Business Day
27,305 attendees

10/10 Business Day
24,178 attendees

10/11 Public Day
71,639 attendees (included: 9,207 kids)

10/12 Public Day
71,166 attendees (included: 13,963 kids)

TOTAL: 194,288 attendees

Tokyo Game Show 2007
10/9 Business Day
29,783 attendees

10/10 Business Day
32,390 attendees

10/11 Public Day
64,795 attendees (included: 11,829 kids)

10/12 Public Day
66,072 attendees (included: 15,347 kids)

TOTAL: 193,040 attendees

So fewer kids this year and more press last year. Fascinating.

Feature-length Street Fighter IV anime in the works [GameSpot via Eurogamer]

Otomedius Gorgeous! is part of the cute-em-up sub-genre, full of missile launching penguins, deadly flying fish, super-deformed space ships and, most relevant to gamers' interests, the adorable anime girls who pilot each ship.

Anyone familiar with the Gradius series will feel right at home with Otomedius. Simply collect power ups dropped by enemies to purchase upgrades for your ship-girl. These include speed boosts, lasers, missiles, double shots, ripple shots and the satellites that follow your ship known as Options.

Otomedius Gorgeous! lets you choose your ship's weapons load out, based on which character you choose — the TGS version had about a half-dozen — then cuts you loose to scroll right and shoot whatever is in your way. The game's cup runneth over with series in-jokes and impossibly cute situations, with Gorgeous!'s difficulty more closely matching its content than that of games like Gradius V.

And while Otomedius looks nice, it's not as graphically impressive as Gradius V was on the PlayStation 2, mostly due to its visual simplicity. The demo we played didn't take advantage of the widescreen displays on hand, with bars on the right and left occupying the extra space. The game moves at a smooth clip, except when screen-filling boss explosions intentionally slow down the action.

We didn't get a chance to go hands-on with two important features: three person multiplayer and the proprietary arcade stick with touchscreen controls. It appears that for those using a stock Xbox 360 pad, you'll use the right analog stick to replicate what the touchscreen did in the arcade version.

If Otomedius Gorgeous!'s aesthetic gets you hot and bothered and slightly derivative Gradius gameplay is cool with you, by all means, check it out. If you have an import Xbox 360 that is, and the inappropriately upper end price of the thing doesn't turn you off.

There's no word yet from Konami on whether the game will come stateside. Given Konami USA's import track record, though, we're not holding out hope here.

If anything, we're now guilty of giving too much direction on justifying one's game. Rare's Neill Harrison took advantage of our goodwill, which is letting developers and producers prep ahead of time for Justify Your Game, resulting in carefully planned elevator pitches. For Banjo Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts, Harrison pretty much nails it following a minutes long mental practice. If it weren't for the last second awkwardness, this one would've been left on the cutting room floor. Thank the video gods for performance anxiety!

It may look like a shooter at first glance, but really Retribution plays more like a third-person action title, which is a good idea. The problem with creating a straight-up shooter for the Playstation Portable is that the controls just aren't right for that genre so whatever a developer does is going to feel like a making the best of a bad situation.

In this case the aiming reticule floats in a pretty sizable rectangle and essentially auto aims anything that's in there. This means that while you have to point your screen in the general direction of enemies, you don't have to try to finesse out small movements with the thumbstick and four face buttons. And that's a really good call.

Despite how it sounds, that doesn't make the game too easy. You still have to worry about weapon selection, about cover, you do even have to do a bit of fine-tune aiming with certain weapons. The end result is an experience that feels like a shooter lite, but in a good way.

I'm never going to want to have this title replace my console and big television experience, but why would I want to. It's nice to see that the developers understand that they shouldn't be trying to compete with the home console Resistance experience and instead try to augment it with something a bit different.