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By Michael McWhertor More »
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Yup, we've got a winner for our TGS schwag contest. Loot includes: A fistful of TGS fans — including a Flynn used Metal Gear Solid 4 fan. What's more, we're throwing in a Japanese Halo 3 t-shirt, an Adventure Island shirt signed by Takahashi Meijin and a program on which he scribbled a pyramid describing the current market. There's a bunch of VERY RANDOM things as well. The winner is Finalist 2, who was responsible for this: More »
]]> http://kotaku.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=305958&view=rss&microfeed=true Voting time! We've got five (count 'em) finalists for our TGS schwag contest in which readers wrote about their favorite TGS post. What are we giving away? A fistful of TGS fans — including a Flynn used Metal Gear Solid 4 fan. What's more, we're throwing in a Japanese Halo 3 t-shirt, an Adventure Island shirt signed by Takahashi Meijin and a program on which he scribbled a pyramid describing the current market. There's a bunch of VERY RANDOM things as well. Remember, we're not looking for flattery, but rather, sharp writing and/or insight. Hit the jump for the finalists! More »
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From the get go, I've had my doubts about Resident Evil: The Umbrella Chronicles. This past weekend's Tokyo Game Show represented my third chance at going hands-on with the survival horror spin-off, with my impression of the game changing very little. Now, with the exception of Wario Ware Smooth Moves and Zack & Wiki: Quest for Barbaros' Treasure, I'm not a motion control convert. And the Wii Zapper? I'd rather just not discuss it. At TGS, I finally got to experience the game with the third control scheme, using the nunchuk and Wii-mote sans Zapper. More »
]]> http://kotaku.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=303230&view=rss&microfeed=true Apparently these photos were so prohibited they ate my hard drive, hence the delay in getting them up. For a public show, they were pretty anal about snapping shots of the booths. Even Jaleco gave us huff. But we pretended we didn't understand Japanese (or English) and kept shooting anyway. So here's Kotaku's TGS Booth Tour. It's just like being there, minus the misery of crushing crowds and moist, foul air. More »
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I might never be able to go to a U.S. anime convention again. The cosplayers in Japan are making fools of you people here. It's embarrassing. Check out this Sephiroth, taken from GayGamer.net's TGS cosplay gallery. Look at how that outfit sits on this girl. Hell, even the wig looks halfway decent, which is extremely hard to do with silver hair. Are her eyebrows powdered silver as well? Damn. You just don't get that level of dedication around these parts. Most American cosplay makes me giggle. Japanese cosplay makes me begin to understand this whole Cloud and Sephiroth kissing thing the girls seem to like so much. More »
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The Tokyo Game Show is over, but the t-shirt offers live on! That, that is a Konami Metal Gear Solid 4 TGS booth shirt worn by the Kojima Productions staffers. Not bad, eh? It says "Nice style" in Japanese on the back and has the MGS 20th Anniversary logo on the front. The shirt is available on the Konami site from October 5th to November 16th for ¥3,465 (US $30). I agree. Nice style, indeed! More »
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Just a friendly reminder than tomorrow is the last day to enter our TGS schwag contest. We've got a bag full of TGS stuff to give away. To you, perhaps! (Or you or you or you.) What are we giving away? A fistful of TGS fans — including a Flynn used Metal Gear Solid 4 fan. What's more, we're throwing in a Japanese Halo 3 t-shirt, an Adventure Island shirt signed by Takahashi Meijin and a program on which he scribbled a pyramid describing the current market. There's a bunch of VERY RANDOM things as well. How do you win this? Send us an email at kotakucontestATgmail.com, pick a TGS post you like (include the URL) and write a paragraph on why it stood out. Look at what reader Nick B. wrote about Itagaki Unmasked: More »
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While the rest of my Kotaku brethren have returned to the respective homes, I am still here in Tokyo eking out the last bit of fun I can from this amazing city. You may remember last week I trolled the streets of Akihabara, ignoring all the "No Photos" signs and snapping pictures right and left at Super Potato. Well this installment of the adventure takes us to AsoBit City. Five floors of games, toys, action figures, costumes and gashapon machines. While this isn't quite the massive size of the Super Potato gallery, there's still some great game related toys and things to tickle your fancy. Keep an eye out for my Wolverine like head rising above some of the displays as I try to take a photo into a mirror without blinding myself. (Sometimes Flickr doesn't play nice with our galleries so I apologize for any sideways photos) More »
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After doing our Justify Your Engine with Epic's Mark Rein, we got some hands-on time with Unreal Tournament 3 for PS3. While we didn't have time to test the new features or enhanced vehicles, we did get to play a few rounds of traditional deathmatch. And yes, it was still great. More »
]]> http://kotaku.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=303227&view=rss&microfeed=true We wrote tons of stories at this year's Tokyo Game Show, many of which ran at like 3 a.m. So I thought it might help to do a little link dump of our personal favorites. Feel free to comment on them here or on the original story. More »
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And the contests just don't stop! We've got a bag full of TGS stuff to give away. To you, perhaps! (Or you or you or you.) What are we giving away? A fistful of TGS fans — including a Flynn used Metal Gear Solid 4 fan. What's more, we're throwing in a Japanese Halo 3 t-shirt, an Adventure Island shirt signed by Takahashi Meijin and a program on which he scribbled a pyramid describing the current market. There's a bunch of VERY RANDOM things as well. How do you win this? Send us an email at kotakucontestATgmail.com, pick a TGS post you like (include the URL) and write a paragraph on why it stood out. Now, we aren't looking for flattery, but rather, sharp writing. Insight, even. Deadlines for entries is this Friday. Get to it! More »
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See that picture? That's what I look like when I'm hung over and don't bathe. And I think I'm still in my pyjamamas. During that blur that was TGS, Dan Orlowitz from PTD Magazine interviewed me — it was the day after our Kotaku party. It's a three parter about all sorts of stuff, somewhat verbose, smells of smokey arcades and bad coffee but just might be interesting if you happened to miss the 1am cab ride from Shimokitazawa. Now that was a conversation. More »
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With the hearts and minds of Japanese gamers won over by Nintendo and its casual-skewing software, this years Tokyo Game Show saw those in the nation issuing a collective "meh." The press? They had to show up, helping to pad this year's attendance figures by an extra 30,000 for a combined total of 193,040 over four days. By comparison, last year's three day show pulled in an impressive 192,411 over just three days. More »
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Taito's classic brick-breaking arcade game Arkanoid is some twenty years long in the tooth, with the latest iteration, Arkanoid DS, bringing little to the table in the way of evolution. Instead, Arkanoid DS simply brings itself to another platform, taking advantage of the Nintendo DS touch screens for stylus control and using the Game Boy Advance slot for an arcade accurate dial controller. The cross-pad and button controls work fine, but stylus controls and the custom controller are the ways to go. More »
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When Metal Gear Solid 4 assistant producer Ryan Payton honorably justified his team's video game, many of you wondered "Who?" and "Where can I get that hat?" To simplify it for the masses, while Metal Gear figurehead Hideo Kojima is the great river from which all ideas flow, Payton may be the dam that controls the flow of insanity. Yes, there are moments of surreality in Metal Gear Solid 4, such as soda addicted monkeys, hilarious send ups of irritable bowel syndrome and a woman in a giant wolf mech exoskeleton. But there are also plenty of technical ideas that must be implemented, with Payton aiding to implement a simplified control scheme and further addressing Western tastes. Based on the hour with spent with the game in a private meeting, MGS4 retains not only the series' artistry, it's technical implementation is reaching mad-genius levels, too. More »
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I am a huge fan of Mark Wilson's Justify videos, and I'm not just saying that because he makes them for Kotaku. They are genuinely funny and still manage to impart some information. This time around Wilson managed to churn out quite an eclectic mix of Justify Your whatevers including Mark Rein justifying the Epic engine... right after it crashes, Tetsuya Mizuguchi having a nervous break down as he tries to justify his Rez and a Kotaku reader justifying his cosplay outfit. More »
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The Tecmo press party enticed us with the promise of maid waitresses in a pirate-themed bar, but made us happy by slapping these amazing DS styluses in our hands as we walked out the door. More »
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I always thought the phenomenon of cell phones had reached monumental proportions in the U.S., but it's nothing compared to what it's like here in Japan. A ride on the train will have you seeing at least ten to fifteen people on each car with phones out presumably texting or playing games on them. The there's the cell phone charms. They are HUGE over here. Practically everyone has one or two or thirty dangling off their phone. Some are so large they are bigger than the phones. For example, one gal I saw had no less than three small plush animals attached making it impossible to put in a pocket or the tiny purse she was carrying. More »
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There was an entire hall chock full of merchandise at Tokyo Game Show: dolls, figures, toys and shirt. Mostly shirts though, tons and tons of T-shirts. While I love gaming shirts, they really have to be something special to get me to buy one. Mostly because I don't have the room in my house for anymore. When I was walking the halls last week checking out the merch this black Doki Doki Majo Shinpan shirt caught my eye. More »
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We don't expect the lines in Akihabara or Den Den Town to reach the impressive levels of home, but don't think that Tokyo Game Show attendees are turning up their noses at Halo 3, just because it's on the Xbox Somethingorother. They waited, for hours—okay an hour at least—to get their hands on the game just a few days early. That 60 minute wait sign was quickly updated to 90 minutes after everyone in Microsoft's booth grew tired of playing Zoids Alternative and Dynasty Warriors 6. Respect, Halo 3. Much respect. More »
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D3 Publisher's slash-hit series Onee Chanbara does cowgirls in bikinis right. The amount of zombie eviscerating is arguably perfect. The gameplay? Ehhhh... So why not add an extra layer of sloppy controls to the Onee Chanbara formula courtesy of the Wiimote and nunchuk controller? That was, I assume, the thrust of the white board concept meeting at Onee Chanbara R's developer Tamsoft. The TGS demo certainly gets the core elements right, there's loads of pink juicy blood squirting at the camera and plenty of opportunities for our hero Aya to perform fan service acrobatics. But the Devil May Cry Lite action doesn't impress. At all. More »
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Contest time! We're giving away a Japan-only Adventure Island t-shirt signed by Takahashi Meijin and (yes, and) a Japan Halo 3 shirt as well as other stuff we stole were given. The contest is easy. Like, too easy. Here's the deal: Pick your favorite TGS post and write one paragraph why you like it. Be sure to include the post's URL! Send emails to kotakucontest@gmail.com with "fave" in the subject line.. We will then pick the finalists, while Kotakuland picks the winner. More »
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I got a little private room session with Kohei Shibata, producer of Super Swing Golf: Season 2. I had a great time with the first Super Swing Golf although I did find it rather hard. I had hoped they would do something to improve on it and my prayers were answered when the first thing he said was that they had made the game easier to use. They've taken the opportunity since the first game to brush up and simplify the controls and interface based on user's input about the first game. They made a point of reading blogs and reviews to see exactly what players were looking for as far as improvements. More »
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With monumental wait times for most games, TGS looks a bit like a Japanese theme park on its busiest day of the summer. I spotted these awesome Devil May Cry cosplayers waiting in a three hour line to play, what else, Devil May Cry 4. Poor kids, you'd think they'd let them to the front of the line... More »
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After hearing from [NAME REMOVED] that Resident Evil 5 was set in Haiti, something we've been wondering about since the game's trailer appeared at Microsoft's E3 press conference, we wanted to check with Capcom on their home turf to see if we could confirm it. For the record, we really don't care where it's final location is—could be Raccoon Island for all we care—but we want to know why it's apparently some big secret. So we asked Resident Evil 4 producer Hiroyuki Kobayashi about it, assuming he probably runs into RE5 producer Jun Takeuchi now and then. More »
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A four-kiosk attack of Xbox Live Arcade games was nestled in the middle of Microsoft's Xbox 360 booth at TGS, showing off dozens of titles old and new. Only one contained the XBLA remake of Treasure's black and white shmup Ikaruga in playable demo form. Featuring the first level of the game, the demo station at Tokyo Game Show may not have shown the remake in the best light. While Ikaruga for XBLA looks spectacular in screenshots—and according to Flynn, "really sharp" on a 42" HDTV—seeing it in non-tate mode on a 22" LCD doesn't show off the game's graphical upgrades in the proper light. More »
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We don't feel that Resident Evil 4 director Shinji Mikami should have gone through with his threatened self-decapitation just because the Gamecube game got the PlayStation 2 port treatment, but someone simply must answer for Resident Evil 4 Mobile Edition. In all seriousness, the game looks pretty respectable for a 3D mobile port of the most attractive Resident Evil to date, but anyone expecting something better than a PSone-level appearance will be disappointed. More »
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Nintendo may be expanding the video game market in Japan, but their refusal to attend the biggest gaming expo in their homeland is doing nothing to help out this year's numbers for Tokyo Game Show. In 2006, TGS pulled in some 192,411 attendees over the course of three days. The first public day last year saw some 84,823 gamers stink up the halls of the Makuhari Messe. This year? Only 64,795. We won't know the final figure for Sunday for a while, but based on the feeling that it's much more manageable to walk the show floor, expect less than yesterday's figure. More »
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I probably spent more time hearing about Metal Gear Solid Online and having Metal Gear Solid Online tactics spoon-fed to me then I spent actually playing the game. But the single 6v6 match I did participate in was enough to give me a sense of whether I would like it or not: I sorta liked it. More »
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Before getting a chance to go hands on with Metal Gear Online on one of the dozen Playstation 3s hooked up on in the booth, attendees had to attend an impromptu Metal Gear Online school. The booth handlers escorted the group, divided into two groups of six, into a back room where a woman dressed in camouflage short-shorts (a gun slyly tucked into the shorts at the small of her back) presented the game's controls to us using an overhead projector. Then she showed us a map and talked about what tactics to use in the upcoming battle, emphasizing the positions we should take up with the help of a long riding crop. Unfortunately, the whole thing was in Japanese, so I wasn't exactly a team player when the match started, but more on that later. More »
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Outside of japan, and hardcore game importers, the name Koichi Nakamura probably doesn't ring a bell. More »
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