a history of me

The "Tokyo Game Show" (TGS hereafter) has something of a misnomer. First there's the obvious: TGS does not take place in Tokyo, rather, it's in Chiba which is the next prefecture over. Of course, the same could be said of Tokyo Disneyland and Tokyo International Airport, so it seems the people of Chiba are routinely left hanging when it comes to major tourist attractions.

More egregious is the word "show" because we are talking about video games here, and video games are meant to by played. If you go to an air show or an auto show (and if you routinely visit either, my condolences) you are expressly going to look at things, things which are almost entirely beyond your reach. Few people can actually afford vehicles capable of flight and even fewer of the eye-catching "concept cars" will ever turn up on the streets. These "shows" are pure spectacle lying somewhere between a museum featuring treasured vehicles from the past and a circus of shiny, fast-moving toys that the audience cannot hope to own.

Video games by their very nature are different, for they must reach and interact with an audience. Games cannot simply rest upon a stage or sit in a glass case or else they cease to be games. So the aims of TGS are decidedly consumer-oriented; at least 90% of the games at TGS will by readily available to the public within six months. Sure, some companies do use their booths to "show" trailers or teasers for games that aren't ready yet, but even these eventually hit the stores and find their way into living rooms, dorm rooms, and basements around the world. In the video games world, vaporware is the exception, not the rule.

With all this in mind, TGS is more like an "exposition" or a "convention" rather than a "show." Everyone in attendance is really excited about video games or else they wouldn't be there, and any large gathering of enthusiasts brings out some of the more "extreme" elements. Lots of people show up in costume, celebrating their favorite game characters. "Cosplay," as the Japanese call it, is so popular there are dressing rooms set up for fans and special areas where they can pose for photographs.

The biggest problem with TGS is a familiar one to anybody who's ever been to Disneyland, that being the incredible number of people in attendance. Unlike Disneyland, TGS has to fit entirely inside one building and it's only open for two days a year. This increases demand substantially - I later learned that over 70,000 people visited on that Saturday alone. Also unlike Disneyland, the "rides" take a lot longer (a video game demo lasts anywhere from five to ten minutes, while an amusement park attraction is unlikely to break three or four) so the lines move a lot slower. If you decide to visit TGS someday, I strongly recommend you don't go alone. You will definitely want some company while you wait. And wait. And wait just a little while longer.

I went with three other people which I suspect is the upper-limit on groups that can possibly manage to stick together in such a crowded place with such disparate entertainment. While my three friends were extremely interested in the Square Enix booth, I was not because I don't like playing RPGs anymore. And in a situation where I have to wait more than forty minutes to play a demo, that demo has got to be something I actively need to play. Mere curiosity or group dynamics (i.e. wanting to share the experience with others just for their sake) just isn't enough. There's also a limit on just how long I will wait to play a game that I'm excited about. As much as I would have loved to try the new Resident Evil game (it has co-op play!), I'm not going to stand in line for three hours for that chance.

So it was almost fortuitous that when the three of them made a dash for the Square Enix booth, I lost sight of them and found myself alone in a hurry. I swear I didn't ditch them, but maybe I didn't run after them with as much energy as I could have because I couldn't care less about where they were running to. There was also the fact that the booth I was the most interested in happened to sit right in front of the entrance, that of SNK Playmore. Assuming whatever they sought would occupy them for quite some time, I just walked back to the SNKP booth to finally get my hands on King of Fighters XII.

Street Fighter IV has certainly grabbed a much larger share of fighting game fans' interest this year, what with it's unexpected trailer, 3D modeled graphics and its sudden arcade release this summer, but to me and my friends KOF XII is the most exciting news we've heard in a long time. As much as we've enjoyed the KOF series, we recognized that artistically, the game was stuck in a rut. Most of the character sprites (i.e. the on-screen animated characters themselves) were simply being re-used year after year, some going back all the way to 1996. To learn that the next game would be entirely re-drawn and not rely on newer 3D graphics (which while I can appreciate, do not impress me as much as hand-made artwork), that is a dream come true. The only question left is one we can't answer until next year - how does the game feel?

I wish I could offer a better answer, because my time with KOF XII at TGS was tragically brief. Being a fighting game with a long arcade-based history, SNKP decided to set up the demo machines as 1-on-1 "versus" cabinets, as opposed to single-player machines that would be the norm in such an environment. However, I've never been much for "versus" matches in the arcades. Partly it's a skill level thing (because for all my decades of experience I've never been that good at these games), but mostly it's because when I play a game, I want to play the game rather than "some guy." Games are automatically programmed to teach you how to play them, as they start off slow and easy and gradually increase in difficulty the longer you play. "Some guy," well, he's just some guy. He's "programmed" himself to win the match as quickly as possible. And any guy who's willing to come to TGS and wait in line for a shot at a highly-anticipated game that's not coming out for six more months is going to be exceptionally good at winning.

(note: some game specific details follow. If you don't know KOF this might not make sense)

I picked Benimaru, Terry and Iori as my three fighters. Benimaru probably wasn't the best choice because he's never been my favorite, but he's always been very easy to control and this was my first ever opportunity to try this game. Terry was a lock because he's an all-around solid character who doesn't change much year-to-year. I've been using him in some incarnation or another for over seventeen years (going back all the way to Fatal Fury) so I have a solid knowledge of his abilities. Iori was just added to KOF XII for TGS and he's always been the "cool" guy and I couldn't resist him. Also, like Terry, he hasn't changed much since 1995.

My opponent picked Terry and...well, I'll never know who else because I only got to see Terry. My three characters were no match for his one. In fact, the first round was a goddamn PERFECT victory - my Benimaru experiment failed spectacularly as I never landed a single blow. Iori didn't fare much better because, much to my surprise, he is totally different now. Every move I knew and relied on - his flaming ground-based projectiles, his rising defensive shoryuken-like attack, even his fast-moving forward-rushing punches and grabs - were gone. I had no time to read the instructions affixed to the machine because "some guy" wasn't going to give me the chance, so I just flailed around and tried different joystick and button combinations in the hope of discovering something. All I got were wild-looking moves where Iori would "slash" the air with limited range. A few lucky hits aside, I never got much out of Iori in the fight. Our Terry vs Terry match at least resembled a fighting game rather than a one-sided embarrassment, but he was just waaaay better at KOF than I was. He also somehow knew how the super moves work in KOF XII which I do not at all, as there is no on-screen indication of a meter or gauge to indicate when such a move can occur. I believe I managed one Power Geyser but it didn't connect.

The experience was a bucket-to-the-face of all the emotions I hate the most - helplessness, frustration, humiliation and just all-around futility. I had come all this way and looked forward to this chance for months, and now here's "some guy" with a bored look on his face (I checked) booting me off the machine inside of two minutes. I suppose I could have waited in line again for another chance, possibly ending up next to a novice who was lured in by the pretty girls or flashing lights, but I knew such a lucky break was slim. Besides, the line had doubled in length while I waited and it was far more likely I'd end up fighting "some other guy" with the same craptacular results. Pissed off, I walked away and resolved to just wait until next Spring when I can get my own copy to enjoy on my own terms. "Some guy" is not invited.

I pushed (one does not actually "walk" at TGS because that would suggest unoccupied space for movement exists) my way towards the nearby EA booth to see what they had to play. Sadly, there was no Dead Space, a scary science-fiction shooter that looks like it takes place onboard the Event Horizon, and most of the games were sports titles that I've never been fond of. Imagine my surprise when I saw a Mirror's Edge demo that had the added bonus of a remarkably short line.

Mirror's Edge is a game that I initially got very interested in until I started learning more about it. The concept of a first-person "runner" where I could leap around rooftops like one of those parkour dudes was instantly appealing. As details emerged, it became less so. Some press types, men who play a hell of a lot more games than I ever will, claimed the fast-moving first-person view made them queasy. Others compared it to racing games, a genre I absolutely loathe. And when I started seeing run-throughs of other levels, the game appeared to be beyond my abilities as a player. It looked like something that would take a long time to even get a grip on and an even longer time to memorize all the necessary routes to make it through to the end. Standing in line to play the demo, I watched other players awkwardly wander around the rooftops, unsure of which way to go, then falling to their doom over and over when they failed to properly land that big jump they wanted. If I didn't know better, I would have assumed the game was some kind of twisted suicide-simulation where the goal was to throw yourself off skyscrapers repeatedly.

My fears turned out to be unfounded because I found Mirror's Edge to be an absolute blast. The controls are a little unconventional (the "jump" button is mapped to one of the shoulder buttons) but I got the hang of it quickly. Most of the gameplay is simple platforming - running and jumping. The character, Faith, automatically grabs ledges, ladders and pipes as needed to prevent falling. All you have to do is make the right moves to put her in the correct position and she'll do the rest. Watching other people try and fail as often as I did, I picked up a solid understanding of the layout of the demo level, but even then the game uses red colors to guide you forward. When in doubt, I just ran towards something red and I would figure out my next move immediately. I managed to finish the level while only falling down once, impressing the staff members who were used to helping people through each and every step of the demo. After one playthrough, Mirror's Edge lept from "not for me" to "this might be awesome."

I wish I could be as optimistic about the next game I played: the brand new 3D Bionic Commando. While the NES remake was right up my alley, delighting me with a faithful update of the original game that is only made better with modern graphics and new gameplay modes, the new game just feels all wrong. The biggest problem is the most obvious one when translating a 2D game into a 3D space - aiming. The original game was famous because your character used a mechanical arm to grab things, climb, and swing his way through a level. The new game has a mechanical arm, but you cannot control where it goes. The game automatically highlights targets for you to grab, and like most automatic functions it seems quite arbitrary. I often found myself leaping past perfectly good ledges or objects while tapping the "grab" button, only to fall down because the targeting system didn't register.

Anther problem that 3D brings is a matter of perspective. In the 2D original, you simply push "forward" and you will automatically swing forward and disengage the arm, sending your character moving through the air in the right direction. You can clearly see your character and the surrounding environment at all times. In 3D, when your character swings forward it means he is moving away from you as the player. This makes judging when to release the claw quite difficult. Time it wrong and the character shoots straight up and then falls back down, without the momentum needed to reach that next ledge. This happened to me and the other players at the booth a lot.

After trying and rejecting Bionic Commando, I managed to catch up to my friends waiting in line at the Sony booth. Since everyone else was waiting to play Resident Evil 5, we opted to try Resistance 2. I haven't played the original Resistance save for a online demo that dumped me in the middle a battle with no clue as to how to play the damn game. Still, as one of the headlining games for the holiday season, I knew Sony was pushing Resistance 2 pretty hard and with an online co-op mode, it was possibly that Richard and I might play through it at some point. So it sounded like something worth taking a look at.

The thing that really impressed me about the Resistance 2 demo area was the inclusion of headphones at each terminal. While polygon counts and screen resolution are always the main ammunition for modern gaming boast-fests, people tend to underestimate the impact music and sound effects add to a game. Whenever I try to play games on my laptop, I always use headphones even when I am alone because it gives me an increased awareness of the aural presentation. If we ever move out of this apartment into a proper house, I plan on investing in an actual stereo to allow for a fuller appreciation of DVDs and video games. However, Resistance 2 squandered the power of the headphones by featuring generic, looping battle music that actually got on my nerves within two minutes of playing the game.

Indeed, Resistance 2 seemed like it had plenty of good ideas but also a lot of wasted potential. The demo level has you follow a NPC partner who guides you towards your objectives. He doesn't offer much aid in the way of combat and his only strength seems to be in opening flimsy doors that block your progress. The two of us would advance, stop and fight some monsters, then advance again. The whole thing felt forced and restrictive. At one point I though the game was broken because I killed the monsters in our path but my partner refused to open the door. It turns out one monster was trailing behind us, "stuck" on a corner of a bridge. I had to backtrack and destroy him just so I could move on. Those kinds of hiccups shook me out of the immersive experience a virtual war zone should have offered. It also didn't help that the staff booted me after my "five minutes" were up despite the sign outside reading "twelve minutes per player." I may give Resistance 2 another chance, but based on what I've seen thus far the game does not excite me.

And that was that, as far as TGS is concerned. Between the slow-moving crowds, the incredibly long lines and an extended lunch break where we all ate Subway sandwiches, we had a look at everything we could. They were showing the latest Castlevania game on the DS, but since that game hits the stores in less than a week, I couldn't justify standing in a line for forty-five minutes just to get an early look. I just convinced my friends to try Mirror's Edge with me before we all headed home.

Ultimately, that is the issue I have with TGS. The sheer size and spectacle of the experience is dwarfed by the tremendous number of other people who are in the way. With the reach of the Internet, all of the purely visual aspects of TGS can be enjoyed for free from the comfort of home. Likewise, the fact that the PS3 and Xbox have such a strong online components mean that many of the videos and even demos will eventually turn up on the devices themselves. I wouldn't be surprised at all if that wonderful Mirror's Edge level ends up as a free download within a month.

So was it worth it? Definitely, because I had specific interest in a game and I got to play it, if only briefly. Had I done more investigating, I might have found more things that I wanted to see. I probably should have tried to play some Xbox games as well, if for no other reason than I don't own an Xbox and that was an opportunity to play one for free. If (and that's a big if) I go again next year, there would have to be another game out there that I simply had to play. Also, I would place a larger focus on going to Tokyo and doing some sightseeing, because TGS in suburban Chiba cannot compare with all the potential excitement Tokyo has to offer. As my friend Richard put it, "I feel bad for anyone who would come to Tokyo just for TGS."