Here are some things we did get to catch at the 2011 Tokyo Game Show;

* This year, the event featured the wonderful tagline, “GAME-dancing your heart”. Fans could buy official bags and t-shirts featuring the phrase. The VIP ticket holders automatically got the t-shirt.

* A huge dragon figure dominating the Capcom stand, for the RPG adventure Dragon’s Dogma.

A dragon hovers over the players of Dragon’s Dogma

* Lots of cute Japanese ‘booth babes’ being swamped by guys (mostly) taking many photos, some being rather intrusive in my opinion. Some otaku were equipped with some insanely huge and expensive cameras.

* Some very well-made official and unofficial cosplayers of game characters.

* Huge vid-screens showing trailers and interviews for Skyrim, Modern Warfare 3, and Saints Row: The Third.

A demon girl poses for some cameras

Gladiator girl explains the selling points of the game

Smash Bros Brawl cosplayers among others

* I got to play on ‘Rhythm Thief R’, a fun 3DS game that seemed to me like a cross between Prof Layton, Elite Beat Agents and Lupin the 3rd.

* Played Rage for the PS3 – I think after playing Borderlands with Han, this game seemed somewhat disappointing, but maybe I just didn’t get enough time with it. One of the staff was really good with explaining the game modes in English to me. It had an interesting way of resurrecting your own character after getting shot to bits, using the two control sticks to match the patterns on screen that acted as a defibrillator.

* Assassins Creed Revelations – got to have a bash against random people on the multiplayer mode. I found out the only kill I made was against Louise, muhaha. Wasn’t used to the PS3 controller since I’d played the previous games on Xbox, but along with what was shown on the trailer, it looks like it’s gonna be an epic finish to the main series plot.

* Mass Effect 3 – played very nicely and Lou (who’s a total fan-girl of the series) played the demo twice (due to short queues) and we both can’t wait for the release. You got 15 minutes on an egg timer to play as much of the demo level as you could with some default character settings and some experience points to spend. I rushed on my play-through (I hate rushing) and ‘just’ beat the boss in time.

EA’s corner of TGS – the demo of FIFA 12 was next to Mass Effect 3

Louise being very excited to get an early play of Mass Effect 3

* Sonic Generations is beautiful. Half of it playing like the classic original games and the other half based on the decent bits of the more recent games. We had the option of playing one of two different levels (everyone went for the new 3D level rather than the well-known 2D level from the first game), and received a sheet of Sonic stickers for playing. We were actually playing on 3D TVs with 3D glasses on… that felt kinda weird and actually messed my play up a couple of times but I never have been good with 3D stuff.

* Saw a bit of the packed Street Fighter 4 tournament. The players were at God-like levels, but we had much more to see so didn’t stay long. We cheered seeing the odd English name on the obviously very Japanese-heavy knock-out tier list.

* The Konami stand had a collection of Metal Gear Solid models displayed next to the latest versions of the game.

 

Capcom showing off their latest 3DS game

One of the few videos for Rhythm Thief R on loop was an interview with contributing music artist Miwa

* Trading card games are still popular in Japan and were in ample supply everywhere. Papercraft models of various characters (like Sonic) also seemed to be scattered here and there.

* Smartphone games had their own dedicated section on the show floor. Popular brands such as Street Fighter, Monster Hunter and Space Invaders all had iOS or Android titles on display.

* Japanese universities pimping their video game programming and design courses. There were playable homebrew games on PC and DS, plus some brilliant artwork on the walls.

* Being handed various promotional gifts such as booklets, fans, DVDs, mini pencil boards, cards and carrying bags.

University’s booths showing off their own games and artwork

Bags, booklets and stickers obtained at TGS

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