Tokyo Diary: Four Days and Counting

TOKYO - Let's just say, today's TGS was really crowded. But, there are some distinct differences in the way TGS is presented than say, E3 would be if it were open to the public. First of all, there was a time limit on how long each person could play a game. Of course, in the US, no one would bother to actually follow that rule unless being closely watched. At TGS, all it takes is a megaphone to say, "Please stop playing" and the player does exactly as told.

Speaking of seriously crowded, the area between Tecmo, Sega and Square booths was completely insane. It was really hard to get anywhere in that first area of the show. Other booths were crowded, but not as bad as this region.

Tonight, I had my first real encounter with the Japanese subway system, without help from someone like John Ricciardi and Wat who've both been in Japan many times before, and Yutaka (who lives here). A harrowing experience, since the station names are all written in Japanese on most of the maps you'll find in the train terminal, but eventually, I did get to my final destination--even if I took a couple detours to get there. I'm just surprised I didn't go the wrong way. More trial and error on that Monday, that's for sure.

Still, an object of much snickering and laughter amongst the team of people here from EGM and Videogames.com is the back of the jackets of Gamest employees that reads, "The Future Kick Your Ass." That's gotta be the best darned magazine tagline I've ever heard. What exactly are they trying to say? "The Future Kicks Ass"? "The Future Will Kick All Our Asses"? "In the Future I Will Kick Your Ass"? "Carddass"? Who knows... it's pretty cool. Check out the picture in our Day 2 Scrapbook.

Well, it's after midnight and I'm running on four hours of sleep so I'm cutting this short. Tomorrow it's time to catch up on sleep and see some of the sights and shops of Tokyo. No doubt that'll involve more trains. Cool.

Later!