Tokyo Game Show Wrap up

TOKYO - Now that the 1998 Spring Tokyo Game Show is over, it's time for a bit of reflection. While the next few months will be exciting for gamers in both the US and Japan, it seems that most of what was generating the most excitement at this year's TGS will be released in mere days rather than weeks. Parasite Eve, Tekken 3, and Sakura Taisen 2, all big games, are on the slate for the next week. Metal Gear Solid, one of the biggest (if not the biggest game present at the show) is still a little ways off.

Perhaps the biggest surprise was Capcom's showing of Capcom Generation. While Capcom doing a classic series isn't surprising, the fact that we didn't know about it - when we knew just about everything else at the show - is surprising.

Nintendo 64 titles keep trickling out at a snail's pace, but the quality of games from Japanese developers hasn't seemed to reach the level Nintendo has been achieving with the system time and again.

While Sega still has several major releases (along with decent support from third parties, ESP especially), the reality is that the Saturn is slowly slipping away from view.

The Sony PlayStation continues to rule - with easliy the most games of any system in development. Even with that honer under its belt, Sony didn't make that big a splash at the show - and it didn't announce too many new titles, nor were any major sequel titles shown.

Overall, while not a show without a huge amount of great games, it was a Tokyo Game Show where the surprises were few and far between. Sega had some great games, but the chances for any of them making it to the US are pretty slim, Sakura Taisen 2 in particular.

Now that TGS is over and done with, gamers have E3 to look forward to for the next batch of game announcements. And, that will probably be the place for major announcements from Sony, Nintendo and Sega.

Until then!