November 28, 1999
I'm back in Tokyo and am slowly getting caught up with email and shipping.
November 12, 1999
Shipping Alert: I will be out of town from the 13th to the 24th. No orders will be shipped during this time. Incoming mail will be collected as usual.
October 9, 1999
Hint: If you send me email and you want me to reply to another address, set the "reply to:" field in your message to the address you want me to write to.
September 28, 1999
For those of you who are wondering if I will ever respond to your email, I have a new job which is eating up most of my waking hours. Please be patient.
Konami is due to release "The Art of Metal Gear Solid" on the 29th. This book is now 3 months over due so I will believe it when I have it in my hands. It is supposed to be 180 pages, A4 size with a plastic outer cover. I might be reading the Konami announcement page wrong, but it looks like there will be some art by Amano (of FF fame) in there as well. The thought of Solid Snake in flowing fairy robes just makes me sick. Liquid however is a different story. For those of you who bought the McFarlaine MGS dolls, didn't LS look like he should be a gay porn star? Now just imagine Amano drawing LS based on the figure. Maybe we can look forward to Metal Gear Rex in a safron turban with little bells on the top. God I hope I read that wrong. Anyway don't take my word for it since I am functionally illiterate in Japanese.
September 17, 1999
Summer is over, finally. It was a pretty tough summer for game collecting with the usual summer drought of used games in Akihabara and the flea markets were not turning up any treasures either. The arrival of Fall in Tokyo is market by a change from bing so hot and sticky that you want to die to very comfortable weather. The other sign of Fall is the bi-annual Tokyo Game Show. Once again we were there and bring you the low down and the shots that the big sites did not catch. All the pics can be found here.
The biggest news was the first public showing of Sony's shining hope for the future. The PS2 has been officially unveiled. I would not say that it was the coolest thing at the show, but it was big. More about the coolest thing later, but I know you are itching to hear about PS2, so let's get it over with right away.
Most of the PS2 games at the show were not playable, and one might think that most of the non playable ones were just videotapes. In the Sony booth, Tekken Tag Tournament, Gran Tourismo 2000, Dark Cloud (an RPG where you make the terain? not sure), Eternal Ring (first person perspective RPG?), The Bouncer (seems to be Square/Dream Factory's answer to Shenmue. Looks like a Final Fight RPG) were playable. Out of these, all except for The Bouncer were running on development systems rather than production PS2 units.
We could see non playable demos, running on production PS2 systems, such as Kessen from Koei (usuall Koei history battle sim, this one has a long way to go), Unison by Tecmo (yet another kawaii music/rhythm game?) and three others. Several other developers outside the Sony booth were showing videos of their PS2 efforts. (On a side note, we tried to get a closer look at one of the developers "PS2 Tool" systems in another booth and this man was not happy about it.)
Electronic Arts was letting people play a 30% complete version of XFIRE (Crossfire) but would not allow us to take pictures. This is an OTS camera action game with very realistic body movements and facial expressions in the ingame engine. (Lets face it, who cares what rendered cinemas look like? We already know that can be done on the PSX.) XFIRE has lots of weapons and the EA presenters made a big deal about how a famous Japanese military action cinema expert is helping with the production. This one looks like one to watch. According to one EA rep at the booth they are shooting for a 00/3/4 release date to coincide with the PS2 launch.
I'm not going to spend any time writing about PS2 system specs since you can read those elsewhere. The important question for most of you is "Is the PS2 all that?" or more precicely, "Does the PS2 eat Dreamcasts for breakfast?" In a word, no. We saw a bunch of eye candy, but not OHMYGOD eye candy. More importantly we did not see any amazing gameplay or hear of any "must have" release titles. Of course anything we saw today is early code and will not reflect the quality of the first round of release titles so this is not a final judgement by any means. Lets just say that all of us here at Superfami.com will be thinking long and hard before spending money on a PS2 come March of 2000.
Now that we have that out of the way, lets go over the rest of the show. The main thing you noticed was LOTS of "gyaruge" (dating simulators), giant robot games (an eternal Japanese favorite), and lots of music/rhythm games.
Sony's booth also featured "Legend of Dragoon" which looks like it will be quite nice, Gran Tourismo 2, many Pocket Station games and Crash Bandicoot Racing. Even if it is just another cute cart game, Marc Cerny ("father" of Crash Bandicoot) was on hand bless it's public appearance.
Capcom was pushing three different versions of Biohazard (Biohazard 3: Last Escape for PSX, Biohazard 3 for N64, and Biohazard: Code Veronica for Dreamcast). The gameplay has not changed a bit since the first title. If you liked the Biohazard/Resident Evil, you will like the sequels. The one new thing, which oddly enough was at the back of Capcom's booth was Biohazard: Gun Survivor for the PSX. If you want to play House of The Dead with a GunCon then this is for you. We did not get to spend time on this game, but it looks like it should be rated as a "buy" for light gun fans. Capcom's signature 2D fighters were also visible on the PSX and DC. Chun Li was on hand to organize fights between conventioneers on the Capcom stage.
Konami was showing Tokimeki Memorial 2, music titles and sports. If you are A DDR/Bemani/Guitar Freaks fan you were in luck. They did have a Drum Freaks PSX controller hooked up, but we were unable to get close enough to take a picture of it. Several new "branded" arcade and home versions of Dance Dance Revolution were on hand featuring the images and music of JPOP stars like "Dreams Come True". Konami's PS2 title will be a soccer game. There was no mention of the US developed Castlevania game for Dreamcast being released here or any other Konami signature titles being updated for new systems.
Square offered no surprises this time. Chrono Cross was playable and there was a small gallery of Chrono Trigger artwork by Akira Toriyama with a video screen of the upcoming PSX Chrono Trigger. Parasite Eve was shown but not playable. Dew Prism and Vagrant Story were playable. Chocobo Stallion was advertised but not shown.
SNK showed off NGPC software (nothing interesting) but the new PSX Samurai Spirits 3D spin off title looks like it will be worth checking out.
Bandai showed the usual bakers dozen Gundam games, lots of WonderSwan games and accessories and a little surprise PSX title called "Countdown Vampires". Avter a very long and very nice opening cinema your role is to fight off demons in a nightclub, BioHazard/Resident Evil style. The camera angles are a bit frustrating but this looks like a title worth watching. All the voiceovers are in English and the screen menues seem easy to figure out as well.
Sega is really pumping out the Dreamcast titles! We have eleven shots of the booth and the games for you. Some of these just have to be seen to be believed! Imagine improving your typing skills while fighting against zombies. Imagine Jane Jetson gene spliced with Lady Miss Kier of Deee Lite! before you tune into Space Channel 5. How do you like your Virtua On? Netorked or split screen? Can you sing or play a keyboard? Use your Dreamcast as a home studio/MIDI sequencer. That aint all, so go take a look after you are done reading here.
TYO Spirit of Tokyo showed the sequel toArt Truck Battle and a lowrider game. They get a gold star for their booth and for creativity. Who would have thought of a lowrider game?
Speaking of "who woulda thoughta that?" games, there were two titles from two different companies about making ramen. Take a look. Data East had some nifty promo cans of cofee printed with the logo of the Jinguji Saburo detective series which started back with the Famicom Disk System and continues to this day on the PSX. Sorry, no pics. At the Biohazard products booth you could get model guns just like the ones used by your favorite S.T.A.R.S. characters. Capcom was advertising their new download station where you can reprogram your cell phone to play melodies from your favorite Capcom games when it rings. Fans of fighting games rejoice! ASCII will be introducing a n old fashioned pad controller for the DC. ASCII also showed "Balzac", their upcoming action RPG for Dreamcast. We played it and it is fun. All I can say is that I am glad that I am not this ASCII employee.
The Superfami.com "Who Woulda Thoughta That?" award and the best of show award both go to a product with no release date, tucked away in the middle of the Bandai booth. You read that right. Bandai, home of mediocre anime based games and the little handheld that could will soon bring us "WonderBorg". This pint sized little spider legged robot will sell for about 10,000 Yen (less than $100) and will come with a special WonderSwan cart which allows you to program its behavior and transmit the instructions to the WonderBorg by means of an infra-red adapter for the WS. You can give it tasks to do and behavior patterns to follow (don't walk into walls, don't walk off the edge of the table, etc). Forget Lego Mindstorms, the WonderBorg will fit in my pocket!
That about wraps it up for our Fall 1999
Tokyo Game Show coverage. Once again we got stuff the big sites didn't
get and once again we beat them getting everything online.
Thanks to everyone who helped and regrets to team members who couldn't
make it today.
