Time to load up with a second part of the Tokyo Game Show snaps. While you’ll find plenty of pictures of megabooths and their smiling attendants on other blogs covering the show, I’m generally trying to keep it more specific and quirkier for you good GSW readers. For better or worse:

It’s absolutely fascinating to me that the early U.S. RPG series from Sir-Tech, Wizardry, is still a cult favorite in the country, thanks to lots of Japanese-only instalments up to v.recently. Thus, this Wizardry T-shirt in the merchandising area.

Another sign of how gigantic Capcom’s Monster Hunter series is in Japan, this particular cutesy armored cat (!) was promoting a Monster Hunter CCG, I believe. Stories in Akihabara were littered with merchandising for the series, too

Although somewhat ignored by the press, the student section of TGS — essentially lots of game schools trying to get consumer day attendees to sign [...]

Original Post By Google News editors@gamesetwatch.com (Simon Carless)

[Reporting from Tokyo Game Show, I took a look at the fortunes of the major console creators — is TGS a bust or a boon for their fortunes in Japan and worldwide? Straightforward opinions and show floor impressions ensue…]
Looking over the 2008 Tokyo Game Show, one of the main factors an interested onlooker might consider is how the console manufacturers are handling the show. Both Microsoft and Sony, currently dueling for position in the worldwide market, sought a strong showing at TGS.
Sony needed to convince consumers that its recent loss to the Xbox 360 in the monthly Japanese sales charts was just a one-off. On the other hand, Microsoft needed to convince the assembled masses its momentum in the territory was not a flash in the pan. As for Nintendo — well, we’ll get to them a little later.
On Microsoft’s Showing
Let’s start with Microsoft. It laid out its [...]

Original Post By Google News editors@gamesetwatch.com (Simon Carless)

[Every week, IndieGames.com: The Weblog editor Tim W. will be summing up some of the top free-to-download and commercial indie games from the last seven days, as well as any notable features on his sister ’state of indie’ weblog.]
This week on ‘Best Of Indie Games’, we take a look at some of the top independent PC Flash/downloadable titles released over this last week.
The goodies in this latest version include two physics-based puzzlers and three platformer with different themes - avoid losing all your lives, kill yourself and travel back in time repeatedly.
Game Pick: ‘World of Goo‘ (2D Boy, commercial indie)
“The award-winning World of Goo is finally out for the Windows platform, with a WiiWare release coming next week. 2D Boy’s debut release has been getting plenty of rave reviews, and with all the good reasons - fun, engaging, charming and addictive.”
Game Pick: ‘Tumbledrop‘ (dock, browser)
“A physics-based puzzler created by Hayden [...]

Original Post By Google News editors@gamesetwatch.com (timw)

[’The Interactive Palette’ is a biweekly GameSetWatch column by Gregory Weir that examines the tools and techniques of the digital games trade with a focus on games as art, using a single game as an example.]
The ability to save is a given among modern video games, but there doesn’t seem to be a save system that can satisfy everyone. As players, we want to be able to save and resume our games at any point. For many, even save points are too restrictive; PC gamers are used to quicksaving, which allows the player to save every five seconds in fear of failure.
And that’s the downside of saving, really. While it means that players can exit the game without losing progress, it also means that player failure — as well as player choice &mdash holds less weight. Playing Half-Life 2 can turn into an exercise of frequent [...]

Original Post By Google News editors@gamesetwatch.com (Gregory Weir)

[’Design Lesson 101′ is a regular column by game designer Manveer Heir. The goal is to play a game from start to completion and learn something about game design in the process. This week we take a look at the latest installment in Gearbox’s World War II series, Brothers in Arms: Hell’s Highway.]
Brothers in Arms is a series I’ve always enjoyed, thanks to its mix of first-person action and strategic gameplay. Being able to order squads of infantry to suppress and flank opponents in order to get the drop on them was always satisfying for me, and I enjoyed that change in formula from the rest of the run-and-gun shooters that were prevalent at the time.
What made the series so different for me was the requirement to stay hidden to survive. Most shooters you can run and strafe to kill enemies, but not Brothers in Arms. You had [...]

Original Post By Google News editors@gamesetwatch.com (Manveer Heir)

The Japanese are known for their weirdo sex games, but it’s funny that I think they’ve finally reached the technological level where I’m going to take notice. Check out this chick from Yakuza 3:

Granted, I still think it’s kind of gross to get excited by something a sexual repressed Japanese man created, but that line is sure as hell getting blurry. Hey, don’t judge me! I think dirty games have a place along side the ultra violent games we play. Some pretend boobs will help even out all the exploding heads my console sees.
Oh yeah, the chick above is modeled on a real life transsexual. If that grosses you out, first all all, she is made up of pixels so she’s not a real woman to begin with. She could be a cockroach in a human suit and she’d still be hot. Secondly, my motto is, “If they’ve [...]

Original Post By Google News Paul

Bungie was finally allowed to reveal in full their next game and it is Halo 3: Recon, the Halo themed expansion game featuring an ODST trooper (though it’s a UNSC Recon trooper really) that we pretty much all figured out from the teaser trailer. Here’s the full trailer if you haven’t seen it yet.

The game is a prequel to the events in Halo 3 and is due out sometime in November of ‘09. Damn, why do we have to wait so friggen long for this thing?
At first I was a bit disappointed that Bungie’s project was a Halo game, but I’m so jazzed for this now that I can’t handle it. The parts of Halo 2 and 3 are the ones where you’re on Earth and getting screwed out of the mostly Earth based campaign that was implied in the original build up to that game, it [...]

Original Post By Google News Paul

While I’m running around to various appointments, keynotes, and other strangeness at Tokyo Game Show, I have been taking a few pictures of the show, which I shall be apportioning out regularly until, well, there are none left.
This batch mainly covers the business day at the show, plus a quick run around the various keynotes on the first day. Shazam:

Possibly the most adorable example of Japanese photo controlfreakery thus far, you were allowed to take pictures of the speaker and his slides in the Microsoft keynote, but not just the slides. Oh… kay?

LittleBigPlanet (watch for an editorial from me soon about it) was the center of the Sony booth at TGS, and they had this big (10ft tall?) globe with a Sackboy on top of it - v.cute.

We interviewed Takahashi Meijin on Gamasutra recently, and here he is at the Hudson merchandising booth, plugging his ‘16-Shot’ gadget, which trains you [...]

Original Post By Google News editors@gamesetwatch.com (Simon Carless)

[If there’s one thing to be said about Gamasutra’s Chris Remo, he knows his game beans, and I really enjoyed this chat about Far Cry 2’s multiplayer, which really has been underdiscussed to date. Look out for a follow-up interview with LeBel about Halo multiplayer which is v.interesting, too.]
Much of the attention placed on Ubisoft Montreal’s upcoming Far Cry 2 has revolved around the game’s open-ended single-player campaign, including its dynamic narrative system, but it’s also shipping with an ambitious multiplayer level-editing component on both the PC and console SKUs.
Aiming to streamline the team’s own level design tools into something flexible, powerful, yet still accessible, has been a challenge to the team, and the goal has ended up driving many aspects of the main multiplayer modes’ design.
To gain insight into the development process behind that side of the game, we sat down with Hardy LeBel (Halo, SOCOM 3: U.S. Navy [...]

Original Post By Google News editors@gamesetwatch.com (Simon Carless)

Editors at our big sister site Gamasutra (OK, including me) are crawling the halls of the Tokyo Game Show this week — attending keynotes and sessions, interviewing members of the Japanese development community, and scoring the hottest of hot scoops.
The show runs until Sunday, October 12, and with the first day wrapped, we’ve compiled our first salvo of on-location coverage. Conveniently collected for your consumption:
Announcements
Microsoft Announces Halo 3: Recon, To Debut Late 2009
“During Tokyo Game Show, Microsoft announced Halo 3: Recon, a new Bungie-developed ’standalone expansion’ which uses Halo 3 as a basis for an all-new campaign and multiplayer experience due out in Fall 2009.”
TGS: Microsoft’s Schappert Reveals Tekken On Xbox 360, Nov. 19th Xbox Live Update
“Microsoft Xbox corporate VP John Schappert announced a robust line-up of Japanese-developed Xbox 360 titles including a Tekken entry, promised a November 19 debut for the new Xbox Live interface, and [...]

Original Post By Google News editors@gamesetwatch.com (Simon Carless)