Posted by: Nik Taylor

I’ve recently collapsed into my hotel room after a long, hot, exhausting, but thoroughly enjoyable first day at the Tokyo Game Show. The show has so far been light on headline-grabbing announcements, but very heavy indeed in the amount of triple-A titles on show.

Thursday started, as most things at TGS do, it seems, with a queue as I stood in line for my press pass. Once free of those shackles and also the close proximity of the most sweaty journalist I’ve ever seen (it’s hot and humid here – and he was wearing A COAT), it was on to the opening ceremony. My reasons for going to this were partly out of some sense of duty, but mainly because there was a giant silver cat thing waiting in the wings.

Sadly, if predictably, I understood not a word of what was said, as the great and good of Japanese gaming came on stage, spoke earnestly in Japanese about something important and sat down again. At the end, they all got back on stage and put on a pair of white gloves each. I have no idea why. That done, it was finally time for silver cat to get in on the act, as he invaded the stage, accompanied by a bevy of booth babes.

With that peculiar diversion out of the way, I headed into the main hall itself. Or, as I should say, halls. The show is huge, spread over eight massive halls and countless meeting rooms besides. Inside is a cacophony of noise and a maelstrom of high definition graphics. At one point, I found myself cornered by a banging Eurotrance tune (accompanying a flashing Tekken 6 demo), a wailing demo track for Ninenty-Nine Nights 2 and a 12-foot graphic of Fernando Torres emerging onto the Anfield turf. Still, it was better than being stood outside the Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker booth, which seemed determined to drive away punters by playing some kind of low-rent Celine Dion soundalike. Never a good idea.

Soon it was queue time again. Finding myself with an hour to kill before my next appointment, I decided to get in line for a crack at the latest God of War III demo. ‘Surely an hour will be enough to queue, play the demo and get out?’ I thought. Not so. With 55 minutes gone, and having moved up to an agonising second in line, I decided to cut my losses and run. Heaven knows what things are going to be like at the weekend when they let the general public in. They expect 180,000 people here on Saturday and Sunday. God of War III, sure to be one of the most popular titles on display, has four playable booths. Those are not good maths.

Still I managed to get plenty of playing time in on other games, including Red Steel 2, Lost Planet 2, Pro Evo 10 and Monster Hunter Tri. Before I knew it, five o’clock had struck and it was closing time. This was one of the highlights of the day for me. Not because I was leaving, but because the PA then plays a version of Auld Lang Syne that sounds like it’s been recorded on an old-skool Casio keyboard. Beautifully bizarre, just like the show itself.