Wow. Nice... feathers!

Off to TGS - a 1.5 hour trip from Shibyua station

 Before lunch, we find a friendly moth on Kim's shoulder. His feet were tired, we think.

 Oddest peripheral: the Finger Commander, which vibrates your thumb rapidly for simplified button mashing (other uses not discussed during the demonstration). On the left hand, the "cyborg" candidate wore a special set of sporks, modified for easy munching during play.

 Demonstrations of the King Kong game: well-rendered, giant-robot fighter mechanics.

 It is always cool to see women hanging out playing at TGS, totally unselfconsciously...

...even though the booth vibe is still pretty tired.

Yogurting is a multiplayer RPG with a school fiction - and the best name on the floor...

... GI Jockey was certainly in the running, though.

Eric, Justin and I wait through Fahrenheit's tedious opening credits and masturbatory introduction. All told, I it took 2 or 3 minutes to start interacting with the one-room, 2 minute demo.

 The split-screen cues were interesting, but overall, it felt stiff and dictatorial. The controls were frustrating (essentially a button/cut scene menu, a la Myst, with fancy icons) .

Who knows. Perhaps "mainstream" gamers will enjoy the slow pacing and cinematic striptease stylings of this aspiring horror/thriller... Better writing would probably help.

Driving, Shooting .... and Beat Boxing? A small Korean title, looking for a publisher.

Student games included some interesting titles and slogans...  but tired game design.

This one was about helping a failing student make it to an exam - by navigating through a low-poly maze of city streets. The prostration scene, sadly, was about as good as it got.

Katamari's art direction is fantastic. You really notice it, in an environment like this.

The PSP version uses both the buttons and d-pad as substitutes for the analog sticks. Responsive and quick, with some new content in the same lighthearted fiction - I had to wait 20 minutes to play it. Even 3rd run, I think it could do pretty well in portable form.

PS: I *heart* the King of All Cosmos.

Idol Master combines collectible cards with networked arcade playl, wrapping them in a talent-contest type fiction. Could be very successful, if the idols are customizable enough.

Sock technology in Japan is still light-years ahead of the West.

Apparently, each Japanese 360 will ship with a diminutive, beautiful girl.

When she isn't playing with you, she can help heft the DOA peripheral around!

Kameo felt like a roughly-tuned version of Metroid, with less interesting art direction.

We did discover that the demo level of Dead Rising was titled "A Woman With Secrets". Justin apparently found a zombie with some secrets, too. Get out of that closet, boy!!

Loco Roco was the EGW pick for this year - and I'm not just saying that because it involves a roll-y ball! The game has a musical, vibrant world and interesting toy-physics mechanics... something like a cross between Kirby and Gish. I really hope that Tsutomu-san comes to GDC.

Talk Man was not nearly as interesting as it looked while we waited in line. You're probably better off selecting the phrases (translating requests or comments into various languages) directly based on the context menu (airplane, bar, etc) than trying to get it to recognize what you're saying.

It's an interesting idea - but without more complex generation capability, it seems like a strange investment from the consumer perspective. And... why a muppet-esque bird dude? 

After a long day of trudging around, we headed out for shabu-shabu. Sadly, the scorpians were not there this year - but the food was just as tasty. Gonzalo's mullet made the evening all the more delicious, and a good time was definitely had by all. Beeeeeeeeefy!

 You don't see a ton of kids in the shopping districts...
but when you do, they are dressed much more stylishly than any adult.

 Portable dessert technology - another lost opportunity.

 Morning.

You guessed it - we woke up too early!