Tokyo Game Show 2009

Jones and Teti report from TGS 2009. Some of it is about games.
10/2/2009 11:34 AM | 0 Comments | Page 1 of 1

Post-TGS 2009: This is Why I Miss Having Arcades Around
By John Teti |10/01/2009
Jones and I encountered Garnett Lee, formerly of 1UP and now of GameFly, while shopping at Mandarake in Shibuya. Garnett suggested that I visit the larger Nakano Broadway complex in the Nakano district of Tokyo.

Post-TGS 2009: How to Be an UFO Catcher Master
By John Teti |09/30/2009
Next to video games, the most floor space in Japanese arcades is dedicated to "UFO Catchers." Callously referred to as "crane games" in the United States, these machines beguile you with fabulous prizes -- or sometimes less-than-fabulous prizes -- that look terribly easy to snatch up in the catchers' big metal claws.

Post-TGS 2009: Yes We Can Make You Uncomfortable About Race
By John Teti |09/30/2009
Jones' post about the "Mr. James" character at McDonald's touched on weird racial stuff, but Mr. James is a white dude (an incredibly white dude). What about black people? Like, say, the first African-American president of the United States?

Post-TGS 2009: No Photo!!!
By John Teti |09/29/2009
The exhibitors at TGS 2009 spend many thousands of dollars constructing lavish high-wattage booths with enormous TV screens in a gigantic effort to dazzle the eye. Then they hire armies of people to yell at you if you try to take a picture.

Post-TGS 2009: Whats in a Name (Not-Much)
By John Teti |09/29/2009
I have to assume that these games spotted on the TGS show floor sound super-exciting in the original Japanese.

TGS 2009: Presenting The First Annual Crispy Gamer Miso Ramen Awards
By John Teti |09/27/2009
Almost every day last week began the same way. Jones and I would roll out of bed in our respective hotel rooms, hung over from the night before, and we would have a debate on AIM about where we should eat.

TGS 2009: There Was Also an Enormous Slime
By John Teti |09/27/2009
Kyle Orland asked me if there were any other giant inflatable creatures at the Tokyo Game Show besides the giant chocobo I mentioned earlier. Yes, in fact, there was a giant Slime. He hovered over the Dragon Quest VI booth, smiling down on us with his trademark brand of low-I.Q. contentedness.

TGS 2009: A Hot (Makuhari) Messe
By Scott Jones |09/25/2009
This is my third year attending the Tokyo Game Show, and while I'll no doubt come back to the extremely lovely country of Japan, despite the rather large spiders that live here, I doubt I'll come back to TGS again.

TGS 2009: Jones and Teti go to a McDonalds
By Scott Jones |09/25/2009
Yesterday Teti and I decided to go to the 24-hour McDonald's across from our hotel. As usual, I managed to communicate with the Japanese-speaking counter girl by pointing at pictures on the menu and making eating and drinking motions with my hands.

TGS 2009: The Booth Babe Gallery!
by John Teti | 09/25/2009
Surely all of you are familiar with the phenomenon of booth babes, those pamphlet-toting pixies that companies hire by the handful to give their trade-show booths some straightforward sex appeal. They have become staples of the game convention experience, and Tokyo Game Show has the highest booth babe per capita of any industry event. It's an impressive show of babe force, clearly designed to accommodate the aggressive enthusiasts who teem around them with telephoto lenses.

TGS 2009: Did We Travel Thousands of Miles Just to See a Giant Chocobo?
by John Teti | 09/25/2009
Writers have a built-in bias when we go to events like the Tokyo Game Show: We want them to matter. I flew halfway around the world and upended my life for two weeks so that I could attend this show. When Jones and I walked into the Makuhari Messe convention center yesterday for the first day of TGS, you better believe we wanted to be wowed.

TGS 2009: Take Me Out to the Ball Game so I Can Completely Ignore It
by John Teti | 09/23/2009
Can you spot the gamer in this picture, taken at yesterday's thrilling Yomiuri Giants baseball game? No? Here's a closer shot.

TGS 2009: Sekkusu! Part Two: Final Fantasy Sekkusu!
by John Teti |09/23/2009
In some of the more completist comics stores here, you can get fan-made manga that features characters from venerable game series. I discovered this corner of fan culture on my first trip to Tokyo when I was browsing for Final Fantasy stuff at a comic/pop-culture store in Shibuya called Mandarake. I flipped through the fan manga shelves marked "FF" and found three surprises.

TGS 2009: Teti and Jones Go To A Baseball Game
by Scott Jones |09/23/2009
Yesterday we went to an afternoon baseball game at the Tokyo Dome. Teti got us tickets through some shifty journalist named Wayne who I made the mistake of calling "Wade," and once I realized how irritated Teti was by my mistake, I decided to go ahead and refer to the guy as "Wade" for the rest of the day. Getting Teti all red-assed about something is SO FUN.

TGS 2009: Teti and Jones Eat Curry, Set Tokyo Rice Record
by Scott Jones |09/23/2009
Yesterday Teti and I decide to combat our hangovers from John Riccardi's Eight-Four party Tuesday night (WE MET SUDA-51; SUCK ON THAT MASTRAPA HA HA HA HA HA!!!) by having curry. We take two seats at the counter. Teti speaks Japanese, so he does the ordering for us. My way of ordering is to point at the photograph of an item on a menu, then start praying very hard that whatever it is is somewhat delicious.

TGS 2009: ATTACK OF THE ROTATING YELLOW DEMON
by Scott Jones | 09/23/2009
Teti is staying on the 22nd floor and I am on the 20th floor, but our Shinjuku Prince hotel rooms face the same general Easterly direction. We were IMing yesterday morning when suddenly Teti sent me this message: John Teti: WHAT THE F*** IS THAT ROTATING YELLOW DEMON ON THE BUILDING DOWN THERE

TGS 2009: Sekkusu! Part One
by John Teti | 09/23/2009
As Jones mentioned, we are staying in Shinjuku, the city's classic entertainment and nightlife district. Shinjuku has lost some of its luster over the decades. It used to be that when a movie shot on location in Tokyo, the establishing shot would always be the same: a wide shot of Shinjuku's Yasukuni-dori street, stacked with neon signs, full of Japanese characters blazing with illegible mystique.

TGS 2009: Teti and Jones Go To Tokyo Arcades, Vol. 1
by Scott Jones |09/20/2009
Last night Teti and I ate massive bowls of ramen in less than five minutes--the proper way to eat ramen apparently is fast--and then we walked off our ramen farts by taking a stroll around Shinjuku. Shinjuku is rife with multi-storied arcades that appear to be open 24-7 and encourage cigarette smoking. Teti and I explored a few arcades, but we didn't really feel like any of the games we saw were calling out to us, until Teti--so he says--saw a game that featured some sort of toilet scene in it. The game was called BishiBashi.

TGS 2009: Jones Gets a Massage
by Scott Jones | 09/20/2009
I'm single, as the entire world knows by now. Without a wife, S.O., or girlfriend, I have no one to answer to these days (except my two cats: The Chief and Bee). I can do what I want and not have to fuss about any messy guilt or hurt feelings on the far side of it. I believe it's a universal law that if you're single, and your hotel room telephone has a MASSAGE button on it, one must press said button and see what happens.

TGS 2009: Jones and Teti Arrive, Drop Bags, Describe Tokyo as "OUR KIND OF TOWN."
by Scott Jones | 09/20/2009
Teti and I are in Tokyo all this week, staying at the Shinguku Prince Hotel, a hotel that has no gym whatsover, but on the plus side, it does have a button on the in-room telephone clearly labeled MASSAGE.