What a weekend! The Tokyo Game Show ended yesterday and I am spending the day recovering. I had a great time but I didn’t sleep much and I had very little time to actually think about all the stuff going on around me. Today was my day to digest it all.

For 3 days TGS became my life. Playing new games, writing stories, and talking with other press. It was very exciting. Now I am back to my very small town and I don’t have people to share it with. You see, I was the only one from my city (and probably the surrounding cities) to go, so now that I am back I can’t really talk to anyone about it other than on the Internet. I realize more and more that the show is really over now. I went to a game shop and overheard some kids talking about the PLAYSTATION 3. I said, “I just played that yesterday!” They didn’t believe me. Oh well. At least I have my swag to keep me company.

Many people have told me that the free stuff at this year’s TGS was not as good as in previous years. I am not sure if that is true or not but in regardless, I wound up with a lot of stuff. So much in fact, that I had to (reluctantly) leave a lot of it in Tokyo. The above picture is what I managed to bring home. Highlights include: 9 press kits, 4 DVDs, 6 CD-ROMs, 2 games, 5 key chains, a Joystiq T-shirt, 2 SNK T-shirts, A Dragon Quest arm band and a Elebits Pop-up Book. There was tons of other stuff, but it would be too long and boring to list.

I tried some of the promotional DVDs and CDs that came in the press kits. They had the game trailers that were being shown on the show floor in high quality. The companies also gave me artwork and screenshot images for use on websites. It’s all really useful. I will be going through these press kits over the next few days and if I find anything interesting I will post it here.

Tokyo Game Show was great, but not so much for the actual games. The new systems and games were fun of course, but that was not what made the show special. It was the people. Thousands of people with similar interests gathered for a celebration of their chosen hobby (or career). I felt I could talk to anyone there and we would have some common ground. The other guys and gals in the pressroom were fantastic and so down to earth. I am not a big famous reporter, but everyone made me feel very relaxed and welcome.

I also had the great opportunity to meet 4cr writer Jools for the first time as well as some readers of the site. I hope to see more of you next year. I say next year because God willing I will be there next year and ever year after that. Thank you all for reading my journal the past 5 days, I hope you enjoyed it.

-Vinnk

In case you missed anything, here is a wrap up of 4cr’s TGS coverage.

Daily Journal Entries:

Day 0: Off to TGS
Day 1: Getting there is half the fun?
Day 2: Press Day
Day 3: Pandemonium!
Day 4: Final Round, Fight!
Day 5: What Just happened?

TGS Podcast

Games

Black Jack: Hands-on at TGS
TGS: Best of the Rest – Hokuto no Ken/Fist of the North Star (PS2)
TGS: Hands-on - Love and Berry
TGS: Hands-Off - Doki Doki Majo Saiban

Immaturity

Pictochatting Kutaragi’s Keynote
Models in Japan

NOTE: In the coming days there will be some additional TGS content, and it will be added to this list as it goes up.