I love TGS. I love it to death. But the public days are a real challenge. They are hot, crowded, and feature far more waiting in line than actually playing games. Still, it is interesting to see the convention center packed with people who are not reporters or designers, but simply people who love games. And I can tell you this; there are a lot of people who like games. Let’s head inside.

In pursuit of getting as much info online as possible, I once again got less than three hours of sleep. There was no time to be groggy this morning. Since it was the first day the public would be allowed in, we knew that if we wanted to play any games at all we would need to do it in the brief sliver of time between when the press is let in and when the public floodgates are cracked opened to the masses.

The trains and train stations were packed. There wasn’t a single patch of ground that didn’t have a person or a suitcase occupying it. The suitcases were, of course, being dragged along by young women and men who would be cos-playing at TGS. We wanted to take a picture at the station but the fact was that the camera was in my bag and the simple process of getting it out would have involved elbowing several people.

We finally got to TGS and began running toward the Capcom booth. Our goal was to get to Biohazard: Umbrella Chronicles before the oncoming hoard. It seems that we just weren’t fast enough. By the time we got in line, a sign was already posted saying it would be a 90-minute wait.

It didn’t turn out to take that long. We were actually able to play in a little under one hour. In this picture you can see SeanOrange and Jools, but they aren’t looking at me because whey were engrossed in a head to head game of Panel de Pon at the time.

After playing a bit, we decided to go to the press room and get something to drink. As soon as we got there Jools came up to me and said, “Did you get my Mail?” I opened my cell phone, clicked on “new mail” and read three words:

“Miyamoto is here.”

There was no time to rest. Now we needed to get to the stage area before too many people got wind of this “surprise guest”. We learned through an English press release that he was going to be presented with an award for retro gaming. The press knew this but for the show attendees, this would be coming as a complete surprise.

The award show itself was very interesting. It featured many clips from classic Famicom games and appearances by Hideo Kojima, and other famous game designers. Then came Shigeru Miyamoto.

When his name was announced there was a roar of applause and the people next to me were saying “No way! It’s really him?!”. He accepted his award and was coaxed into playing the first level of his classic game, Super Mario Bros. SeanOrange captured this on film for all to enjoy. It was a great show.

After fighting our way back to the show floor, I decided I needed to play the Metal Slug 7 demo one more time to be able to give accurate first impressions. As I was leaving the booth, I saw Falcoon again. He was showing off his new game, “The King of Fighters: Maximum Impact Regulation “A”" by taking on anyone who wanted to play against him. In the few minutes I was watching he was mopping the floor with all his challengers.

One game I was really interested in was Ousama Monogatari, which up to this point had been referred to simply as “Project O”. I went to the Marvelous Interactive booth to view the trailer on the large screen. It is a game I will be following the progress of, but I overheard disappointment from some of the people around me who were saying it looked too much like a “kids game”. Judge for yourself. After the video I was given a paper crown and the opportunity to take this fairly disturbing picture.

This day went by very fast. Before we knew it, it was time for the standard “booth attendant line up” where all the cute booth girls and cute mascots try their darnedest to get the thoroughly un-cute crowd to go home. As SeanOrange and I observed the following line-up, Jools made the observation, “I find that I’m not nearly as interested in these girls as I am in Bomberman”. We said that that was a very telling statement, but left it at that.

As we emerged into the fading sunlight we knew that we would be fighting crowds all the way back to our hotel, but we were calm about the whole thing and satisfied that we had put in another successful day at Tokyo Game Show.

Oh, and on the way home, they made me King of the Train.