May 16, 2005

E3-Bound

I was hoping to get a few more updates in before I took off for E3 this year, but alas, it just didn't work out. Blame work, which has been extraordinarily busy these past few months thanks to a bevy of extra-large localization projects suddenly showing up all at once.

A few really brief tidbits I want to share before they get stale:

1. On May 7, I turned 30 years old. Holy crap! I'm not complaining, though. I feel younger than ever right now, and in a lot of ways, I feel like life is just getting started. My friends and my girlfriend threw a surprise party for me here in Tokyo, which was a blast, and I got some really great gifts. Among them, I felt three were worth sharing here (the gaming-related stuff). First, there's this Famicom Disk System bank, which my girlfriend got for me:

It's pretty cool. Put a coin in the slot on top of the cartridge and push the eject button, and it makes the classic "coin" sound from Super Mario Bros. A fitting gift for a Famicom nut like me, but that's hardly the best part. Check out the back:

She actually took it apart and installed a music box inside that plays the theme to "happy birthday" when you turn the lever. Is that cool or what?

South Park fans will get a kick out of this next gaming-related present I got: a Golden PSP!

You'd need to have seen the episode from March 30 ("Best Friends Forever") to really appreciate this, but even if you haven't, who can resist a Golden PSP?

And finally, JonnyRam got me this swank Famicom towel, which I promise to take with me next time I hit the beach:

All in all, it was a great day, and I have to say, my friends are the greatest friends in the world. I'm already looking forward to my 40th birthday party! (Okay, not really.)

2. Xbox 360. I went to the press conference in Tokyo, and I watched the MTV special. I wanted to write a thousand words on what I thought of everything, but since I have to wake up in two hours to catch a flight, I'll condense it all down into a few short bullet points:

- The MTV special was crap. Talk about a blown opportunity. The concept was brilliant -- where better to show off a new piece of gaming hardware to the masses? E3 is for insiders, but we're all gonna buy it anyway. They get an A+ on the idea, but an F- on the execution. The segments they had were just awful, and the game footage they showed did nothing to help their cause. What's up with Perfect Dark? It looks like utter garbage in this state -- not the kind of game you want to be using to show off your all-powerful new hardware. But hey, at least we got Wall Guy out of the deal.

- The Japanese games that were shown in Tokyo looked very promising. I'm really excited about Mistwalker's two RPGs; one's got Akira Toriyama (Dragon Quest, Dragon Ball, Chrono Trigger), and the other's got one of my favorite artists in the world -- Inoue Takehiko (Vagabond, Slam Dunk, etc.), doing character designs. Both are being produced by Final Fantasy creator Hironobu Sakaguchi, and both have music from Nobuo Uematsu, who seems to be reinvigorated from working his old pal Sakaguchi (or "The Gooch," as many of us like to call him) Exciting stuff. Q Entertainment's game, Ninety-Nine Nights, looked good as well. I'm not sure I'm really interested in the genre, but seeing as how it's being produced by Tetsuya "Midas Touch" Mizuguchi and developed by Phantagram (the Kingdom Under Fire guys), I'm sure it'll be much more than just another Dynasty Warriors knockoff.

- The Xbox 360 is sexy. Not too sure about those curves, though. Here in Japan we like our game systems stackable (bless you, PS2), which may be tough given the 360's contours. But hell, anything's better than the tea table that was the original Xbox.

3. E3. I was going to post some E3 predictions, but I'm running out of time, so instead I'll just list the top five things I'm looking forward to at the show:

1 - PlayStation 3: The teaser ads have me so stoked -- Welcome Change indeed. I can't wait to see what they're planning for this baby; $10 says its specs blow Xbox 360 out of the water.

2 - Revolution: It's gonna be there, and the fact that it apparently plays DVDs is an encouraging sign that maybe -- just maybe -- Nintendo may be getting themselves back on the right track.

3 - Xbox 360: We've already seen it and touched it so it's not as exciting as the other new platforms, but nevertheless, I'm eager to see what kind of games are in development for this thing. I really hope they decide to make it backwards-compatible, cause this damn Xbox is taking up way too much space here in my tiny Tokyo apartment...

4 - The New Game Boy: Granted, it's only an enhanced GBA SP, but if it really does have Play Yan built-in, and if the screen is backlit, I might be sold. I'm curious what else they're planning to add to it, if anything.

5 - Nintendo DS and Sony PSP: I'm a handheld freak, so I'm looking forward to what the future has in store for these two. I'm a bit more excited about the DS because of the whole online thing (Animal Crossing and Pokemon alone will steal hundreds of hours of my free time, no doubt), not to mention all the great 2D stuff like Castlevania, Metroid and Advance Wars. I haven't heard much about the PSP lineup, but hopefully they'll have some nice surprises as well.

Anyway, I'd better crash -- I'm off for Gross Angeles (or is it Smell-A?) in just a few hours. See you guys after the show!

Posted by john tv at May 16, 2005 06:16 AM