Wednesday, September 26, 2007
The Vomit Bullet Train Ride Home
11:40PM Brian Ashcraft | To: Crecente From: Bash RE: Finally back in Osaka. Monday and Tuesday were spent “recovering”. By Monday, my body seriously shut down. I’m really happy with our TGS coverage this year and felt that I pushed myself to my physical limits, operating and a few hours sleep every night. Good times. When I caught the bullet train in Shinagawa, found an empty seat next to a reasonably plain women in her late teens or early twenties. She had three open boxes of Tokyo Banana cakes resting on the table tray in front of her. Like I said, she was reasonably plain and bit her fingernails incessantly, but seemed to put a great deal of effort into her outfit — not uncommon in Japan. She would open the box of cakes, look inside and then put them back on the tray. This was repeated for the first twenty minutes of the trip. I, however, put my boxed meal I bought at the station on my tray table and proceeded to eat. She watched me through the pitch black reflection in the passenger train window. Halfway through my dinner, she opened three banana cakes, stuffed them in her face and took at swing of water. She then reached down with those chewed nails and picked up an extra Tokyo Banana bag that had been stuff in — you know, in case she was going to give one of those boxes to someone. She held the bag close to her face with those chewed nails and threw up. Repeatedly. “Are you alright?” I asked. “I’m fine. Please don’t worry.” She threw up again. I picked at my boxed meal, unable to finish it. I turned my head the opposite direction, towards the aisle and fell into a heavy sleep. The sour smell of vomit filled my nose. When I woke up, sometime after Nagoya, she was gone, cakes, bags and all. The rest of my trip was spent flipping through Matt Alt’s Hello, Please! and trying to finish my dinner. I couldn’t. I just couldn’t. What you missed: Halo 3 hurts XBL Milla on game movies Halo 3 might makes Microsoft Game Group money Haruhi wrapped in adult video plastic More »
Learn To Forge J Allard’s Signature By Winning BIg Halo 3 Prize Pack
11:20PM Luke Plunkett | Microsoft are running a charity auction on eBay. They’re running it right now. It’s billed as THE ULTIMATE HALO 3 PACKAGE, and over-excitement aside, they’re probably right. It contains more Halo stuff than you could point a Halo 3-themed stick at, including a Halo 3 360 (signed by Bill Gates), a 360 HD-DVD drive, the entire Halo 3 trilogy (the special editions, of course), some controllers, some figures, blah blah blah. Whatever. None of that crap matters. What matters is that included in the pack is a Halo 3 Zune. A Halo 3 Zune signed by former Xbox pin-up boy, current Zune visionary and future world mountain bike champion James “J” Allard. That’s right. His signature. Which should make forging it in order to avoid any hypothetical restraining orders he may have issued that much easier. Not that J would need to issue a restraining order. He calls us all the time. We tight. And not that any restraining orders would be against us. That’s a hypothetical scenario. Bid on the Ultimate Halo 3 Package [Xbox.com] More »
An Elite Loaner
11:00PM Brian Ashcraft | Shortly before I left for the Tokyo Game Show, my “fixed” Xbox 360 crapped out (right after I got it back from repairs). And when I returned from TGS, there was an Xbox 360 Elite waiting for me. Microsoft sent me a “loaner”, while my console is getting fixed. I put my 20GB HDD on it and am not using the HDMI cable. The machine does seem to run quieter than my first-gen Xbox 360. But man, the Elite sure can get hot. Here’s the pickle, though: It’s an American Elite, and I live in Japan. Not sure if that makes life easier or not. Wouldn’t it be nice if Microsoft sent everyone whose console broke an Elite to hold them over during the repair wait? Expensive, too! Editor’s note: Sadly the Elite does not included a die shrink (it should have, though), which means it runs just as loud and as hot as your average Xbox 360. So make sure you really enjoy that HDMI port! More »
Win Our TGS Schwag by Writing Power
10:40PM Brian Ashcraft | And the contests just don’t stop! We’ve got a bag full of TGS stuff to give away. To you, perhaps! (Or you or you or you.) What are we giving away? A fistful of TGS fans — including a Flynn used Metal Gear Solid 4 fan. What’s more, we’re throwing in a Japanese Halo 3 t-shirt, an Adventure Island shirt signed by Takahashi Meijin and a program on which he scribbled a pyramid describing the current market. There’s a bunch of VERY RANDOM things as well. How do you win this? Send us an email at kotakucontestATgmail.com, pick a TGS post you like (include the URL) and write a paragraph on why it stood out. Now, we aren’t looking for flattery, but rather, sharp writing. Insight, even. Deadlines for entries is this Friday. Get to it! More »
British Sales Charts
10:20PM Luke Plunkett | And still Britain buys Tiger Woods at the expense of real, proper Wii games. Wii games with meat, with substance, with production values. Amazing! Almost as amazing as the fact BioShock is still hanging on, and that even though World in Conflict is the best new PC game since forever, it released and subsequently charted at 11. Which is outside the top 10. And lower than Transformers and Medal of Honour: Airborne. 1) Tiger Woods 08 2) MySims 3) Super Paper Mario 4) Stranglehold 5) Medal of Honor: Airborne 6) Colin McRae: DiRT 7) Transformers 8) Heavenly Sword 9) Sims 2: Bon Voyage 10) Bioshock [charts courtesy of ChartTrack] More »
The Greatest Taxi In Japan
10:00PM Brian Ashcraft | Over in Ishikawa Prefecture, a taxi company is offering a maid taxi service, appropriately called “Maid Taxi” (so clever). 5,700 yen ($US 50) an hour gets you a chauffeur, a maid and a PS3 equipped cab that comes with Virtual Fighter 5, Ridge Racer 7 and Hot Shots Golf 5. Passengers can also watch DVDs and listen to MDs. Mini Discs? That’s so 1998! The catch? The service is for handicapped customers only, which is very cool. Beats taking the bus or the train! Maid Taxi [Official Site via Canned Dogs] More »
Sex Pistols Need To Eat, Record Master Tracks For GHIII
9:30PM Luke Plunkett | In 2006, the Sex Pistols “politely declined” to be present when they were inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. Frontman Johnny Rotten issued a statement, which read: Next to the SEX PISTOLS rock and roll and that hall of fame is a piss stain. Your museum. Urine in wine. Were not your monkey and so what? Fame at $25,000 if we paid for a table or $15,000 to squeak up in the gallery, goes to a non-profit organization selling us a load of old famous. Congradulations. If you voted for us, I hope you noted your reasons. Your anonymous as judges, but your still music industry people. Were not coming. Your not paying attention. Outside the shit-stem is a real SEX PISTOL. Strong, if poorly-written, stuff. Barely a year later, though, this pops into my mailbox: Activision announced today that Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductees The Sex Pistols, who famously turned down the award, recently returned to the studio to re-record “Anarchy in the U.K.,” which will be included in Guitar Heroâ„¢ III: Legends of Rock as a master track. That’s right. They’re recording their first material in 30 years (Anarchy and one other track) for a music videogame. Insert your own snappy comment about the hypocrisy of washed-up “rebellious” musicians below, I’m hungry and am going to go make a sandwich. More »
Blue Dragon Mistwalking onto the Nintendo DS
9:00PM Brian Ashcraft | If Viva Piñata is good enough for the Nintendo DS, then heck, Microsoft published Blue Dragon should be too! A recent issue of manga Shonen Jump says that Blue Dragon will be getting a DS release. This is exactly why Microsoft shouldn’t make a handheld — put the games on the DS and get the players hooked so they’ll have no choice but to pony up for the 360 console versions. Isn’t this how drug dealers work? Yes, yes it is. Blue Dragon DS [Jeux France] More »
Microsoft Remind Japan What 360 Games Look Like
8:30PM Luke Plunkett | Poor Microsoft Japan. They can’t catch a break! All these big games and nobody in Japan cares. Not even for Halo 3. Not even for Blue Dragon. In a desperate, last-ditch attempt at shifting their units, their TGS booth was dominated by this: a wall featuring the disc and cover art of every 360 game on the market. Didn’t look like it got the job done, since I was the only person I saw actually paying attention to it, but hey, at least it looked nice. Click through for a closer shot. More »
