So what if I’m uninvited?  I’m going to take a look at what’s happened so far at this year’s Tokyo Game Show.

First let’s start off with the one I am most conflicted over:  DmC, the reboot of Devil May Cry.  If I have any issue with it, it’s the city and the Dante.  The city looks like it’s trying to be the 21^st century version of the typical 1980’s movie vision a dystopian Los Angeles of the future, if that makes any sense.  I despise that atmosphere.  I didn’t like it in the 80s and 90s, and I don’t like it anymore now.  Blade Runner, Soylent Green, Robocop…anything with that whole dystopian city with the neon clad guys and gals thing drives me nuts.  I’m not saying this is what’s in the trailer, it’s not, it just seems to be the 21^st century version of that.  There, I tried to explain it, if you don’t get it, sorry. 

Anyway, the conflict part comes about because honestly, I think a Devil May Cry…sorry, DmC…in a modern city would be way cooler than what we’ve had in previous games.  The whole Dante is this motorcycle riding bad-ass who has this sort of demon killing business thing or whatever you want to call it was fine, but where do you see him doing his dirty work?  In castles?  Ruins?  C’mon, this will be way cooler.  Also the stories in those games were just the bread of an action sandwich.  Story, action, story.  The end.  I bet they could weave a better tale than any of those games had, and actually spread it out more. 

My other issue though is the Dante, as in the current Dante they’re using as opposed to the prior one that they have been using.  Trust me, I like Dante as a character, but I’m not attached to him.  In fact, I thought Nero was way better in the last game, not as a character, but playing him was more enjoyable.  So in that sense, I don’t care what they’ve done here, in fact it looks like this Dante might work better in the story than using old Dante.  Maybe this is actually a younger version of Dante.  I mean, the Dante we’re used to does have grey hair.

Yes, I know it’s not grey hair…

So aside from that, what else can I say?  It’s all going to come down to the gameplay.

Speaking of Capcom and hack and slash games, also unveiled was Asura’s Wrath.  So, God of War covered the Greek gods thing, Dante’s Inferno did the whole Christianity deal, and Asura’s Wrath will be handling the Eastern religions.  Kind of amusing, what with Buddhism and such being about peace, but hey, I’m still sold on it.

Speaking of Capcom…sorta…Resident Evil creator Shinji Mikami along with Killer 7 creator Suda 51 have teamed up to make Shadows of the DAMNED.  Caps there were intentional.   Anyway, it’s a horror game where you’re a bad-ass that rides a motorcycle and kills demons with a gun in a third person perspective.  So a departure from Devil May Cry, which Mikami also worked on.  Jokes aside, it seems like a stylish Resident Evil, which is sort of what you’d expect when those two are on board.  Oh, and Akira Yamaoka (Silent Hill) is doing the music.  I’ll be keeping an eye (and ear) on this one too. 

Yakuza fans, get excited because another installment has been revealed called Yakuza: Of the End.  Oh, and it’s got zombies in it.  Seriously, can we please please please stop with the zombies?  I have nothing more to say about that.  I’m pretty done with Yakuza, and the Z-word isn’t making it any better.

Okay, let’s move on to some good news:  ICO and Shadow of the Colossus are coming out for PS3.  Awesome, but no details on when and what will be special about it other than the HD upgrade.  Honestly, that should be good enough.  I don’t fawn over these games like some people do, but they’re both decent and deserve the special edition treatment.

Team ICO also revealed some more of The Last Guardian.  It’s pretty gorgeous, but we still don’t know anymore about the game, except that it’ll be out about a year from now.  Again I don’t even put their previous two games in my top 50, so my excitement for this isn’t that great, especially not knowing anything about the gameplay. 

Kinect had a big showing in Japan.  Hopefully for Microsoft’s sake more people were interested in it there than they were at PAX.  First up was Rise of Nightmares, from Sega.  It’s a Silent Hill-esque game, but on rails, because you don’t have a proper controller.  Needless to say I am uninterested. 

What’s up next?  Haunt, another horror game, also on rails, because you don’t have a proper controller.  Batting zero here so far…

Maybe Capcom, who is doing pretty good at TGS this year, will save us and give us something that will change our minds and have us care about Kinect.  Wait…what’s that?  Steel Battalion 3?  So a game you used to need 87 buttons, switches, and pedals to play now requires zero?  Sure it does.

Here’s something that might get us back on track, a game from Yukio Futatsugi.  Hey, he worked on Panzer Dragoon…and his new game, Project Draco, has you riding dragons!  Oh no…this is a Kinect game too?  And you use the camera to “nuture your steed?”  Noooo.  Ugh, I’m going to play some Panzer Dragoon Orta and come back to this later.

I promise you, time has passed and I’m back to see what else was revealed at TGS.  Ah, here we go, another Suda 51 game.  Oh, you’re kidding, it’s another Kinect title?  Jeez, how much is Microsoft paying people to develop for this thing?  Way more than they’re paying off devs for Windows Phone 7 I hope.  Okay, let’s read Microsoft’s description: "You must fight for your life to survive an evil amusement park filled with twisted and eerie creatures.”  Okay, sounds interesting…and you fight using weapons such as a baseball bat that’s on fire?  Sign me up!  Oh wait, I forgot, it’s a Kinect game.  Forget it.

Well I think we’re finally out of the Kinect nonsense.  Yuck.  The folks who did Demon’s Souls are working on something called Project Dark.  So far we know it’s an action RPG, and I bet it’ll be really, really hard.

Pixel Junk has a…thing coming out called Lifelike.  It’s a music visualizer.  Awesome, because we already don’t have like seven things that will do that, nor do we use them.  A new game would’ve been nice.

Actually I change my mind, an old game would be nice, and I see we got a doozy of one coming to Xbox 360 next year:  Radiant Silvergun.  Nice to see another Treasure shooter getting a re-release with graphical improvement.  Bet it won’t cost hundreds of dollars like a physical Saturn copy of it does now.  Also I bet I’ll be horrible at it, but that’s okay.

Fire Pro Wrestling is making a comeback, however it uses Xbox 360 avatars.  So…it’s not Fire Pro Wrestling.  It’s a name slapped on something that should be called Avatar Wrestling.  Sad.  Not that I’m a big Fire Pro fan, but that game had a particular aesthetic to it and this isn’t it. 

One last thing, Phantasy Star Online 2 was revealed in a live stream from Sega.  I’ll be honest, I missed out on the original PSO, and I am ashamed about that.  Two writers that I feel I have similar tastes with, Jeff Gerstmann and Shane Bettenhausen, were both fans of the game, and neither have been able to get into any other MMOs, like myself, so for some reason I like to believe that means PSO would be the MMO for me, but any attempt to play Blue Burst has failed, so my curiosity is high for this.  However, after Universe, a game which PSO fans didn’t much care for, at least for the most part, you have to wonder if they’re using the PSO name to get people to start caring again.

There is a little more TGS left, and I’m sure if there’s anything special I wish to comment about I’ll be sure to.