Tokyo Game Show 2012 – Day 2 | Mad Catz

By Mad Catz September 21, 2012 at 4:00 pm

The old adage “early bird gets the worm” holds true for video game conventions as we wiped the sleep from our eyes to arrive at Tokyo Game Show for a morning media session with Shaun Himmerick and Adam Urbano from Studio NetherRealm to see the latest build of Injustice. We were thoroughly impressed with the interactive backgrounds with breakable walls, a feature also in Dead of Alive 5, so perhaps this will be a common theme in future fighting games. The producers learned the hard lessons from Mortal Kombat and will make the game more accessible in two ways: First, NetherRealm will revamp the netcode entirely from the ground up to ensure smooth netplay. Secondly, they have turned down the gore knob down to “T” rating so that the game can be sold in all major markets, as opposed to Mortal Kombat which was not available in some countries due to its graphic nature. Personally, we think that excessive soft drink consumption is more dangerous than watching over the top fatalities.

We then took a breather at the Mad Catz booth to find Mad Catz’ Daigo “The Beast” Umehara using Sagat to spar with Kenryo “MAGO 2DGOD” Hayashi’s C. Viper. It was a strange sight to behold them using sub-characters, but we do know from Mago’s blog that he is preparing a special character at Canada Cup since the rules state that he may use neither Sagat nor Fei-Long during the 5v5 world battle due to character overlap with his teammates Bonchan and RZR.Fuudo. We also pilfered some Mad Catz scratch stickers from the booth to sticker bomb our luggage. It’s a great way to differentiate your generic black suitcase when it comes down the carousel. There is no greater tragedy then opening up your bag inside the hotel only to discover someone else’s pajamas and your Silent Hit FightStick missing.

We then navigated the labyrinth of booths, each one with beautiful sirens beckoning us to linger a little longer. Only the prospect of meeting Soul Sacrifice‘s producers Mr. Toriyama and Mr. Inafune (creator of Mega Man/Rockman) could break the enchanting spell of the booth girls. From the trailer and gameplay demo, we feel the game is dark, menacing, and a giant psychological experiment of gamers, as users are asked to either “Sacrifice” or “Save” slain monsters. The moral choice is literally made with your own hands on the PlayStation Vita controller, a point heavily reinforced with the hands graphics that appear on the screen. We asked Mr. Inafune if he had to make any sacrifices during his illustrious video game career, and he mentioned relinquishing his corporate job and going independent in order to produce a risky, original title. It certainly looks like his gamble has paid off!

Day 3 of Tokyo Game Show is tomorrow, and the entire venue will be open to the public. Avoid the surge of the crowd and body odor of strange camera men and relax at the Mad Catz and Capcom booths where Daigo, MAGO, and TOKIDO will be challenging various VIP guests throughout the day. We will have more coverage throughout the weekend, so keep your eyes on madcatz.com!