TGS post #3: Sony party
So! The Sony party on Friday night. You may have heard it mentioned on prestigious blogs, weeks and weeks ago when people still cared about TGS 2006.

What happened was, Sony packed a bunch of weeaboo game journalists onto two buses, and trapped them there for two hours.

I'm not even kidding. They didn't tell us the trip was going to take two goddamned hours -- I wouldn't have gone if they had. I don't give a shit about Sony, I just figured they've got enough money to throw a decent party. So I tagged along. And you can imagine how it went. After half an hour, everyone's like, "Where are we going?" After an hour, "Jesus christ." After one and a half hours, "What the fucking jesus -- holy shit, are we going around in circles? I think we're actually going around in circles; what the fuck."

So I interrupted the string of hilarious Sony jokes I was making to keep my fellow prisoners sane, to go to the front of the bus and ask the driver what was going on. And he confirmed that yes, we were in fact going in circles. We had arrived at our destination but couldn't park. We were in goddamned orbit.

We were in games journalism limbo.

A hundred cramped, hungry, grumpy game nerds eventually shuffled into the Sony building after, as I said, two full hours on a bus. This was at about 7:00. We were politely booted out at 9:00. Apart from the absurdity of finishing a party at 9:00, this means that half the party was a bus trip.

Oh, Sony.

And since there were PS3s at the party, I could make a very clever joke about, you know, the long, long wait for the PS3 or something -- but honestly, who in the world has actually been waiting for the PS3? Not me. Yes, it's been announced and delayed and delayed, but in all that time, has anyone actually been waiting for it? And if so, what on earth for? I don't get it.

ANYWAY.

Buy the next Total Gamer, I expect, for further bus trip jokes courtesy of Daniel.

There was food at the party, and it was great, but there was not enough of it -- not for a hundred starving escapees. There was free alcohol, so I decided it might be fun to get drunk. I didn't, though; I got a nice buzz going, but then they ran out of beer. RAN OUT OF BEER. Maybe that's why they finished so early.

So yeah, there were a bunch of games there that I neither looked at nor read about afterwards, because they were clearly boring -- with the exception of the new Minna no Golf, which I excitedly dashed towards as soon as I saw it. And, you know, it's Minna no Golf. The graphics are actually a bit shit, I thought! Like, some bits are really slick, but other bits aren't so slick, so it looks kind of messy. I did learn about a gameplay feature new to the series, that -- oh, who gives a toss.

I did meet this guy:



...whose name I forget, but he's the producer of the series -- at least since it's belonged to Clap Hanz -- so I had to shake his hand.

Okay, now that we're onto the photos, here's the thing: Ken Kutaragi was there that night. The first I knew about it was when Daniel showed me a photo he'd had taken with the crazy old bastard for Total Gamer. And of course I became consumed with jealousy. I mean... if you've been reading Total Gamer from the beginning, you will understand about Kutaragi. He's like a fictional character, but real. He's a mythic figure for us. A minor god.

And Daniel's like, "You didn't see him? Where were you? He was right there, when Phil Harrison was talking." Well then, of course I didn't see him -- I was on the other side of the room, then, far away from Phil Harrison. I was annoyed at Phil Harrison for -- apart from being a slimy, lying, despicable scumbag -- causing an impenetrable crowd to gather around the table upon which I had left my beer.

I knew that I had to get a photo with Ken Kutaragi. It would make the whole stupid night worthwhile. I made it my goal. At first I just walked around, looking, but by the end of the night I was climbing up on tables; accosting people and demanding to know the whereabouts of Kutaragi. The conflicting information was never-ending: He left ages ago; he was still here; he did leave and then came back; he never left; he left just five minutes ago; he was standing right next to you, just before -- didn't you see him?

Drove me mad. I was a mad thing.

And, er, long story short, I never found him. Didn't get my Ken Kutaragi photo. Here's my consolation prize:



HA HA, RIIIIIIIIIDGE RACERRRrr -- oh, it's not the same.

Whenever I said to anyone, "I have to meet him! He's so crazy! He's just completely insane," no-one was taken aback; they just laughed along. And about half of them were Sony employees. I'm not being snarky or clever or anything; I don't think that a few people who happen to work for Sony in some capacity having a sense of humour means the PS3 is doomed -- I just thought it was kind of funny.

Here is a photo of a tosser from G4 interviewing a tosser from a game company:



Seriously. I was walking past and noticed them, and realised, "Wow. They are a perfect pair of tossers. I must capture this on film."

God, look at them.

Speaking of tossers, here is gangly, bald, slimy freak Phil Harrison, seated at a dimly-lit table and surrounded by imbeciles hanging off his every lie. This little scene just looked so funny to me, so I tried to get a picture of it. I don't know if the funny really comes across, though.



Don't you think this looks like a gangster boss meeting with his capos or toughs or something? Minus the handheld camera of course.



What else happened?

Some French guy got in my face about something, but he backed off when I kept being awesome and he realised he was a wanker.

Um...

That's about it, actually. A disappointing night, overall.

THE END

NEXT THING: Probably a bunch of photos!

PS. As a follow-up to the first instalment of this exciting LiveJournal series, here is a picture I drew of YMCK.