Hua Chen

The Tokyo Game Show 2008 (TGS 2008) just ended yesterday, and the Japan Game Awards 2008 “Games of the Year Division” Award Winners were chosen on October 10th. Below is the list of the award winners (http://awards.cesa.or.jp/english/press_081009n.html):

Games of the Year Division Award Winners
(Title, Platform, Company)

Awards
Wii Fit, Wii, Nintendo Co., Ltd.
MONSTER HUNTER PORTABLE 2nd G, PSP, CAPCOM CO., LTD.

Award for excellence
Wii Fit, Wii, Nintendo Co., Ltd.
Super Mario Galaxy, Wii, Nintendo Co., Ltd.
Super Smash Bros. Brawl, Wii, Nintendo Co., Ltd.
Devil May Cry® 4, PS3/Xbox360/PC, CAPCOM CO., LTD.
DRAGON QUEST IV The Chapters of the Chosen, DS, SQUARE ENIX CO., LTD.
Pokémon Mystery Dungeon: Explorers of Time / Explorers of Darkness, DS, The Pokémon Company
Mario Party DS, DS, Nintendo Co.,Ltd.
MONSTER HUNTER PORTABLE 2nd G, PSP, CAPCOM CO., LTD.
RYU GA GOTOKU KENZAN!, PS3, SEGA Corporation
Professor Layton and the Devil’s Box（tentative title）, DS LEVEL-5 Inc.
WORLD SOCCER Winning Eleven 2008, PS2/PS3/Xbox360, Konami Digital Entertainment Co. Ltd.

REXplorer is a mobile, pervasive spell-casting game designed for tourists of Regensburg, Germany. The game creates player encounters with spirits (historical figures) that are associated with significant buildings in an urban setting. A novel mobile interaction mechanism of “casting a spell” (making a gesture by waving a mobile phone through the air) allows the player to awaken and communicate with a spirit to continue playing the game. The game is designed to inform visitors about history in a fun manner. The results of a formative evaluation are explored to inform the design of future serious pervasive games.

For further reading of this article:
http://www.springerlink.com/content/132757j14k9p5677/

Famitsu, the most influential game magazine in Japan, has an official scoring system for video games. Video games are graded in Famitsu by a panel of four video game reviewers. Each reviewer gives a score from one to ten (ten being best). The scores of the four reviewers are then added up with a possible score of forty.

Today, Famitsu has just released next week's new games scoring. With one of the historicly lowest scores of 12 (3 3 3 3), Pro Golfer Saru(プロゴルファー猿)has become a new member of the Kosuge family("Kusoge" is the Japanese-style abbr. for Kuso Game, which means "crap games").

Several days after the TGS 2008, the result of the Japan Game Awards 2008 Future Division was finally released. How many of them have you ever heard of?
http://awards.cesa.or.jp/prize02.html

[Titel, Platform, Company]

Idol Master SP Perfect Sun/Wondering Star/Missing Moon, PSP, BANDAI・NAMCO
http://namco-ch.net/idolmaster_portal/index.php

Wii Music is an upcoming music video game for the Wii that simulates playing musical instruments using the Wii Remote. The game is part of Nintendo's Wii Series, which includes Wii Sports, Wii Play , Wii Fit and Wii Chess. Wii Music was originally suggested as a launch title, but no new information regarding the game or a release date had been given, except for an unspecific 2008 release for Japan. Shigeru Miyamoto also re-confirmed in July 2007 that Wii Music would be released in 2008, preferring to currently focus on Super Mario Galaxy and Wii Fit instead of trying to develop all three games at once.