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Forget the games for a minute - take a walk through the game show on the other side of the Earth

This isn't something we usually do, but we're in Japan, God damn it. We're at the Tokyo Game Show - the all-singing, all-dancing mother lode of Japanese gaming. This thing might go the way of E3 next year, if the rumors pan out - gone forever, with the sound of a booth babe's skirt flapping sadly in the warm September breeze the only reminder that it was ever here.

So it's time to share what TGS is all about in 2006 with you, our readers, the people who obviously aren't in Japan right now - because if you were, you'd be here. This thing is open to the public. Let's take a journey together: a journey solely made up of snapshots and sarcastic text. You can almost smell the games, can't you?

The CESA - the body that puts on TGS - is celebrating its 10th anniversary with a crappy little booth with retro games. Here, you can play Sonic the Hedgehog on the Genesis (or Mega Drive, 'round these parts). It's a nice idea, but the execution is more than a little half-assed. The booth is tiny and the games are few. And LCD flat screens don't exactly scream "retro", you know?

What we learned:

Nobody is going to play Sonic when they have easy access to PlayStation 3.