Although missing in action from this week's E3, Alan Wake will roll out of bed and board a plane to Japan for this year's Tokyo Game Show. According to an MSN Games "'WOW' Be a face in the game" contest, the winner will be given a trip to Finland to be scanned into the computer, then "jet off to Tokyo to [TGS] to be on the scene and on the screen!"

"Frank, come here!"

"What? What is it, I was resting my eyes on my keyboard."

"Frank, I think something strange is going on. Two major webcomics both made Tetris-centric jokes in the same week!"

"So?"

"So? Don't you see what's going on? It's a conspiracy, it's proof of a higher power guiding our hands, it's proof of something so unbelievably abstract and omnipotent that I can't even fathom the ramifications for the world as we know it."

"Dude, Tetris is a popular game. It's just a coinci--"

"No! Don't you dare ruin this for me, man, I need this!"

"Is this because you didn't get to go to Tokyo Game Show and spent your time at home staring at the ceiling wishing you could play Metal Gear Solid 4 with a rumbling PlayStation 3 controller?"

"... I need a hug."

(Here are our picks for the week's best webcomic. Be sure to vote for your favorite.)

	Hyper realistic murder simulator
	Just do it
	Mass Tetriside
	Bizarro!
	The protip
	Fall of Duty
	It's not you, it's me
	Friend or Foe?

We found this picture of a themed crane game from Namco's pre-TGS outing care of 1UP Chief Paleontologist Karen Chu. Having a ghost in our collection would be oh-so very nice. Check out the highlights for today:

Tokyo Game Show
TGS hands-on: Metal Gear Solid 4
TGS hands-on: Every Extend Extra Extreme
TGS hands-on: Ikaruga (XBLA)
TGS07 hands-on: Metal Gear Online
TGS hands-on: Ninja Gaiden: Dragon Sword

Joystiquery
Joystiq Podcast TGS 07 Special (Part 2)
Joyswag: 10 invites to the Call of Duty 4 Beta (Day 5)
Today's most flowery video: 'fl0wer' trailer

News
Guitar Hero III soundtrack to unlock bonus tracks, Sonic Youth added
Yakuza 2, Dinosaur King, Mystery Dungeon coming to U.S. from Sega
Your 360 has been updated and you won't care
Call of Duty 4 beta ending Sept. 30, cap being raised
Pirates leak Halo 3 onto internet
New Afrika trailer is not very helpful
New Metal Gear Online trailer is airborne
Sega expects Olympic sales from Mario & Sonic
GT5 Prologue priced: ¥4,980 on Blu-ray and ¥4,500 download
It is a last gen feature; DualShock 3 same tech as DualShock 2
Red Octane confirms GH III Xbox wireless guitar same price as PS3 version
Microsoft says Sony 'underestimated' Home challenges
Eye of Judgment priced $69.99, includes PlayStation Eye
Bomberman Land to detonate on Wii, DS, PSP
McFarlane Halo toy details and price
Burnout Paradise events, online focus confirmed

Culture & Community
Halo 3's final days of marketing assault

Industry stalwart Electronic Arts is looking to land a partner in Japan, and who can blame them, what with the region's love of natural beauty and delicious cannibalism. According to a new Financial Times report, the company is entertaining the prospect of partnering with or even acquiring an existing Japanese company, no doubt in order to further EA's well known plans for world domination.

The report quoted EA Asia president Jon Niermann, who during an interview at this week's Tokyo Game Show referred to Japan as a "strategic priority" for the company, which already owns a 15 percent stake in Chinese MMO firm The9. Earlier this year the company also invested in South Korean developer Neowiz, establishing the publishing powerhouse as the studio's second largest shareholder.

Says the report, the region will still likely play only a minor role in EA's global plans, though Niermann was quick to point out the potential benefit of tapping into established talent in the area, noting that "EA offers a great global distribution opportunity in terms of taking Japanese products to other parts of the world and in turn there are certainly companies that are much better at local development than we've ramped up to be."

[Via Gamasutra]

Disney/Square/Enix fans will be happy to know that three new Kingdom Hearts titles are on the way, as Square Enix announced brand new titles in development for the DS, PSP, and mobile phones at the 2007 Tokyo Game Show.

1UP reports that these will be three entirely different titles, although all three will share the theme of "time." Kingdom Hearts: Birth By Sleep will be headed for the PlayStation Portable as a single-player action-RPG romp in the same vein as its PS2 brethren. Kingdom Hearts: 358/2 Days for the Nintendo DS is a full-3D game starring Roxas from KHII, and featuring simultaneous four-way multiplayer.

The final title, Kingdom Hearts: Coded, is being developed for mobile phones, and features the original Kingdom Hearts cast in a story that appears to take place in between the first and second PS2 games.

Die-hard fans of Treasure's shooters probably already own Ikaruga for either Dreamcast or Gamecube -- possibly both. So why would they buy the title yet again for the Xbox 360? According to Treasure president Masato Maegawa speaking to 1UP, new features to the game include online co-op, worldwide rankings and the ability to share replays.

Given Ikaruga's frantic pulsations of laser shots, we're hoping there's some code in place to fix any lag issues. There's a lot of quick, minute movements required in the shooter and being out of sync at all with your partner would lead to a very frustrating experience (see: Contra XBLA).

Maegawa also told 1UP that they are in the midst of developing a title for Nintendo Wii. The project is being handled by the "action" team (other teams include shmup and fighting) who also made one of our favorite Virtual Console titles, Gunstar Heroes. No other details are available, though we expect the title to retain much of the side scrolling action style as its spiritual ancestors.

Having also been in situations where we've missed flights due to lost essentials (e.g. plane tickets, photo ID), we can only express deep sympathy for Larry "Major Nelson" Hyrb, who is not going to Tokyo Game Show this year due to a missing passport. Unfortunately, the Major didn't find out until he was in the terminal. Ouch. If you find his passport, be sure to let him know. Otherwise, check out the highlights for the weekend:

Joystiquery
Joyswag: 10 invites to the Call of Duty 4 Beta
Podcast Rodeo for Sept. 16: Yes, ear
Reminder: win the ultimate Halo 3 setup from X3F
Today's cuddliest video: LocoRoco Cocoreccho trailer
Today's seriously 32-player Wii FPS: Medal of Honor Heroes 2
Weekly Webcomic Wrapup: DIY Omegathon edition

News
Breaking news: Racer Colin McRae dies in helicopter crash
Itagaki shows off Ninja Gaiden II aqua city level
New games this week: Eternal Sonata edition
Yoshi Story, Super Thunder Blade, World Class Baseball on Virtual Console
Future Weapons to feature Halo 3 tonight
Intel picks up Havok for $21M
TurboGrafx-CD games coming to Virtual Consoles worldwide
Sony unveils Karraker replacement Scott Steinberg
Grade-grubbing GameStop manager gets suspended
Chinese online gamer dies after three day stint
Dave Perry: PSP Lite a 'head in the sand' move for Sony
WoW character sells for nearly $10,000
Xfire shows off their latest Xstatics
Nintendo shuts down official forums "indefinitely"
Oklahoma violent game law overturned

Rumors & Speculation
Reuters: Sony in talks to sell chip manufacturing to Toshiba
Rumor: Rumbling Sixaxis to debut at TGS
Rumor: Halo 3 ending leaked onto net

Culture & Community
Don't move, just listen: Automatic Mario goes anime music
Sealed game collectors hoarding all the cool toys
Book critic plays BioShock, says it's not quite "art"
Cliffy B: BioShock is my game of the year
Pimp your Wii with Talismoon's new cases
MTV drops new Multiplayer blog (plus BioShock Vs. Mode)

Leaked screenshots are one thing, but to truly experience the power of a ninja you need to see him in action. Fortunately, GameTrailers has footage from Tomonobu Itagaki's live demo of Ninja Gaiden II at Microsoft's pre-Tokyo Game Show press conference.

Itagaki says the "world's best action game" is "pretty far in development," as evidenced by the eight stages available on the demo's stage select screen (including one that intriguingly shows the Statue of Liberty). Only one level gets played in the live demo, though -- a Venice-style aqua city. Our favorite ninja is shown using a scythe-like sword, a pair of longswords and a set Wolverine-style claws against ninjas, military types and some green-blooded dragons. The action will be familiar to anyone who has played a modern Ninja Gaiden game, with plenty of bloody severed enemies and dramatic zooms for particularly vicious kills.

Unfortunately, the demo ends just before a battle with the towering red-eyed spider-beast shown above. Here's hoping we'll get some hands on time with the game when the Tokyo Game Show starts this Thursday.

[Thanks to everyone who sent this in.]

The analysts have all come popping up from their respective holes following yesterday's NPD numbers to say a couple of words before going back in and waiting by their fax machines for the next month. The message conveyed? August's much better than expected sales were far from the norm. simExchange analyst Jesse Divnich said that slowdown is typically expected before a major release like Halo 3 -- and that totally didn't happen. It seems this holiday season could be "spectacular, spectacular" even if GTA IV decided to miss the holiday party.

As for the nitty gritty, Wedbush Morgan analyst Michael Pachter was very happy with the Mirror's predictions and trusted it yet again to forecast that Halo 3 will sell three million units in less than two weeks. It also suggested that Xbox 360 sales in Sept. will be over 400k. The simExchange said that Xbox will outsell PS3 2-to-1 in September, adding that Sony's system needs to be more compelling to consumers (another price drop wouldn't hurt, apparently). That's where Pachter jumps in again with rumors of a 40GB PS3 at $399 and a $99 PS2 being announced at the Tokyo Games Show next week.

Other analysts chimed in too, err, chiming that the Wii third-party titles aren't selling well. Divnich said, "The market continues to imply that Wii consumers prefer Nintendo published titles for the Wii over third-party ports like Madden NFL 08 and Tiger Woods PGA Tour 08, even if the ported version includes functions that take advantage of the Wii's control system." We're not too sure yet if given the choice, consumers would take an alternate control scheme over the instant gratification of a familiar (and prettier) product.

Microsoft unveiled at their pre-Tokyo Game Show press briefing yesterday a new strategy RPG from Idea Factory that will likely never see release outside of Japan. Still, it's noteworthy that the English title given to the game hearkens back to Legendary: The Box, a game we awarded the (dubious) honor of E3 2007's Worst: The Title Award for Worst Game Title.

So do the characters of Apocalypse: Desire Next desire the (next) apocalypse, is the apocalypse itself an embodiment of desire, or is the RPG some bizarre word-association puzzle where all negative-connoting terms are replaced with more suggestive diction (i.e. "Watch out, it's the Four Horsemen of Trojan Desire!"). Japanese Xbox 360 owners can find out this November.

Square Enix's closed-door TGS trailer for Final Fantasy VII: Crisis Core has finally surfaced. For the bulk of this five-minute demonstration, a handful of manicured men (and one woman) ham it up in a whirlwind of staged emotional drama. Are we supposed to want to play a soap opera? (Don't answer that.)

There are some brief moments of relief, glimpses into the game's active battle system, which suggest commonalities with Final Fantasy XII. There's no denying that Crisis Core appears extraordinarily capable; a bittersweet detail. That is, efforts like Crisis Core really highlight the lack of solid support for PSP. Alas, Square Enix's prequel has been a long time coming -- and, for those of us outside of Japan, the wait isn't getting any shorter.

The latest issue of Famitsu sports a bonus Lost Odyssey demo disc, arriving fashionably later than expected. We're assuming this is a playable version of the brief scenario that was previewed at Tokyo Games Show and not selected for best-in-show. Maybe a more intimate look will convince Japanese consumers (if they've even got a Box to play it on).

Eurogamer's Rob Fahey provides a couple new details on some of the online features of the PlayStation 3.

Fahey asks a key question, but unfortunately never gets around to answering it: "Can a company whose online strategy in the last generation was so patchy, and their actual service so weak, really turn things around on the online front in time for the PS3's launch?"

Here's a summary of the write-up, lorry-loads of fluff removed:

• The core OS of the system can be updated by Sony online [we knew this; it's expected in any online system]
• Both PS3 SKUs include a hard drive, critical for downloading content [we also knew this, but it's worth repeating as an advantage of the lower-priced PS3 bundle versus the Xbox 360's lowest-priced system]
• The system stores the profiles of different users within the household. Select a profile and the system logs that profile in, setting system configuration details according to the data stored with that profile. [We knew this.]
• Settings are managed via an interface that looks like the PSP's settings interface. Configure network settings, passwords, and so on. [We knew this.]
• "Fully-functional" web browser that will allow users to access "any site" on the internet. [We knew this.]
• The system tracks the online status of the people on your friends list. Users can send friends text messages (via a PSP-style text messaging system or via USB keyboard), engage in voice and video chat [no voice mail?], and view pop-up notices as friend status changes. The system doesn't allow one to respond to these in-game status pop-ups, so you'll have to exit your game if you want to read the message you just received. [New detail?]
• Account management: there are two types of PlayStation Network account: master accounts are like administrator accounts, while "associated accounts" can be restricted in some unspecified way. [New detail?]
• Global sign-in IDs: like Xbox Live, global IDs make the process of finding and adding friends to your friends list an easier task than, say, punching in an obfuscated alpha-numeric code. [We knew this.]
• PlayStation Store: obtain demos, purchase downloadable PSone and PS2 games, purchase downloadable extras (horse armor FTW), and pay for subscriptions to certain (premium) online games in local currency. Sony avoids getting eaten alive by transaction fees by requiring deposits of cash into a virtual wallet. Once cash is deposited to the wallet, it's spent the same way MS Points are spent. [Does this mean that credit cards are required for online purchases?] Game-specific mini marts will show premium content for a specific game only. [We knew this.]

If you're wondering why us round-eyes ain't gonna see a price break on the Xbox 360 this holiday, Japan might have something to do with it.

See, Microsoft has put together this sweet, Japan-only Blue Dragon bundle that probably ain't gonna do much to enhance the company's bottom line (read: it's likely subsidized), but will (they hope) juice the 360's pitiable sales in that country.

For just ¥29,800 (approximately $252 at the time of this writing), Japanese gamers will walk off with a basic Xbox 360, the Blue Dragon game itself, a limited-edition faceplate (aren't they all?), and five Blue Dragon figurines, according to the fine folks over at Siliconera.

We've inserted images of the goods after the break.

[Update 1: Post comments have been locked as the bulk of comments posted were off-topic.]

Walking along the convention center, we were constantly reminded to look up and gaze at the massive floating ornaments signifying each booth. Square Enix's Chocobo and Slime floats were visible from anywhere on the floor, as were dozens of other air polluters. More pictures after the break.