Earlier today, Dale North posted the obligatory booth girl gallery that our readers have come to expect from the Tokyo Game Show field team. I thought it was a pretty classy gallery, myself, and very professional.

Sadly, I am neither classy nor professional, and by day two of TGS, I had slipped into moderate insanity caused by staying awake for well over thirty hours. In fact, by the end of it, Koei had to take me to a back room where I quietly passed out. Before that, however, I decided to keep myself awake by being sleazy and covertly photographing the arses of the beautiful Japanese women. Because I could do that.

Despicable though this may be, I was not the worst man there. I have been told that certain photographers come to TGS and find their favorite models, then make them do weird things like eating toast to indulge their own fetishes. Yes ... toast fetish. You read it here first.

There was also a guy wandering around the show floor with a mannequin of a small boy holding a camera. What he'd do is set up the mannequin and make the booth girl pose in front of it, then take a photo of the boy "photographing" the girl. Bloody weird, and more than a little creepy.

Right, that's story time over with, on with the Arse Show -- little more than a poor quality collection of blurry, unerotic and frankly shoddy photographs taken by a semi-conscious idiot boy. Revel in the journalism.

In the video above, you’ll observe one of the more epic maneuvers ever conducted in a videogame. A gamer by the handle of Jed05 has used the nifty LittleBigPlanet level creator to avoid that whole “on your knee presenting a ring” thing. As you can see, he decided to pop the big question through cuter, non-invasive means.

If you’re wondering about motivation, Jed05 is willing to supply. Slashgamer picked up this nice explanation:

I’ve been wanting to do something creative to ask her to marry me, and what a better way then LittleBigPlanet! I know the last part of the level may not be that exciting, but I have a fiancée now!”

At least she replied in the affirmative. Even if she didn’t, LBP allows users to generate all sorts of facial expressions with Sackboy. Jed could have expressed his deep sorrow by mashing up Sackboy’s face.

To be honest, I'm jealous of Jed05's nerdom. I shall top him right now by proposing to my girlfriend of 2 years via a videogame blog post. It might be our anniversary or something, so perhaps she'll be more inclined to reply yes. Anyway -- will you marry me, Estee?

[UPDATE: Apparently we've been together longer than two years (four five years) and according to her, "I should know our anniversary." Also, I was joking.]

[via MrSadistic's C-blog]

The giraffe has lost its mind.

Toys R Us is having a HUGE video game sale this week. All games are "Buy 2 get 1 free," including new releases! This includes titles from the website, so you could score a great deal on some games that haven't even been released yet.

Not only are the games on the cheap, Wii accessories are also deeply discounted. You can score 40% off on all sorts of plastic crap for your waggle machine. Now, the promotion excludes Wii Remotes and Nunchuks, which goes against the concept of "all" accessories being on sale, but I'm willing to forgive them. Why? Nintendo Points cards are also part of the promotion! It's like free money!

Meanwhile, the other retailers have pretty lackluster promos going this week by comparison.  Circuit City is offering gift cards with purchase of a few of this week's releases and has a "Buy 1 Get 1 50% off" deal running. Target comes to the party a week late by discounting Guitar Hero Aerosmith. And check out Steam today if you want to save 50% on Peggle Deluxe, as that promotion ends tonight.

All the deals this week get rounded up after the jump.

[Massive thanks to Cheapassgamer for gathering info on the Toys R Us promos this week.]

Diablo III’s director Jay Wilson recently told an audience at BlizzCon that Blizzard and Activision are looking to make some money with the Battle.Net service. How Blizzard will be seeking to “monetize” is unknown, but Wilson said it was necessary to keep the financially crippled Blizzard alive and kicking.

From the panel discussion:

We are looking to monetize Battle.Net so that we get to keep making these games and updating features. We kind of have to.

Wilson didn’t elaborate, but I think we all know how much Blizzard has been suffering the past few years. After the colossal failure that was once a promising game, World of Warcraft, Blizzard has had to revaluate its existence and make some tough spending decisions. It’s a shame that World of Warcraft never took off, but we have the massive success (over 15 million subscribers) of Star Wars: Galaxies to thank for that.

[via CinemaBlend]

Activision knows that the one thing gamers have always wanted to do in a videogame is reenact the life of a secret service agent. That’s why we weren’t surprised when Activision announced Secret Service for the Xbox 360, PS2 and PC. As you can imagine, the title will have players take the role of an “elite” secret service agent who has been tasked with protecting America’s top refrigerator.

Of course, Secret Service won’t revolve around typical refrigerator guarding. The world of Secret Service is serious business. According to the press release, the game is all about an extremist attack launched in Washington D.C. Apparently, extremists have created a teleportation ray capable of stealing cold food without having to physically touch anything. These dreadful attacks are beginning to escalate, and secret service agents are forced to choose between sandwiches and ketchup. Conflict, action, and desire are the integral forces in the game.

Secret Service is really about secret service agents, protecting important leaders from extremists in a wide variety of levels filled with famous landmarks. The game will be out later this year and it looks amazing.

Press release included after the break.

Blizzard is still unsure how many people will be involved with the cooperative portion of Diablo III.  Blizzard executive vice-president Rob Pardo told IGN at BlizzCon that he was “worried” that too many players could soil the experience.

From the interview:

We’re a little bit worried that if you go up to too many players that you’re not really going to be playing together anymore. We want to make sure it’s a great co-op experience where you really play with the people you’re with, so we’ve just got to experiment and figure out what the optimal number is.

[via EvilAvatar]

There's nothing nice about the first public day of the Tokyo Game Show. Hell, the press-only days are kind of hectic in their own way. But when the flood gates open and the public comes in, it's very difficult to move around or see anything. Lines that were 20 minutes long are now two hours long. In some areas, there's a fair chance you'll be swept along with the crowd, not being able to break away and get to the booth or attraction you were headed for.

In the above video, you'll see a first-person view of what foot travel looks like. While you watch us waddle our way through the crowd, it may seem like we moved some distance, but it was really only one booth length. And the cacophony of smells we breathed in along the way is indescribable and unimaginable.

In a video after the jump, you'll see the massive line of public attendees moving toward the convention center over a bridge in the rain. What you won't see is that after moving in this line, they enter the building to wait in another to buy tickets, and then another for security checks. Add these to the massive game lines, and I don't see how any attendee could do anything in the two public days of the Tokyo Game Show.

Also, be sure to check out the TGS floor gallery below.