Day three of the Tokyo Game Show is the first that is open to the general public as opposed to those ‘in the trade’. We arrived at around 11am expecting to have to queue at least a little, but the sight of thousands of people already ahead of us in the huge meandering line gave us pause for thought.

After checking with the attendants it transpired that, yes, even ticket holders were in this line, which was slowly snaking its way around the entire forecourt in front of Makuhari Messe. Figuring that the inside was going to be just as crowded as the outside we decided to stay a couple of hours and meet up and the giant Norton inflatable out front.

The inside of Hall 5 had changed drastically. Gone were the huge publisher booths, and instead there were booths dedicated to individual games from various companies. Several countries had their own little areas – places like The Netherlands, Canada and even China had all of their national talent under one roof. Smaller companies lined the walls of the hall with their own tiny displays.

Some of these smaller houses were touting wares that were more imaginative than the big boys’ offerings. One company had a title that tied in with a webcam so that your actions on the table in front of the camera caused the on-screen character to do something. Sadly I didn’t catch the name of that one but it looked interesting – certainly more interesting than the latest Madden or Need for Speed.

Another of the smaller titles was Castle Crashers from The Behemoth, a four-player co-op where each character has specific abilities that may or may not help the team complete the level. While this may sound like Sony’s Little Big Planet, the action in Castle Crashers is more beat-em-up than puzzle solving, and the graphics and huge, colourful and just a little bit mad. It could be good.

One thing that puzzled us both is the absolute insistence of some companies to forbid people from taking photographs. It’s as if they don’t want the publicity at all. No harm will come of someone leaking a wobbly, slightly-out-of-focus video of the rendered scenes or even the game play, and in fact it would only whet the appetite of those looking to buy the games. Heh, screw you guys, I’ll just take my videos from further off, with a mono/tripod and a zoom lens. I saw a few people doing this.

I was hoping to find out more about Ushiro, the grungy-looking haunt-em-up that Level 5 are working on for the PSP. I sincerely hope this comes out on the Xbox 360 because it looks amazing. Sadly the crowds were too dense (in more ways than one) and I gave up around 1pm, electing instead to go and get something to eat and drink.

The public day was certainly different from the business-only days in that it was much more about the games and there were more of them, whereas Thursday was more about the publishers and their offerings. While I don’t really want to suffer the crowds on the public days, I think it is necessary to go to both days to a broader spectrum of what’s on offer.