Tokyo Jungle 30 Minute Video Preview

A thirty minute video preview for one of the strangest games coming soon to the PlayStation 3.

Tokyo Jungle Image 1

Why do we love Japan? Okay, why do I love Japan? Aside from delivering one of my all-time favorite mediums, Anime, when it comes to creativity in the gaming space – at least when they’re not trying to poorly copycat western shooters, you know which games you are – Japanese devs cannot be matched by anyone else. Heck no. And Tokyo Jungle for the PlayStation 3 is a worthy example of this.

Picture it: the world is over, like, doomsday and all that. Now the only things left living in the broken decay of Tokyo are the animals who are no longer the second-class species they are to man. The gist of Tokyo Jungle’s gameplay is simple. Players take the role of an animal – lions, tigers, and Pomeranians, oh my – and then must hunt for food and build a pack in order to become top dog in this urban environment that is host to other stray species that wish to do the same.

Tokyo Jungle Image 2

Wait, where’s my head? Did I skip over the part where you actually play as a once-pampered Pomeranian? Oh, because you do. That’s just one of the two crazy plot-lines for the Story Mode; the other stars a champion race horse who seeks outs a fitting rival for one last race of glory. Yeah. It’s like that. And yes, it is amazing. Although, if you just want to cut to chase like a party-pooper, the Survival Mode is available from the start, too.

The Survival Mode in Tokyo Jungle is your standard online leaderboards affair – try to survive as long as you can against other animals, post time and kill results online, compete with friends, wash, and repeat. Waring though, taking this path will limit the amount of animals you can choose – 50 breeds and 80 types of creatures in all – which a good sum are only un-lockable through the Story Mode. Yeah. It’s like that. And yes, it kind of sucks.

Not enough ruin a master opus of this quality though, and if I haven’t sold you on this game yet (why, you don’t like me?), good-ole’ Gamespot shot a 30 min preview for the game. So, sit back and enjoy.

Unabashedly ridiculous, and I love it! Did you see that you could dress up your animal like one of those weird people on Animal Planet? But in this instance, it goes towards buffing up stats – fantastic. Too bad we’re still left without a North American/European release date, even though the game has been out in Japan for well over two weeks, in retail disc form no less.

For what it’s worth, Sony says Tokyo Jungle coming overseas and they’ve been pretty courageous on bring out strange games outside of Japan in the past. So I don’t have any reservations that it’s not. Just like how I’ve got no reservations for this awesome Legend of Zelda portrait made entirely out of LEGO or these cute geeky pixelated glasses.