Game shows are a dime a dozen. And TGS 2006 just finished. So what's one more conference to chuck up to your schedule? This time, eyes are focusing on Portugal as the country's first major event related to the video games industry is just about to take place: the Games2006 COLLADA Show.

The show is going to be presented by PixelBox Academy. The agenda: the future of computer graphics. Anyone who wants to know more about COLLADA and Open GL might want to check the event out on September 27 - that's this Wednesday.

So, what really is the next step for computer graphics technology? We've already gotten to the 1080p level. And some other 8-bit games from the "ancient past" are getting remakes. Where is the mothership of video gaming taking us? Is there even any other place that we can still go to from here? Have we reached the end of the rope? Hopefully not. That's what this conference is going to address. And these are the questions they plan to answer.

If they do get to answer it, count on QJ to hear more about the updates, so check back again, around later this week. Who knows what kind of proposals and ideas are bound to crop up?

Fresh from its TGS 2006 appearance, Harvest Moon Kimi to Sodatsu Shima (a.k.a. Harvest Moon: The Island I Develop With You), earned praises that its predecessor missed. Reviews described its larger, 3D graphics as more visually attractive and pleasing to the eye.

After switching from the series' original GBA graphics, Harvest Moon Kimi to Sodatsu Shima packs greater character detail and superior animation which sunk its prequel.

But that's just one of the improvements found in this title. Harvest Moon Kimi to Sodatsu Shima is also stylus-driven with improved controls. Players actually get to use the stylus here especially to control characters' direction. They go to where ever the stylus is pointed.

Harvest Moon Kimi to Sodatsu Shima will be available in December in Japan.

There's a lot of salt water in the sea. You can't drink it, it takes a really long time to turn the salt water into salt, and it always makes your skin get all wrinkly and unfit for modeling inside a video game. However, if your boat starts sinking and you end up on an island with a girl, there's not much choice but to stop whining about your skin and help the girl find food.

One of the latest trailers at TGS 2006 shows us just what it takes to end up on the beach with a pretty girl as you struggle to survive. Just add one boat, stormy weather, your Nintendo DS, and the simulation of hand motions with the stylus and you've got yourself the makings of Konami's Lost in Blue 2. Enjoy the YouTube video, and bring some bottled water the next time you plan on getting stuck on a deserted island, alright?

Slimes are a staple of RPG games. Whether it be those blobs you have to kill in WoW's Un'goro Crater or Dragon Quest's beloved blue creature, there's almost no doubt that they will not go away.

Much like the monster taming minigame of the PS2's Dragon Quest VIII: Journey of the Cursed King, the upcoming Dragon Quest Monsters - Joker for the DS will work on the same basic idea. You'll find monsters, tame them, and use them to beat up other monsters to tame those guys. Or you could just take those enemies down to make your monsters stronger. Either way, something's going to die.

If you're Joker, however, you want to make sure that it's the enemy who dies, and not your monsters. Treat them well and buy them stuff, and combine them to make stronger monsters while commanding their every move. The funny thing is, you can even get your monsters to fight their own kind.

This gameplay video from TGS 2006 shows off even more Joker action, letting you see your slime fighting one of his brothers. One thing you'll notice at the very beginning is that the bottom screen for the DS will serve as your minimap and user interface, so that while the action happens on the top screen, you can easily switch into micromanagement mode just by looking down. In any case, enjoy the video, and watch out for them blobs!

FFIII-DS Producer Tomoya Asano goes back a long way - back to the dev team behind the original NES (well, Famicom to be exact) FFIII, lo, these sixteen years ago. He sat down with IGN during TGS 2006 to talk about what it felt to come back to spearhead porting his "baby" to the DS, and what it entailed.

It really was all a matter of timing, he says, when he was asked by IGN about the reasons why it was FFIII that was updated to the 21st century. At the time, FFIV-VI were also in in the porting pipeline - but to the GBA, not the DS. It really was a matter of timing that demand for an FFIII port grew (both in Japan and abroad - the Famicom FFIII was never released outside of Japan) at the same time that Nintendo launched the DS. So Square-Enix decided to capitalize on both.

The team Square-Enix and Asano gathered to remake FFIII was no stranger to remakes or FFIII. The Matrix dev team had ample experience with the Dragon Quest V PS port. The Square-Enix people were the same people who worked on the Famicom FFIII sixteen years ago - up to and including composer Nobuo Uematsu.

One difficulty in porting a Famicom game to the DS was realizing that - surprisingly enough - there are limitations to porting a Famicom game to the DS. The original 8-bit game actually has more enemies on screen at the same time than the DS port, says Asano. Pushing everything up to 3D posed additional challenges, especially with the Jobs system, with graphics team trying to make 92 job models times four different characters small enough to fit on a DS cartridge.

Finally, are they thinking of bringing more classic FF gems to current-gen systems? Asano: Square-Enix plans to explore it.

Buy: [Final Fantasy III]

Most of you guys have seen dozens of pics of the TGS 2006. And some of you might have seen this or that article about the booth babes. Now, whether you're into the whole TGS fad for the games or for the booth babes, you'd surely want to see this video montage from Red_knight.

The video goes around the TGS event, yes, but you can't help noticing that booth babes abound. Now, if you filter out all of those smiles, costumes, and legs, it's actually an informative video to watch if you want a tour around TGS and learn the layout of the floor. And honestly now, the babes games are really fantastic, right? That's what you're here to watch, right? RIGHT?!

Man, those French people get around. They've managed to take a lot of nice videos for different games at TGS 2006, and while each one tends to be short, they certainly are nice teasers for the real thing.

One of these trailers is for Square Enix's Dragon Quest Monsters - Joker, one of their spin-off games of the series for the DS. While you may not like the comparison, Dragon Ball + Pokemon do happen to come to mind, but with the flair that made Dragon Quest: Journey of the Cursed King such a popular game for the PS2. Of course, collecting and powering up monsters is actually fun once you can decimate your enemies with them, so the potential for sadistic experience gained through wholesale slaughter is always a crowd-pleaser.

This short clip from TGS doesn't show a whole lot of the gameplay itself, but from the giant screens, it certainly looks less like a DS game and more like a PS2 game (as absurd as that sounds).

Of course, that may just all be an optical illusion forced upon us by Akira Toriyama. In any case, watch the video, have fun with the pretty pictures, and start that petition for an American and European release for the game. Enjoy!

Download: [Dragon Quest Monsters - Joker TGS Video]

The agricultural community must be very pleased with Harvest Moon. It introduced how farming can be profitable and fun at the same time. Thanks to the game, players have been exposed to farming life. We've seen some kids comment on how hard it must be for farmers to do the same chores repeatedly, just to earn enough money to buy a cow. Some of these players have even actually tried planting seeds just to check out how it really happens. Hooray for Mother Earth, we say.

Now the last Harvest Moon DS had mixed reviews regarding the graphics and lack of stylus application. This time, Marvelous's Harvest Moon: The island I Develop With You is bigger and, hopefully, better. In this game, the player and some of his fellow refugees will have to try their hands on developing a whole island; imagine Lost, but with nicer and more wholesome people. Reportedly, it has 3D graphics; but will it be more superior than the other Harvest Moon games? We read an IGN article where a writer previews the game straight from TGS 2006. Here's some of the notable comments.

The writer says that the graphics are much more pleasing to the eye. The 3D figures and large-scale rendering make it easier to look as the character runs through the fields trying to water every plant and feed every poultry available. As for the dual screen application, the top screen of the demo shows the controls, but according to TGS pamphlets, it shows the status meters of the main character. The graphics got a boost, but will the stylus use get one too?

Yes, according to the article players actually use the stylus on this game. The blondie farmer boy/girl/person will go where the player points the stylus. Useful for those who are in a hurry to get their chickens in the coop before nightfall. Since the stylus is applied more for character direction control, what does the D-Pad do now? It's used for tool choosing functions. Just keep on pushing the right button until the player get to the correct tool. Once he or she get to the correct one, just tap it twice in succession and it's ready in hand. No need to put down the stylus just to get the Axe.

Will this be a better Harvest Moon than the last? It's shaping up to be a contender. The game should be out in Japan in December.

Vampire hunters Jonathan Morris and Charlotte Aulin wowed TGS 2006 audience with their adventures inside Dracula's castle in Konami's Castlevania: Portrait of Ruin. Using the best of their abilities, Jonathan and Charlotte team up to foil vampire artist Brauner who is planning to summon the legendary vampire, Dracula, by using the power of magical portraits. With Brauner are his daughters Stella and Loretta.

The gameplay video features much of the action that players will expect and what the characters must undergo to be able to defeat Brauner. This includes slaying creatures of monstrous size, life-threatening traps, escaping big rolling stones and other challenges. The game is set to be released on November 16 in Japan and December 5 in U.S.

Download: [TGS 2006: Castlevania: Portrait of Ruin gameplay video]

Hideo Kojima has decided to pull something out of his bag of magic tricks yet again as he has announced at the Tokyo Game Show that he is developing a game for the Nintendo DS which is about, of all things, dealing in the Japanese Stock Market. This is a complete alien among the usual line-up of Kojima Productions titles, and is quite a strange sight when place side-by-side with the likes of the Metal Gear Solid games, as well as other RPG titles such as Lunar Knights.

With its full title of Kabushiki Baibai Trainer Kabutore (loosely translated as Stock Transaction Trainer Kabutore), or Kabutore for short, Kojima seems to be aiming on joining the "training game" trend for games on the DS. Using real Tokyo Stock Exchange information from the last five years, the game practically teaches the player the basics of the stock market where they will learn to trade and study the ups and downs of the business world. For people who have never gone anywhere near stocks before, there will be a lecture and story mode which will act as the tutorial. For those with more business suave, then they can play the market as much as they want on expert mode, which lets the game function as a market simulator.

Though a release date has not yet been announced, this game seems like the type that would only be released locally, though there is always the possibility that a U.S. or European version can be made in the future.

More Kabutore screenshots after the jump!