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| Gamer in Japan 8 | // article |
| So, two weeks ago I promised a report on how my "head to head" with a fellow student went. It would seem that Halo:CE for the Xbox is one of those games that you never really lose touch with, which is rather surprising as I remember playing Halo after playing Halo 2 and being utterly beyond help. Such was not the case in my little match with my friend, we only played one round as that was more than enough for my opponent, but despite only winning 15-14 I think it safe to say the match was easily mine after I really put in some effort when the score reached 10-14, and came back with 5 consecutive kills. Alas the same can hardly be said for Phantom Crash, despite whipping up a pretty neat little Scoobie (mech) I completely forgot the difficulty Phantom Crash's controls present. Hell, in my good days it took a while to get used to Phantom Crash, it's amazing I lasted as long as I did! Sure, I managed to nearly obliterate my opponent with a tasty lance punch, but then the swine chased me around the entire level firing very heavy shells that didn't even have to hit me to knock several of the proverbial bells out of me. We then went back to Halo and got into some good old Legendary action, it would seem my friend rarely plays Legendary mode, as this came as quite a shock to him, and I proceeded to do the job of super soldier, whilst he did the job of unhelpful corpse. A good day was had by all! So what happened to last week's issue? Well, it was my birthday you see, my twentieth as a matter of fact, and in Japan, that means party time because twenty is the big one that marks your entry into adulthood. As such, there were three days of partying, three days that hindered any attempts at submission of this article. Fortunately, that gave me the chance to pad this week's article and make it look like I've been doing something! Which, actually, I kind of have. To my right lies an interesting Japanese "Xbox 360 Players Guide" which contains various scenes of graphic gaming that Playstation owners may find offensive, but most interesting in this guide are not the games we all know and look forward to, but those games we may never really come across, games like Mah-jong, 4 Special, a Japanese Wrestling game, several brightly coloured, not so graphically impressive party games and Far East of Eden: ZIRIA, all of which promise a bright and somewhat zany future for some of those with an Xbox 360. Now, I cannot of course comment on these games without playing them, which unfortunately does not seem to be possible in Sapporo, however, it's only a week till I'm off to Tokyo, and if its going to be possible, Tokyo is the place! Earlier in the week I stumbled across an arcade, it wasn't much, but it did have two very important games that I was most excited to be enjoying once again. There was the ever enjoyable, House of the Dead arcade machine, which I took to with cold hands that saw my trigger finger slowed and as such, my existence limited and, most miraculously, the beautiful Puzzle Bobble which took far too much of my money, and gave nought but liquid fun in return. Hmm, how nice it would be to see a nice multiplayer enabled Puzzle Bobble available on the Xbox 360 market place. Of course, these were not the only machines in this small arcade, alongside them stood many different Street-Fighter-esque machines and much to my chagrin, what can only be described as a set of Pervert Simulators. Why my chagrin? Because I walked through that particular aisle expecting more Puzzle Bobble era games, not videos of women pulling off their underwear. Fortunately I was the only one in the arcade and managed to return to the Puzzle Bobble section before anyone saw the abashed gakukojin fleeing the realm of peculiar underwear fetishists. That is I suppose that, I met a Russian yesterday, he was a nice chap, bit drunk though. Oh, & I nearly forgot! Final Fantasy enthusiasts, you are missing out if you don't live in Japan, as to accompany the latest instalment, you can now purchase FF Potions, an attractive blue bottle of some indeterminate liquid for your drinking pleasure! Does it revive you or up your HP? Probably not, though if its anything like the energy drinks here, it'll certainly make you hyper active as a 5 year-old with a glucose drip! Next week will be my last update for quite a while, if I can manage an update at all, as I will be extremely busy with leaving parties and going to Tokyo via Bullet train. However, towards the beginning of April, maybe you can look forward to avoiding my summary of events in Tokyo, Kyoto and Osaka! Till then, keyod skehte! | |
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