Yoko or tate?

Well I'm practicing the joystick more. And I'm rotating the screen as I see fit.

I discovered the buzzing joy that is Extra mode in Shikigami no Shiro 2. No, I'm not getting far in this mode. In fact, I can barely get to Stage 2-1. But the busy screen makes me make lots of course corrections. In other words, I have to practice the fine tune control constantly. This is way better than trying to get used to a joystick using Psyvariar 2.

So I'm on my shmuppin' kick right now, so I unwrapped the plastic on Border Down. I didn't know how the game system worked, but after a few minutes, I was at home. Although this is a side scroller, and I used to unconditionally shun them, Gradius V has opened up my eyes to genre. It's not half bad. It's not symmetric, but still, it's fun. So far I'm thinking that this is a performance shmup. Can I go the distance without making a mistake? Ugh, dying brings me back to the beginning. Ugh Ugh. But homing lasers! Sweet! Oh well, I am addicted.

Site presentation update

Well as you can see I'm experimenting with the layout of this site. Now that the text is left heavy, doesn't it feel a little asymmetrical? I hope to put a list of post titles on the right hand side. Oh yeah, bye bye mascot Sugar.

Me loving region-free gaming, long time

Add the Playstation Portable (PSP) to the list of region-free game systems, says the article by Spong. This is great news. For me, the most notable region-free system is the Gameboy/Color/Advance, and I have games from Europe, the U.S. and of course Japan. 

Narc making a comeback.

Well if it isn't Bard's Tale coming back from the 80's, it's another game from my childhood coming to rear its ugly head. Narc from Midway (Link noticed from Kotaku). Updated for 2004, with raspy voice actors, cut scenes, rap music, pugilism, and 3d perspective. But what about the maniacal clowns? Running over goons in your porshe? Opening up a rocket and watching the body parts fireworks? Crawling in the middle of crowd and all of the heavies turning around, cuffed, with the satisfying "Busted" overlay? And the annoying dogs! Midway had a classic with Narc, but it's too bad they had to make an adventure out of it. Or maybe not, ol' Nostalgia getting in the way of open-minded evaluation of a remake.


This looks interesting. The cops in the Narc of my generation never had time to ponder, should I "Walk the Line, or Should I Cross It?" A cop succumbing to drug use. Karate moves. And no dogs! Plus there's a trust meter that tells you that you crossed the line, quantitatively. Ha. If I didn't know better, I'd think somebody's trying to cash in on the Grand Theft Auto phenomenon.

Oh yeah, this nostalgia trip brought to you with a reminder: "Winners don't use drugs" Hahaha.

The right place

To tell you the truth: I have two copies of Psyvariar 2 for the Xbox-jp and one lousy t-shirt. (And after taking this picture, I put the shirt away like this site.)


Two days ago on my piyokun-needs-a-Kasumi-Xbox holiday, I bought the first copy at Sofmap Osaka, when I was convinced that I should buy it then and there. Then I happened to go to Nipponbashi "Den-den town". That day was a good day for game releases. I was mesmerized by the Mario Tennis for GC-jp. (Actually, that's an attempt at sarcasm. Never mind.) I got to Sofmap Saurus, and I saw that if I buy Psyvariar 2 now, I get a T-Shirt. Argh. My first reaction was denial. My second reaction was to ignore it. But only after a moment's hesitation, I reached for the box.

Actually the T-shirt seems to be for the first Psyvariar. I was tricked. Sofmap just kept their original goods for the first game in storage for 2 years. And now they unearthed it and unleash it on the unsuspecting Xbox owners. Lies and deception, I tell ya.

In any case, I resolve to do two things:

1. Return/sell the second copy.
2. Never buy new games at Sofmap Osaka without checking for goodies/omake at Nipponbashi.

I am reformed.

Pro-active Microsoft advertising while you wait.

I woke up extra early today so I could head to Nipponbashi "Den-den town" for the special goodies this time of year. It has nothing to do with Halloween (which I hope you are enjoying!), but something to do with grand opening season for stores and the specials to entice the buying public. Suffice it to say I was hunting for telephone cards this time and it's not a pretty habit, let me tell you. On second thought, this is not very gaming related, so I'll quit here.

What I will say is that I encountered a Microsoft demo at the Sofmap Saurus today. Halo 2. Doesn't that get the blood pumping? No? Okay, now I'm not the one to fall for the hype or hype it up. For once they had somebody from Bungie (?) speaking in English on the TV screen demo-ing the game, the CTF map, the various weapons and takedowns. It was probably recorded at a game expo. The announcer/host was corny, not a well-greased car salesman but somebody that screams "geek", or developer. But at least I could understand what was the meaty draw to Halo 2. A sword. An energy sword. OOooh.

Actually, there was a Capture The Flag multiplayer contest, complete with campaign girls commentating on the live games. If you entered you could get a sticker. Woopie. In any case, my reaction to Halo 2 is this: PC version in English. Sci-fi rocks, but it's going to take a lot more for me to buy it on Xbox-jp. It's out of my mind for now.

Sofmap Saurus has a corner dedicated to the Xbox. And I do mean corner because it's at the back of the store next to the elevator. Pops, posters, boxes and boxes of Kasumi Xbox displays, it's pretty. And in a rare display of gaming evangelism, Microsoft had some people in front of that corner to steer customers to the contest. But come on, the contest is at the front of the store, everybody entering and leaving could see it. The Xbox corner is away from the busy sections of the store. The evangelist manning the Xbox corner struggled to catch the attention of the elevator users. Namely me. I'm thinking I should tell this guy that I'm going to get an Kasumi Xbox and join the god-forsaken group of Japan-region Xbox owners. It was an awkward moment but I handed back the Halo 2 promotional paper back to him.

Joystick breakin' me in.

Last time I was trying to break in my used Dreamcast arcade stick. I mean, I need to get myself used to it. But I never did get far in Psyvariar 2, so I'm just credit feeding it. I really lack any control with the joystick. I mean, I'm skippin' when I should be walkin', crawlin' when I should be skippin'. I guess I need to throw out the last 20 years of gaming with a game pad, unlearn the damage. Which means throwing out the baby with the bath water.

BTW, I'm having sweet fun with Espgaluda, which I am playing with a Sega Saturn like pad. If I haven't been forward with my anti-Cave bias, let me be blunt: I dislike Cave bullets. No it's nothing rational, it's just that I don't like the color. And this makes me dislike the games. Okay okay so it doesn't make sense. Anyway back to Espgaluda. I can get to stage 3, and the bullet patterns just make so much sense to me. I don't know why. It must be all the time I spent with Touhou Eiyashou: Imperishable Night.

Maybe I'm playing the wrong game with the joystick. Yes Psyvariar 2 is very joystick heavy. It's perhaps 80% about movement and 20% firing bullets. So I that's why busted out the Shikigami no Shiro 2. This one is a buzz game but has a slower difficulty ramp up. It's probably 60% movement and 40% shooting. I really gotta figure out how to use a joystick and perhaps this game gives me more opportunity to do just that.

Why all the shooting games all of a sudden? Take a look at my setup:

It's a hassle to right my monitor (reality: 3 seconds), but not a hassle to switch inputs from PS2 to DC (reality: 10 seconds). I am just lazy.

Reconnecting the Dreamcast

I spied a used Hello Kitty Pink Dreamcast on the store shelf which was selling 10810 yen minus 4700 yen because it was missing a lot of stuff, like manuals and the phone line, and the cardboard box. I don't care. This is my second Hello Kitty Pink Dreamcast, and I'm using it for spare parts. For example, I can swap the case or something.

I got back home, unpacked the stuff and connected my second VGA box to test it. Wow it's been about a year. I played some Psyvariar 2 (tate and buzzing oh yeah!) and GigaWing 2 but I really suck at using a joystick. Plus I didn't have a good base for the joystick so... um yeah, it's the joystick that sucks, yeah.

I also got La Pucelle for my PS2 which is a "renka" re-release but includes a number of improvements. I also bought the special version with a book. The book is a design book or something, but it adds 3000 yen to the price. Ah I hate being a completist sometimes. Maybe this will get me into the mood to play some RPGs?

Or maybe I should just keep reading my sci-fi books (Robotech! yeah!) and sci-fi DVDs (Star Trek: Voyager! yeah!)

I will post the story of the XBox and software later.

PR leak; recalls 80's CRPG

Anybody play the original Bard's Tale back on the ol' Apple IIe? Seeing the name of the 2004 console game The Bard's Tale made me remember my aversion to those early RPG games, where your party's stats would take half the screen, and your location would be drawn in the upper left hand corner in a screen size smaller than your Palm device. Are they related? It turns out through some googling that they are. Heck, they're jumping on the PR bandwagon and "embracing the internet". At least the bit torrent part of the internet, anyway.

I think my aversion stems from the content. I don't like medieval themed stuff. I'm more sci-fi, like Wasteland. But that's for another time.

Essays on essays on essays on...

Ever watch PBS (U.S. Public Broadcasting System channel)? I rarely do. But there's an interest set of essays on their web site: "Impact of Gaming". I think they're going for the documentary angle, in a dry, monotone voice that will put you to sleep. No, it's interesting, really.

And then there's another essay entitled "The Seven Games of Highly Effective People" published under the microsoft.com's Windows XP advertisement page. Somehow the words "effective" and "games" in the same sentence is paradoxical. The title of the essay is from the famous book-turned-self-help-philosophy, which I forget but has 7 basic priniciples to it. The essay in question a thinly veiled Windows gaming advertisement, but the main message is applicable to all sorts of gaming. Here are the 7 gaming principles which I will re-title in parentheses:

Individual Habits (Lonely gaming)

1. Be proactive (Toggle every switch in the level to proceed)
   
2. Begin with an end in mind (I want to unlock the CG cut scene)
   
3. First things first (I need more ammo, experience points, rupies, etc.)
   

Group Habits (Griefing distilled)

4. Think win-win (We can ow3n3z together, and then I'll TK you.)
   
5. Seek first to understand, then to be understood (Oh you mean you're on my team?)
   
6. Synergize (Why isn't anybody defending our flag?)
   

And finally:

7. Continous Improvement (Ah ha, the game is training me to be a button mashing idiot, so I'll be ready for its sequel!)
   

There you have it. Gaming is effective. Just remember, what is the purpose?

It's finally out! Not...

I did take a day off from work just to get the Kasumi Xbox. Haha, but as fate would have it, they delayed it again. It will be released just one week later, 11/3, which is a holiday in Japan. Yeah, no more groveling to the boss that I need a day off. Sniff.

And I peered over to my co-worker's workstation during a lunch break and I saw that he was eyeing the PlayStation Portable (PSP) announcement. Probably everybody is blown away by the price and the battery life. I couldn't believe the price myself. 25000 yen for a acceptably complete set but still no game, while I was expecting it to be around 40000 yen. I bet games will be 1000 yen cheaper than PS2 games, perhaps in the 5000-6000 yen range. And 4 to 6 hours? Well, that would be about the same battery life as a PC laptop. It's a hassle, it doesn't make any sense, but I guess it's portable for a few hours.

And now I'm hearing reports of the recently released GTA: San Andreas just being so much more emotional than Vice City. More content, more relevancy, more criticism. I couldn't identify with the Mafia but I feel like I have some sort of connection with this one, since I come from So Cal. Not that I grew up in the middle of "Da Hood" but it was an atmosphere in my childhood, yes. Of course I'm waiting for the PC version but I have yet to finish the first two, which really puts this newest spin lower on my priority list. But I bet if in 2005 I see it at Sofmap in the foreign game import section (which is just the size of 3 or 4 boxes at special stores), I'll probably lunge for it. Acting in a PC game! In English! Oh I miss home sweet home! Hyuk hyuk hyuk.

Sad to be releasing...

Did you get your online "preview" copy of Halo 2 yet? Or Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas? For shame for shame. Already online there are copies of these games cr4k3d and haXXord, just ready for you to download to your modded XBox or PS2. It's a sad state of affairs.

More about the price of creating games.

Grumpy Gamer shows us an in-depth thought experiment about creating a mainstream-oriented 2D game in the U.S, in his latest, "The Economics of a 2D Adventure in Today's Market". A cool million dollars, after all is said and done. I mentioned "The price of making a doujin game" , but I didn't touch the subject deeply enough.

Speaking about music...

Today I went out with a friend to see Swing Girls, a movie about high school students playing big band jazz. There was no story, just a bunch of everyday school girls and a guy getting interested about playing brass instruments. But within 10 minutes they sounded like a professional band. Hahah. They shortcutted the struggles and it was a happy end all around. After the movie was over I proclaimed, it was "nutrasweet", carefully crafted artificial sweetener with no bliss. But hey I liked it that way. The only trouble for me understand the story was the Tohoku dialect. Yeah it's Japanese but whiny kids in any language grate and irritate.

At least they had two heavyweight actors in there, or at least actors to me: Naoto Takenaka and Eriko Watanabe. Both of these people also starred in that other great Japanese music thing, Shall We Dance, oh so many years ago. Wait what's this? Amazon Japan is showing a release date for the DVD version?!?! Ahahaahah 2005/04/08! Sign me up! This movie only came out, what, 8 years ago?! Still it captures my imagination.

While we're on the music topic, did I mention that I went to an anime concert two weeks ago? Yes it was "2004 Starchild Dream 2 in Kobe" It's mainly an anime concert, but the people up there also lend their talents to mainstream console games as well. The talents who I recognize and who are relevant to the gaming scene are Marika Matsumoto (松本ま りか), Akemi Kanda (神田朱未), and Yui Horie (堀江由衣), I think. Matsumoto is famous for the voice of Rikku in Final Fantasy X (PS2-jp). She's also can't sing worth crap. She looks good, though, good enough for whole sites of posters, calendars, and wallpapers. Actually she must be an "idol" with voice acting on the side. Next, Akemi Kanda is probably best known on the game side as the main heroine, Yukiko Makihara, of Tokimeki Memorial 3 (PS2-jp). I think in the "west" this is the first game that comes to mind as when there's a story about those crazy Japanese dating sims. And let us not forget Yui Horie, who is really the draw of the whole concert, in my mind. One of the recent RPGs to be released this fall is Magnacarta for the PS2-jp, and she's voicing the main heroine. Do I also need to mention she's Sakuya in Sister Princess, or Multi in To Heart, or Silvie in Ground Defense Force Mao-chan, or Kotori in D.C. or...? Wait these are all games that are just cross-overs from anime or PC. Hm. Never mind.

My Season 3 DVD of Star Trek: Voyager is calling me away from all the games. I know I know, sci-fi nuttery and all, but at least I can watch it in English.

Pressing play on the iPod

I don't know about you, but for some reason if I just press the play button, it plays the first song. Which was on my iPod:"1 of 7772. 'Pop' by 'N Sync on album Celebrity" Ugh. Why does the name of the band start with an apostrophe? Should I blame the iPod's programers? Yeah. Okay, you can start sending me hate mail on my choice of music. I swear this is from my kid sister's collection. Really. Now I associate the play button with the lyrics "Dirty pop... Yo! ... B. BT." Ugh.

I really had to remedy this situtation, so I took a game song and stuck it with an apostrophe on the artist name and all my 'N Sync problems went away. Which song is that you wonder? Stage 5 of Ikaruga, "Metempsychosis" (輪廻). Cool I looked up that word and it means reincarnation. In any case, it says here I played the song 90 times in its entirety. What can I say, the song is pretty cool. It gets the blood pumping in the morning going out to the bus stop. But before long I hear the "Dirty pop... Yo! B. BT." telling me to actually select a song or playlist. Ugh. Time to ready song number 2... ^_^;

Buying gaming magazines for the extras.

In my travels around the world (heh), I've come across U.S., European, and Japanese game mags. I used to buy EGM (Electronic Games Monthly?) back in the early 90s. Is that magazine still around? And I think I still have copies of the Official Nintendo Fan Club mag, before it turned into Nintendo Power. Surely I am wrong here, I can't remember it well.

But I like the Japanese ones the best. No fluff (at least no fluff I can understand), no statement page on high glossy paper (I feel good about myself playing unsophisticated games, thank you very much), and plenty of advertisements! Easy to understand the graphics, oh yeah, and sometimes the fancy "engrish" sets a smile on my face.

But let's not forget the extras. I buy Weekly Famitsu every week at 330 yen. Recently I bought the PS2 Famitsu mag just for the To Heart 2 plastic figurine. So cute! And just today, I bought the PS2 Dengeki mag that has game saves and demos on many discs. Not that I have any recent (within 6 months) PS2 games on my plate right now. Hm. Oh wait, there's a game save for Gradius V and 10 other saves for PS2 shmups. Yippie!

Onto more exotic extras. I even get a kick out of the stickers they supply for your PS2 memory card. Thus begins the dilemma: Do I use them or not? Of course, if you buy a Nintendo-oriented mag, you get more general, children-oriented stickers. Somehow I'm not surprised if Pikachu is a sticker every month.

I think the most exotic extra in recent memory is a blow-up balloon of Kirby. Pink, of course. I have yet to use it, though.

Games that make you go hmm

Grumpy Gamer talks about games that make you go "hmm..." in the Kalamari Diplomacy. The main game of the topic is Katamari Damashi (PS2-jp,us), which Grumpy Gamer implies is our ever-devourishing consumerism distilled into action game form.

I wrote this comment:

I passed up Katamari Damashi when it first hit the shelves because as a game it didn't seem very interesting to me. At first, it seemed to be a Marble Madness game with a twist. Your post highlights a interesting perspective, on how games can invite contemplation. Now KD is on my Games-That-Make-You-Go-Hmm list, right up there with Ico, Jak 2, and Ikaruga.

Now, maybe if I had a PC game that could make me go hmm....

Would you buy a game for the statement it makes? No? Why should you? Games are vapid entertainment with no agenda. What games push the artistic envelope? Which games make relevant statements on your life?

Camping in front of a store, and foraging

Well I really haven't been playing games recently, I had a certification test to worry about. Now, that is finished! And I can concentrate on the important things in life! Hahaha. Just after I finished the test I added a "Self-Help,Imprv" category on my Clie. (*sob* *grin*)

I've been thinking of calling in sick 2004/10/28 Thursday. What's the deal? Well a multitude of things. It's a major game release day! And I really wanna get that Kasumi-chan Xbox, hahaha. The only way I can get one is to make sure I'm there on release day. Do I have stand in front of the store at 8:00 AM? You know, I'm not taking "you should of pre-ordered it back in March" for an answer. ^_^;

I recently saw some old stuff. This is the "foraging" part of the post. Psyvariar 2 (DC-jp) for 3120 yen new, Katamari Damashi (PS2-jp) at full price, Espaluga (PS2-jp) at 4100 yen new. Not exactly deals, but those are on my radar right now. But I need to remind myself that I got stacks and stacks of games already in my room, including a copy of Psyvariar 2 already! Picture buildings collapsing, then picture me trying to vacuum my room. Well no, I guess the metaphor is too sober.

Read what I read and RSN updated blog!

I decided to publish my blogroll from BlogLines. It's a meager listing of Games, Computers, and Tech Interest, with some human interest stuff there too. And I'm planning a site-layout update RSN ("real soon now"), which will publish that blogroll in a sidebar on this site. This is something that most blogs I see have on the sides.

Another thing I want to do is publish the full text of my log in the RSS feed. Most blogs nowadays that experimented with full text RSS feeds are now moving back to summaries. Why should I make you click to read more? Especially since I don't really write a good introduction into the topic? Now you know that I never wrote for the school paper in my younger days. I wonder if I can pull it off the coding. I still have a problem with setting the language encoding of the darn RSS feed.

Linkies and View the Earth

Nothing really doing here much. Oh yeah my english is suffering.

There was a Slashdot article about Blogs, Games and Advertising. You have nothing to fear from my blog, though. I'm not trying to sell you anything, except the idea that I am writing something interesting. Yes no?

Recently I've been bitten by the gentoo bug, and I've been emerging and revdep-ing my colinux instances like crazy. All for the perfect colinux instance on my Windows machines. Some of my computer went bad recently and I've been trying to fix that too. Oh yeah, and my experiment into saving game saves with Subversion is working really good too. I find that I can add comments to the save games via the log function.

I noticed I got my 6th subscriber to my feed on Bloglines. If you're just RSS-ing in, I welcome you to my humble gaming log. I've been meaning to introduce the regular gaming related places I read, like Video-Fenky, Insert Credit, Grumpy Gamer, and Kotaku. But who needs to introduce them? Just read!

And am I the only one to be subcribed to the Internet Archive's Gaming Archive feeds? (Game Replays, Game Previews, Machinima, and Speed Runs)

What else do I use my Pentium 4 rig for, other than reading web pages? Well, take a look at NASA's World Wind software. Basically it's a NASA approved Earth simulator which is much more exciting that Celestia. Why? You can download so many different modifications (Earth at night, Blue Marble, Global Biosphere from August 1997...) at a click of a button. This software requires a Windows computer with .NET and the requirements start at a P4-3.0Mhz machine. Heh. I'm not one to run benchmarks like 3dMark, but I'd run this.


Here I've centered the view on my home in Kobe, Japan. You can zoom in and get the names of prefectures and towns. This software is amazing! (Edit: OMG if I go to my hometown in the States, I can zoom in and see my high school!!!! Wow wow!)

Gaming is so small compared to the Earth. I mean, a simulation of the Earth. Yeah.

How to save your game saves

I have a lot of PC games. Right now I'm doing an experiment to see if there is an effective way to deal with game saves. I am trying out Subversion and TortoiseSVN. What I do is I register the save files into a repository, and I check out the repository to the directory of the save files. That way I can easily know if files are changed and if I need to register more files. I can also sync changes on different computers. Since Subversion is a version control system, I can revert to earlier saves.

However, it's actually complicated and not very automatable. In any case, I'm giving a try and if it doesn't work I can always extract the files from the repository and save them in zip files.

We are all museums

"Probably my generation will be the first one where our children and grandchildren will Google us to recall memories after our death."

If so, I want my relatives to know that I really really love gaming. When I'm in my 50s and suffering for arthritis or carpal tunnel or parental woes, I'll just change the format of the game. Until then, shmups and shooters, here I come!

The price of making a doujin game

Zepy links to a RuputerFan's diary (Japanese) entry: These days it takes some money to make a doujin game (my translation). Let's put some figures on here:

"At Popls [a CD mastering and printing service], let's assume a mastering order of 4000 copies to be produced in a 3 week duration. This is 41,0000 yen [about USD 3,700] per week. This is just the manufaturing costs. When factoring in the marketing, circle operating costs, etc, the total could be 180,0000 yen [about USD 16,000]" (loose translation)

Hm. USD 16,000 for a mediocre game. This is in response to another post about a big name doujin game, Friends - Child Flower (direct link to a creator's blog entry about the over-18 game). It was reported that the music creation costs alone were 111,5000 yen [about USD 10,000].


Should I write some exclaimation points (!!!!)? Just writing about these sums of figures just doesn't put it into perspective.

When I look at my multiple stacks of doujin games or the stacks in the shops, I tend to forget that they production costs are that high. I'm just amazed that the price for a possibly great game is anywhere from 500 yen to 3000 yen, when normal, mainstream games start at 4000 yen.