Back in the saddle

Like I said, I'm back. I spend my entire month in Asia doing research for you guys and gals. Aren't I just the best? Well, okay so it wasn't so much research as it was my idea of a vacation to go to Japan and travel to the north during WINTER. But I digress...

Gaming in Japan is a different experience than it is over here. It's different than China and Korea. The arcade isn't just a place to play games, it's like a holy shrine or something. It's their church, and they go to it every day. Well, except for the Emperor's birthday and New Years but other than that the arcade is always full.

Entering an arcade is a bit like walking in on the middle of a Tool concert. It's loud. REALLY loud. Like your ears are ringing for a full hour after leaving kind of loud. Here legions of males try to show their skills in whatever fighting game is the current rage. Last time I went to Japan it was Vampire Saviour. This time it was Virtua Figher 4, Guilty Gear XX and King of Fighters 2002. Now I don't mind admitting that whenever I would sit down and try to play KOF2002 I'd promptly attract the attention of the locals and they would proceed to beat my poor characters within an inch of their digital lives.

Poor Joe Higashi. One day I swear...

Anyways, they really take their gaming seriously over there. When a game costs 100 yen and the exchange rate is 120 yen on the dollar, playing isn't cheap. When you see people easily spending more than 1000 yen in the span of 5 minutes you get the impression that either they don't care about money or they really care about the game.

Japanese arcades remind me of the early days of video games here in America. Back in the day designers weren't afraid to try new things. Just look at games like Joust, Disks of Tron and Karate Champ. Back when innovation was the key. Now we're too damned worried about spitting out the same game over and over again until everyone is sick of it. Now I'm not talking about fighting games here since the Japanese have the patent on repeating fighting games. I'm talking about games like Dance Dance Revolution, Beatmania and that weird Taiko drumming game that I don't know the name for. Things like that would never come out here in the states. Never. We have to import them. They have all kinds of weird shit over there because they aren't afraid to try new stuff.

Of course, you'd never see porn arcade machines here in the states either. Maybe some things should stay in Japan...