Some reasons on why Game Centres are so popular

This is a post I've been wanting to do for a couple of weeks since I watched a certain episode of a show called Pach-Attack on gametrailers.com.

For those that don't know, Pach-Attack is a show hosted by a guy called Micheal Pachter, a dude who knows a great deal about the industry and answers questions on certain topics every week about business related things.  A couple of weeks ago, he was asked "Why are arcades so prominent in Japan but not so viable in the states?" to which he responded "Japan is a weird place and the people are just a lot weirder than the people in the west"

Now I don't know why but this struck a nerve with me, I think Pach-Attack is a great show and the guy knows his stuff, but on this topic he is just fucking wrong, and the way he worded his answer seemed pretty offensive, not only to the Japanese, but to me who also enjoys these games.

The chance of Pach himself reading this post is pretty slim, but I'll tell you the real reason why arcades are more viable here than anywhere else.

1. More new/interesting games
I'm really only talking about the UK but from what I've heard about America it's a similar situation.  In the UK, you ALWAYS see the same games, shit like Time Crisis and DDR and maybe a shitty racing game or 2, but in Japan, the selection is way more varied.  You have a metric shit ton of rhythm games, but all have an interesting take on rhythm gameplay (the recent Mai Mai comes to mind on this one)

Also, I've covered games before like Sengoku Taisen but games like this are basically unheard of in the west AT ALL, and I don't think anywhere would want these huge cabinets in their establishments, which leads me to my next point

2. Dedicated places to play
The Game Centre is a pretty popular thing out here, hell, I live within about 30 minutes of 4 different ones.  The existence of these not only give people a good place to come together, compete and practice, but it gives developers of these games somewhere to put their crazy designed cabinets.  While Arcades like this used to exist in the west, I found that people weren't willing to maintain the machines as much as they are around here, so shit used to stop working and people would stop coming.  The closest thing to an arcade near me in the UK had a broken DDR machine for 2 YEARS, that was never fixed and probably still has a broken right pad on the P1 side today. Speaking of machine care leads me to my final point which is...

3. Developers and players actually give a shit in Japan
Players of arcades in the UK really didn't give 2 fucks about how they treated the machines, and owners, like I mentioned in my last point, didn't give a shit about fixing them either.  For example, people would wreck the guns on rail shooters, or in one case, some teenagers broke into the coin box and stole the money, and the place disposed of the cabinet rather than spend time repairing it.  So in short, people fuck up the games and they are just not worth playing.

Arcades also get more developer attention with stat cards being available to unlock new content on basically every game.  On top of that, with most machines being hooked up to the internet, developers release patches and updates for popular games with great frequency.  If you dig through the posts a bit, or check my youtube channel, the Sound Voltex Booth game that I covered a while back has had over 40 new songs added to its library as well as a long list of pre-existing Beatmania songs that have been remixed for the game.

I could talk for days about why arcades here are so good, but I'll leave you with those 3 points for now.  So, Micheal Pachter, the Japanese aren't weird, the scene is just more interesting over here, and maybe you should actually look at what's available before you make stupid comments like that.

THOSE Moments in Games

So today I'm playing Etrian Odyssey on the DS, a cool little dungeon crawl that involves drawing your own map and exploring a vast network of tunnels filled with equal parts treasure and danger.  I thought this game was pretty awesome until I got a certain side-quest, a side quest to spend 5 in game days on the 8th floor of the dungeon. 

That means moving 3600 steps, which means patrolling in that 3 square little space for 5 game days because otherwise I have to fight boring monsters that I can kill in one hit!

This got me thinking, there are a lot of games that have THOSE moments, you know the ones I mean, the moments that throw a dirty big wrench into an otherwise really enjoyable game.  The most famous example that comes to my mind is the Ocarina of Time Water Temple

People love the shit out of this game but this dungeon is one of the most hated things in all of gaming. 

While most of these sections usually involve a sewer, this doesn't quite qualify as a rant on sewer levels because there are a good handful of games where these sections take place outside of those infernal underground pieces of shit.

The problem with these sections is that it can really kill the replay value of a game.  There are plenty of games in my collection that I would actually love to play again, but as soon as I go to play it, I remember THAT bit and suddenly I don't want to play anymore.  I don't know why these are so common as well, I'm sure developers know that what they are putting in kills pacing/fun, so why do they do it?

Fucking. Stop it!

3 scary games for the 31st

Well Halloween is finally upon us people!  Now, the big Halloween nights out around Japan all went down last weekend, since Halloween itself falls on a Wednesday and people are working and whatnot.  So! If you need some living room scares, I'm here to provide you with 3 games that may get the fear flowing.

In case anyone cares the game in the top picture is Fatal Frame (or Project Zero)

GAME NUMBER 1! THE BINDING OF ISAAC!

HOORAY! I finally get to talk about this thing again!  You may be scratching your head at this first pick since The Binding of Isaac isn't all that scary really, at least not at face value.  No, the Binding of Isaac is just disturbing, in both plot and imagery.  Apart from your enemies being all horrible disfigurations from a babies nightmare, if you spend enough time in the basement then you'll realise just how grim Isaacs tale really is, and once all is revealed, it's really quite unsettling.  So if you want a Halloween game that wont make you lose sleep at night, Isaac is the way to go!

GAME NUMBER 2! LONE SURVIVOR!

This little indie gem really impressed me when I fired it up for the first time.  It's one of the only horror games that is actually trying to be scary rather than just startling.  While you may not think a game with 2D pixel art could be all that scary, the atmosphere in this thing is oppressive as all hell.  It's not very long, but the feelings of dread and panic are delivered in such huge amounts that staying in the world of Lone Survivor for extended periods is quite a strain on the senses.

GAME 3! HALF-LIFE 2!

What the fuck am I talking about? Half Life 2? scary? Well hear me out.

When I say Half Life 2, I don't mean Half Life 2 itself, I mean the absolutely staggering numbers of mods available for this game.  Of that large number of mods, a good deal of them are scary mods, and good ones at that too!  Nightmare House 2 and Grey are 2 really good ones just to get you started, but you can find so many scary fucking mods for this thing it'll make your head spin.  So fire up google and get to it.

There you have it folks, a good way to burn a wednesday evening at home for halloween.  Also, don't worry if you are a gamer on a budget, the above titles are cheap as chips so you won't be breaking the bank for any of these games.

Killer7

I was browsing youtube to kill some time when I see that someone that I subscribed to covered this game as a part of their Halloween scare-fest thing.  This instantly prompted all the awesome memories I have of what is, to me, one of the best games (quite possibly THE best) game on the Gamecube, so I thought I'd have a little gush about it right here.

So, unless you've been living under a rock, you are probably aware of who Suda51 one is.  In case you do live under a rock, or you don't game as much as everyone else, Suda51 is the guy behind the No More Heroes games and the more recent Shadows of the Damned.  Now people loved stuff like No More Heroes, but I was quite disappointed with it, because I was comparing it to this thing.

So, Killer7 follows a group of assassins as they try to take down a terrorist organisation known as Heavens Smile.  The 7 assassins aren't actually real though, they are all different personalities in some guys psyche that are given form somehow.  Basically, the plot is the fucking strangest thing I've ever played through, but it's actually really good.  There is a big story arc about relations between Japan and the US and government conspiracy and stuff, but some of the chapters seemingly have no link to that, but then they actually do, and....oh god, shit's nuts.  Just play it, it's really hard to explain.

The only real way to describe the gameplay, along with pretty much everything else in this game, is unique.  You are on rails all the time, but you still have freedom to choose where you want to go at junctions in the level, and the levels get more sprawly and complicated as you go.  You have to stop and go into this first person mode to fire your weapon, but before you can shoot anything you have to scan the environment since the enemies all come with built in stealth.  Combat aside, it has those kind of survival-horror esque puzzles of finding weird shit to use as keys to open various things.  On top of that, each personality has it's own ability, which you have to make use of in order to progress.

The other big thing about this game is the art style, and it's really pretty but still retains a sort of bleak atmosphere.

It's cel-shading out the arse, but it's done in this really masterful way and the game looks really good as a result.

I could probably fill up about a weeks worth of posts just talking about each individual aspect of this game and why it's just so damn good.  But instead of me yapping on, I recommend that you hop on e-bay or amazon or something and fucking find a copy.  Gamecube version is better than the PS2 version, but whatever version you play, you won't regret it.

In Time Short Movie Review

I didn't really know what to make of this movie when I first heard about it.  The premise is really interesting but I don't really peg Justin Timberlake as much of an actor, so I had mixed feelings going in to this movie.

The movie is set sometime in the future, where people have found a way to cease ageing past 25 and time has become the new currency.  The story follows Justin Timberlake's character called Will Salas, a dude who lives in the slum who barely has a day on his clock.  Through a twist of fate, he is given about 100 years by some other guy who is sick of being alive, but due to some unfortunate event, his mother "times out" and he swears to take revenge on the corrupt time economy.

Now as interesting as that sounds, the writer for this movie obviously wanted to make a point about the American economy or something, but this message comes down with such blunt force trauma it loses all meaning.

That said, it's a fairly competent by the numbers thriller.  Nothing about this movie is what I'd call bad, but nothing about it is particularly spectacular either.  Just as a little point on the side, Amanda Seyfried looks stunning in this movie, but that could be because I have a little bit of a thing for bob cuts.

The one big problem I have with this movie is that I really wished they fleshed out the whole time as currency thing a bit more.  The process of one person transferring time to another seems to be so metaphysical and you end up with so many questions about the whole system that when you think about it the movie falls apart a little bit.

Still, it's a good watch if there is nothing else and you could do a lot worse than this movie, worth checking out at least once to be honest.

Having another go at Slender

First, sorry about there not being a Free Game Friday this week, there is birthday parties and Halloween events happening out the arse, so I've not really had a chance to play any free stuff. 

So, with it being the Halloween period, I thought I'd take a chance to play something scary.  I know Slender has been played out the arse on youtube, but it's a good game for me to make sure my recording software is going to stop causing trouble with the PDS run.

Well, enough of me talking, here's the damn video.

Osaka

Well we've had the Resident Evil stuff, and we've had some ranting about shopping bags, now it's time to talk about the city of Osaka itself.

Well, to be honest with you, because of time constraints I didn't really get to see all that much of it, but what I did see I really liked.  I actually felt quite at home in Osaka, I don't know if anyone would agree but to me it kind of felt like someone had taken London and Manchester, smashed them together and them cleaned them up so they looked all nice.

This view somehow reminded me of Manchester Piccadilly

But before I could really take in the city, I was on a subway train heading to an area that had a load of temples in it.  It looked like a place that would usually be quite quiet, but we were fortunate enough to get there on what I think was a festival day, so the streets and temple areas were little with stalls selling all kinds of junk.

The owner was really expecting this stuff to sell?

It was a really nice, vibrant area with a really strong smell of incense coming from the temples as people lit them and said prayers and whatnot.  There was also a really chill garden that you had to pay a couple of hundred yen to get inside, but it was a really nice escape from the festival crowds, and gave some much needed chill time after a day of walking around.

The whole thing was a really nice, chill start to the day that was going to turn into a hardcore shopping trip as we got on another subway to a place called Namba.  I can't remember if I've mentioned it here, but there is a place near me called Osu Kannon, which is this enclosed little street area filled with shops and stuff.  Namba was basically this on fucking steroids, it was huge and we basically spent the rest of the day there and still didn't get through all of it.

Near Namba is a place called Dotonbori, which fans of the Yakuza games might recognise since this was an area featured in Yakuza 2.  It's basically more of the same thing, but they have this famous sign for the Glico company, which makes pocky and shit like that.

So the rest of the day was basically spent shopping, so I won't bore you with details of our shopping trip.  That said, there was a funky little boat ride just near the sign in the above picture, and I recorded a couple of minutes of it before my cameras battery started to crap out, so have a gander at this video!

Following this post, the gaming shall resume!

The Cure to a blocked nose!

Through my travels around the internet, I have discovered a method to curing nasal congestion in minutes!

Now I know this isn't video games, but having a blocked nose can have a really bad effect on ones performance, so I think this advice will come in handy.  That and everyone seems to be getting a cold in Japan right now, so I'm sure anyone suffering will enjoy this advice.

OK, it's really easy!

1. Breath out, hold your breath and hold your nose
2. Walk around a bit, until the whole holding of breath thing becomes unbearable
3.  Block your mouth off and breath gently through your nose

and BAM! clear nose for a few minutes.  Sure, the effect doesn't last that long, but long enough to get something done before you have to do it again, I mean I managed to beat Batman Begins on SNES before I had to re-do it.

It has something to do with Carbon Dioxide being a vasodilator or something, I don't have a fucking clue, I'm not a fucking scientist.

Bullshit #10: The Universal Studio Gift Bag

Well I've gone an caught a cold again, so here is a short post on some bullshit I noticed during my visit to Universal Studios Japan.

So, anyone who has been to a theme park knows that scattered around the park are various gift shops and such, so you can buy overpriced stuff to give to people when you get back home.  Now, most places that you can go to give you a bag with a handle, but not USJ!  USJ gives you the piece of shit bag which you have to awkwardly clutch throughout your entire stay in the park.

You may be thinking that this can all be avoided if you just buy the gifts at the end of the day, but this doesn't fucking work either since every fucking bright spark does that, and it's impossible to navigate the shops through the sea of people.

So fuck these bags, sort this shit out USJ.

The Universal Studios Halloween Thing

Well after spending about a day recovering from the walk-a-thon that was my trip to Osaka, it's time to start telling you good people about what this stuff was like.

So I figured since this is a gaming blog, and not a Japan blog, I'd start with the Resident Evil themed stuff and do the other stuff later. 

So first lets start with some bad news, I missed the Resident Evil show thing.  Now this doesn't mean I missed everything Resident Evil related, there was plenty of that going on, but they had a show scheduled to start at 6pm inside the building where they do the Terminator 3D movie thing.  So I rolled up about 30 mins early, thinking I'd get in line for it before other people, and by the time we got there, it was full capacity, and they only do 1 show a day.

But, since it's in the Terminator building, I can go and assume that it's a 3D movie, that involves actors on stage, probably fighting a Tyrant.  If anyone knows EXACTLY what goes down in there, put it in a comment or throw me an e-mail or something, I'd like to know.

The closest I got

Well, albeit a little disappointed, all was not lost.  Not getting into this thing meant we were able to hit the queue early for the restaurant nearby that was doing the Resident Evil themed menu!

I'll put up some more pictures of the food at the bottom of the post, but it tasted pretty good.  I ordered both the drinks as well since I had to try everything.  The mixed herb drink was this soda water thing, where the staff gave you a vial of red herb and let you choose between another vial for a green herb or a blue herb.  Being really tired at that point from the day at the park, I went for the green herb and it tasted pretty good, was sort of fruity.  The Berkin G drink was a whiskey highball (whiskey and soda water) that had a piece of liche in it, made to look like William Berkins eye after he took the G virus. (More food pics at the bottom)

This is where the whole eye in the drink thing comes from

Once we had finished eating and got back outside, shit had popped off.  The area of the park near the restaurant had become this Resident Evil themed show type thing, with various monsters such as Nemesis and a Hunter walking around on a stage.  There was also zombies shambling around the crowd, scaring the shit out of unsuspecting onlookers.

Occasionally, the on-stage monsters would hop down and start terrorising people too

The zombies were all over the park, changing attire as you got near the different rides, so near Waterworld they were all in scuba gear and so on.  This idea for a "show" or was actually pretty good, since the zombies were in the crowd, people would start panicking when accidentally bumping into other guests, so the whole thing was really fucking with people.  On top of the zombies, there was a RE2 Claire Redfield running around too trying to gun down would-be attackers of the crowd

The last thing to mention about the Resident Evil stuff was the big projection they had on one of the walls.

Correct me if I'm wrong but I'm pretty sure it's supposed to be the city area from the start of Resident Evil 3. 

So that's about it really for the Resident Evil stuff, there was some other stuff going on around the park but that was all full capacity too and the wait times for the "horror versions" of the rides were insane, and riding one of them would have resulted in us being late for the Shinkansen.

I'll throw up some more pictures, and right at the bottom I'll put a video up too! Enjoy!

Jill was milling around too

The Berkin Drink

Full HP

Supposed to be a brain

Hunter

Licker, Really hard to get a good picture due to distance and crowd confusion

 VIDEO!

Going to Osaka! and some more Panzer Dragoon!

OK! So tomorrow morning I'm going to be getting up bright and early and fucking off to Osaka for a while.  While I'm gone, I don't think I'll have access to an internet connection so I won't be able to make posts for about 2 days, but when I get back you can probably expect pictures and stuff.

While I'm there I'll be hitting up Universal Studios where they are doing their super scary Resident Evil thing

This should be interesting, so even if you give zero fucks about Osaka, there is still going to be something gaming related upon my return!

Also, I have 3 new parts of my Panzer Dragoon Saga Playthrough but there is some audio syncing problems.  Basically,  FFSplit, the recording software, got an update and started recording in MP4 instead of FLV.  This, for some reason, caused everything to fuck up and now it's all out of sync.  I spent a while working on it to re sync it, but I couldn't get it perfect in the end, I'm just not good enough at editing yet.

Well, here they are anyway, it's not THAT bad.

Stupidity Levels Getting Higher

I can't believe I actually have to even talk about this shit.....

Right, literally just now, I was linked to an article on the website PCGamer that said Rice University was offering a course on Skyrim.  I couldn't believe what the fuck I was reading, it sounded too stupid to be true and had to be a mistake.

But depressingly, no, it's true

So basically, as far as I understand how this shit works you read old Norse stories and play Skyrim, right?  Well that's exactly why it's so fucking dumb!  Sure, it may be cool to see where any inspiration for this shit came from, but it's not university course worthy.  It's fun, to be done in your spare time while you go and study something ACTUALLY WORTH STUDYING.

You walk into a job interview with your "Skyrim Degree" and watch as you get laughed out the fucking office.  Whoever thought this was a good idea needs to be punched in the face. Hard.

This is also why students are complaining it being so hard to find a fucking job nowadays.  Yes, there are problems with the job market all over the place, but you studying why Skyrim has a good plot is not helping you here.

Goddamnit........

Free Game Friday: Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup

Well, I'm about to kick off a weekend of gaming with something free for everyone to enjoy!  This week have have Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup, a challenging game with perma-death!

This game is a rougelike, and for those that don't know what that is, it's a genre of game that involves randomised dungeons, loot and enemies, and usually tasks you with getting to the bottom of whatever structure you have to move through.  This game is no different, you have to get to the bottom of the dungeon, grab the Orb of Zot, and get out again, easier said than done though.

There is a lot to be said for character creation with race and classes being provided out the arse for you to fuck about with.  In fact, there is so much to this game that it would take me far too long so if you do play it, go find the wiki and use that to help you.

Like I said before, if you die, your character is deleted and you have to start from scratch again.  What makes this even cooler is that as you get deeper, you will be attacked by ghosts of your previous dudes, so you have to be extra careful when that starts going down.

It can be a bit difficult to get your head round this one if you are new to the genre, but there is plenty of material to help you out.  Even if you do only play this for a weekend, I promise you will not beat it!

LINK!
http://crawl.develz.org/wordpress/

The Outlast Teaser Trailer

Since Halloween is getting pretty damn close now, let's talk about some scary fuckin' games, and what better way to start than with a brand new scary fuckin' game that I just saw the teaser trailer for!

So this is a game called Outlast, being developed as we speak by a bunch of guys at the new company Red Barrels.  This will be their first game as far as I'm aware, and if you go check out the website and look at the team, they have some really good talent in their ranks.  These guys have all had a part working on some kind of big game or for some kind of big company so the skills on display here are top notch.

So, before we continue, watch the trailer

Now, after watching that my brain is saying 2 things.  One half of me is saying "wow, it sort of reminds me of Mirrors Edge in a way, but as a horror game", and that's pretty cool.  Despite what anyone said about Mirrors Edge, I really fucking liked that game, so if you can wrap that kind of gameplay in a nice warm blanket of horror, it could be really good.

But then the other half of my brain is going "This is going to fucking suck.....", and that is because if you watch the trailer, you may realise that the character spends the entire trailer running away from the scary things.  Now, what was the last game that had you running away from the scary things as it's main game mechanic......

......yeah, remember how AWESOME Shattered Memories was.....no, you don't because it sucked ASS (still better than Homecoming though)

Despite saying that, I do imagine the guys at Red Barrels will be able to make this kind of gameplay enjoyable.  Hell, a game like Catherine is essentially running away from the big nasty but look at how awesome that is.  Either that, or I'm just making assumptions from the trailer that aren't true, and when we see more I'm promptly going to shut my gob about the game potentially sucking.

So keep an eye on this one people, it looks like it might be good!

Panzer Dragoon Saga Playthrough Session 8

More Panzer Dragoon!  Although this time there was some weird audio crackle that sort of just fixed itself after a while.  I test my recording stuff every time before I start, and it wasn't there, so I have no idea what caused it or how I fixed it.  Either way, it's not THAT bad, but I'll try to make sure it doesn't happen again.

VIDEOS

Capcom, seriously, what the fuck?

I don't think there is a single person who doesn't know about Capcom, I can pretty much say with complete certainty that almost anyone who has played video games for more than a year (probably less) has at least played one Capcom game.

But recently there seems to be a trend of big game developers just taking massive steaming shits all over their most beloved franchises.  Recently I've been talking about Konami and their ruination of Silent Hill, but now Capcom steps up and they have their pulsing anuses aimed right in Megaman's face.

Megaman, or Rockman if you are Japanese, is a series of shooty platform games where you play as a blue robot shooting the fuck out of other robots created by some bastard to take over the world or whatever.  Apart from the cool thing where after killing a boss you gain their power, what fans have really loved about this series is the difficult but fair gameplay these games offer.  If you are unprepared these games will kick your ass, but spend some time learning how to play and getting through a stage requires a good amount of skill and cunning, but without being bullshit.

So, the 25th Anniversary of Megaman rolls along, and Capcom decided to give us a game to celebrate!

So was it a remake of a classic Megaman game?...No
Was a it a brand new entry in the series like Megaman 9 or 10?....No
Was a new entry in the Battle Network series of Megaman games? Or a new portable game?

Nope, none of that shit, what we got was a fucking iPhone game.  That's right, 25 years of greatness, and we get to celebrate it with a fucking iPhone game.  But that isn't the worst thing either, the game is a fucking on rails 2D shooter type thing, with turn based boss fights and 0 skill required.  If you don't believe me, take a look!

Are you fucking serious?!  Everything that was good about Megaman is not here in this version, and it even gives you a choice to SKIP THE FUCKING BOSSES! One of the things that made Megaman so good, and you can just skip that shit if it's too hard for you!

So yeah, Megaman got a big steaming shit right in his face, with bits of corn and blood mixed in it for good measure.

This isn't the only stupid thing Capcom are doing too, there is all sorts of fan outrage at day 1 DLC for their fighting games, and Resident Evil 6 being a load of shit (still not played that one yet)  So please Capcom, just fucking STOP IT!

A look back at Borderlands

A while ago Borderlands 2 came out, but I can't play it because of silly Japan release dates on Steam, and I'm too lazy to get myself a VPN to play it early, so I thought I'd just go replay the first one instead. 

Borderlands is a game I played the shit out of back when it launched, and then beat it and never touched it again, so part of the reason I came back to it was because I'd forgotten what most of it was even like.  I also blasted through most of it so I wanted to go back and see if there was any cool Borderlands lore that I'd missed out on.

Well admittedly in this playthrough I'm not that far but so far there is basically no big juicy bits of lore to discover, just the main plot of "find the fault etc etc."  But the game itself, despite being World of Warcraft in space with more guns, is still really enjoyable.  Plus the co-op feature in this game is something that makes it even more enjoyable, although I've not had a chance to drop on some co-op with a buddy in this run yet.

RIVETING STUFF

One thing I still really like about this game is the way it looks just in general.  I really like the HUD and the design for the major characters like Ned or the 4 player characters.  The world is a little bland and the enemies are a bit samey where I am so far, but exploring is still fun, and I'm a big sucker for games with plenty of nooks and crannys for me to get into.  Also when I played Borderlands at release, I was on Xbox360 (due to shit PC) and never bothered with any of the DLC, so with the PC version that I got on the cheap (thanks steam!) I can now go experience all that extra goodness I missed out on.

Also, before I stop doing this post and go play it some more, fucking look at this.

I actually can't think of all that many games that I have played that do that with sniper scopes, it's pretty good. So the first Borderlands game still holds up pretty well I think, it'll be interesting to compare it to the second one once I eventually get to play the fucking thing.

Time To Acknowledge Greatness

Right! OK! We need to put our controllers down and take a moment here to talk about an incredible human feat that went down last night.  Now I'm not even going to pretend to know the full fuckin' story here, but I'll rattle off what I do know for those that may not, and can't be arsed to google it.

So, Red Bull, they had this project called Red Bull Stratos, where a guy called Felix Baumgartner decided he'd do an absolutely massive free fall from about 39,000~ feet in the air.  Now I'm not even going to pretend to understand the technical shit behind something like this, but I'll tell you, watching it live was fucking INTENSE.

Just watching this guy step out of that pod made my heart jump into my mouth, and watching him fall out of the sky was one of the most "edge of your seat" experiences I've ever fucking had.  Hell, at one point it looked like he was spinning, which apparently is really bad, and that sheer feeling of dread you got as there is that feint chance the whole thing might end in disaster is something else.

So, stop whatever you are doing, or whatever you planned to do, go to youtube and type in "Red Bull Stratos" and prepare to watch one of the most incredible things you will ever see another person do.

Panzer Dragoon Saga Playthrough Session 7

Another session of this run, you all know the drill by now.  Disc 2 has been finished, so next time we'll be all up in disc 3.  Considering how long I thought this game was, I'm making pretty good time!

VIDEO!

Japanese Barber Shop

Well I just got home from the barbers place in the local mall, and while getting my haircut doesn't exactly seem like something worth blogging about, holy shit was it the most futuristic looking, efficient thing I've ever seen.

Unfortunately I didn't have my camera with me, so the stock image of barber shop signs is the best you're gonna get. 

First I need to clarify what barbers around my area in the UK were like.  It was basically one small room, with one or two seats for customers and the entire staff would be made up of one man with a pair of scissors and a razor.

This place however, was fuckin' nuts. First thing you see when you get inside is this big machine where you shove 1000 Yen in it and get a ticket.  Then you wait a while, while one of 4 efficient as fuck barbers finish with their current customer, then when it's your turn, you tell them what you want and they pull that shit off in about 10 mins or less.

On top of that, while you're sat there, you are facing a screen that is displaying the news for the day, so you have something to read while they go about their business.  I really wish I had a picture because the whole thing looked futuristic as all hell.  Plus they have vaccum cleaners built into the walls for efficient hair cleanup after each customer.

Japan is generally really good for hair care to be honest, with the more expensive salons giving out free shoulder massages after a cut.  So if you need a new do, Japan is the place to do it.