The cultural divide between Japan and the west is a scary one. Whilst they may embrace our culture, digest and create their own versions of it, we instead choose to ever more shy away from their influence, with their work still only having a grip on the very young and the very sad.

I fall into the latter category, so join me as I take a look into the latest Japan-only gaming trends in Burai's Jap Attack! Basically, a series of short, pointless features about games and trends you plebs probably haven't heard of that I'll keep popping up until a) I get bored or b) You get bored or c) I get banned for being boring.

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Virtual View

If there's one thing that unites us and our pint-sized, oriental cousins it's our love for half-naked women. Sony's PlayStation 2 was often touted as a multimedia machine when it was launched and a few months ago Sony released their Motion Gravure series; a selection of 4 interactive movie type deals that basically let you watch bikini-clad J-pop star girls writhing about on rocks.

Well the hilariously named publisher Pony Canyon has gone one better and decided to make the action truly interactive...

Basically, imagine the camera system used in The Matrix and a few nature documentaries to show slow-motion rotation, applied to softcore porn and you get the idea.

But the girls stay clothed. Oh yes.

Finally, you can pan around, zoom in and out and go into super-slow motion to your hearts content with a load of Japanese models you'll never have heard of unless you subscribe to those kinds of newsgroups. And shame on you, you nasty man.

Anyway, pictures and indeed videos speak louder than words, so "come" to their site and "enjoy" a "sample" of what these "games" have "to" offer.

http://www.ponycanyon.co.jp/eizoplay/

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Initial D

Few of you will even know what this is, so here's a quick rundown: It's an anime/manga series based on the exploits of a team of street racing kids, who tear around Japanese mountain roads with little thought for their safety or the safety of others. It's the standard reluctant hero tale, where young Takumi Fujiwara who couldnt' give a damn about racing, just so happens to be the greatest racing driver that ever lived, due to him practicing techniques when delivering tofu. You know the sort of thing.

Anyway, the series was a massive success and Sega crafted an entire arcade game out of it and very enjoyable it was too. Thanks to a card system, you could choose your car and keep this personalised machine with you and use it on any Initial D machine anywhere on the planet. This is essential as you earn points and upgrades giving you a great car to race with anywhere in the world. In Japan and London, players even place their beloved machines on the line with the chance of losing all their hard work to another player. We don't do that down here as I'm the only person on the entire south coast that plays this game.

Anyway, my bank balance has now been saved from £1 credit poundings due to the home conversion for PS2 and very good it is too. Those of you with a chipped PS2 could do worse than checking this out and I'd recommend the GT Force wheel for ultimate excellence™. It's the driving game of the year so far by a mile and looks likely to never hit the west. Watch the anime too. You can get boxsets off ebay for about £40 from naughty chinese men.

http://www.segarosso.co.jp/initiald/

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Viewtiful Joe

Oh my goodness. If you could put a price on loveliness, Viewtiful Joe would easily be worth well over £750! Many people just won't get it (I'm looking at the mainsteam press here), but the concept is simple enough: Kill everything as creatively as possible. Indeed, this creative factor means many won't venture off of level one for a while as they try and master each level in turn. I won't bore you with the details, but some hardened Joe-ers have been swapping skill tips for the past couple of weeks here:

http://ntsc-uk.domino.org/viewtopic.php?t=7377

It's easily the game of the year so far and you lucky PAL gamers get a release and everything in October. Be aware that this game is fully Freeloader compatible, so if anyone wants to pick up the Japanese version now, feel free to do so. There's little Japanese text in it and that there is isn't essential to progress. It's like Final Fight crossed with Devil May Cry, Super Mario Bros and an episode of Power Rangers without the annoying Mr. Motivator intermissions.

Buy it.

http://www.capcom.co.jp/vj

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That's your lot. Hope you enjoyed it. If not, I don't actually care. I'm off to watch a cartoon about a 16 year old schoolgirl that gets violated by a tentacle-penis monster thing... But it's OK... She's actually a robot and a boy robot at that!

Take care.

I'd just like to add:

Viewtiful Joe. Oh Baby.

Have you played F-Zero AX? I love that thing. And it moves. More than my last J girlfriend. Oh yeah baby.

You know, most of the people here who have found this site by now will know what those games are ;)

Maybe I'll go get someone to copy 'n' paste his reviews from some other boards... :D


giant_frying_pan

True, but the alternative is to post about them of forums full of american kids who know nothing. I think we're all better off if that never happens.

Yes <shudders>

It's Super-Fun Happy-Time™ over at GameFAQs. What am I talking about? Charcter Wars, of course!!!

Where everyone's opinion is WRONG!!11!!1111

(I did appreciate your post, but learned nothing new. Type stuff about Kirby Air Ride that I don't know. Please?)


giant_frying_pan

I think you severely underestimated your audience, man.

Initial D arcade cabs are always, always surrounded by the japanese kids.... anyone else seen this, or is it just my eyes?

Ha, painting Japanese people on to your eyeballs was a great practical joke of mine. A-he-he-he!

VJ just arrived this morning, it's sitting infront of me now in it's pink glory. I shall tear myself away from Digi soon and play, play, play, like I've never played before.

Yes I have. I personally didn't like it and didn't think it felt right, but I have a horrible feeling that the machine wasn't calibrated right or something.

Not that I'll probably get another chance to play the test machine in Bournemouth. Some complete twunt had gone and pushed the chair right forward when I popped in at the weekend and it was completely jammed and no amount of tugging would free it.

Arcade yobs make me cry, but in all fairness it's the operators themselves at fault. They created these awful, expensive "family entertainment centres" that don't actually attract families (with each game at £1 a go, I'm not surprised), but instead attract freeloading yobs with no money who proceed to either loiter or break the machines. There used to be quite a decent fighting scene down here when Street Fighter II was in its prime, but that's long gone.

Real gamers want real gamers games at a reasonable price (it's easier to wrestle a fiver out of someone if they get 15 goes out of game rather than 5), not novelty games in stupid hyrdraulic cabs. Expecting us to pay a £1 a go on VF4 Evo when it's chucked in the corner and the cabinet is on its last legs with awful, cheap replacement joysticks when you can get it to play at home for free forever for under £40 is wishful thinking of the highest order.

The PlayStation didn't kill the arcade. The arcade operator killed the arcade.

try esp ra. de.

japan verical shooting at its bestestest.

Try as I might, I cannot do the first level of Viewtiful Joe on "Adults" mode. I'm resisting the temptation to change it to "Kids" though.

But, by God, these graphics are gorgeous. Mmmmmmmmm.

Where abouts are you stuck?

The Helicopter. I know of some strategies to kill it but it's just going to take some practice.

--Ed

Heh. The hellicopter is a complete bitch and no mistake. The key is the chandaliers and the robot blokes. Oh yes.

Cheers for the tip-a-roony, sailor.

It's particulalry good to attack the helicopters using the enemies they drop. A slow motion kick while they're dizzy sends them in largely the right direction. The chandeliers are useful, but only while there are chandiliers there...

yes, this is the key. as the copter drops missiles, kick them back at it.

I said enemies, not missiles. It still takes ages with the missiles, so try attacking it with the robot things it drops. They go down in seconds if you get it right.

cant it be both? the answer is yes. and it doesnt take long at all. you lie.

Fair enough, using the missiles also speeds things up lots. I was mainly surprised how fast they went down when I ignored the helicopter and went for the enemies instead.

The helicopters did take ages, but that was before I fought some of the real bosses. They take no time at all in comparison. But I suppose that's the point.

I managed to beat the helicopter-me-do, although not by using the enemies - the missiles knocked tons'o'health off it. But, Charles III was piss easy in comparison...

--Ed

Well, it's a good way to take down all sorts of helicopters. Works in real life too. Trust me.

It's almost certainly possible to bring the copter down in one combo, but it's hard.

The key is to get it when it's coming down the right hand stair case and it's dropped robots. when it's on the way down, daze a load of them and then as the copter gets closer, shift into slow and press up + kick to hoof a group of them upwards. If you're lucky most of them will smash into the underside of the hellicopter and one will hit an overhead chandalier brinking that down on top of the hellicopter into it's own missiles and any remaining robots.

I came so close to doing it the other night but my positioning wasn't exactly right. I bet it is possible though.