Japan Uncut: Taito HEY

The next arcade on my list of places to see in Akihabara, we inadvertently came across Taito HEY (Hirose Entertainment Yard) about a minute after leaving Club SEGA. HEY occupies floors two through four of the 5-level Hirose Honsya building. Hirose's basement level, like Asobit City and other places in the district, was dedicated to various manga including hentai, lolicon, and dojinshi (self-published works) in the form of a store called Melonbooks. The first floor, like GiGO and Club SEGA, was dedicated to claw games and featured a sign advertising a Super Street Fighter IV Arcade Edition playtest.

The second floor is where the good stuff started, and it was here that I had what was probably my favorite arcade experience of the trip. After browsing a floor dominated by dozens upon dozens of shoot 'em ups (and playing a bit of Dogyuun myself), I noticed a small crowd of people gathered around a Japanese guy playing Terminator Salvation. A light-gun shooter, the player is armed with a customized M4A1 carbine that features force feedback, a mechanic where the player hits the bottom of the carbine's magazine to reload, and a button on the side used to shoot grenades. I watched him and the crowd for a minute or so, wondering why no one joined him on the second gun. Was it a cultural thing? Would it be considered rude for me to walk up and join him? I figured one of the benefits of being a white guy in Japan is that I can get away with such behavior, so when he died I walked up to the second gun. As he inserted another 100-yen coin, I gestured toward the weapon, my way of asking if I could join him, and he gave a nod of approval. I jumped in somewhere on the first mission (out of two total), and we ended up beating the whole game together. The game was a lot of fun, and I enjoyed the metagame of us trying to beat each other's scores. With the exception of one time, he consistently had a slightly higher score than myself. One of my favorite things to do in the game was pressing the carbine into my shoulder so I could steady it with my right hand when getting low on ammo, allowing me to immediately hit the bottom of the magazine to reload with my left. It was also a useful technique when digging through my pockets for some bills to give to my brother in exchange for more coins. It felt cool, and we must have looked as such, as the crowd around us grew to around 12 to 15 people by the time we reached the endgame (my brother was counting). I've never had a bunch of people watch me play a game like that in person before, and it made it all the more exciting.

The stranger and I made a good team, with our final scores fairly close to each other, and we parted ways after entering our initials. It's extremely doubtful, but I wonder if "CAR" is still written on the scoreboard.

I can't remember if that was the last thing I did at Taito HEY or not, but my notes end after that.

Here's a list of everything I saw at the arcade:

Taito HEY/Hirose Honsya Bldg.

Melonbooks - manga, hentai, lolicon, dojinshi, etc.

Claw Games

Claw Games
Aliens Extermination
Battle Gear 4 Tuned
beatmania IIDX
Bubble Symphony
Dance Dance Revolution X2
Dogyuun
DrumMania
Dungeons & Dragons: Tower of Doom
Elevator Action: Death Parade
Gaia Attack 4
Galaxy Force
GuitarFreaks
Music GunGun!
Razing Storm
Runark (Growl)
Something I wrote that I can't read (Midnight ???? game. Might be Wangan Midnight Maximum Tune 3DX. Can't confirm.)
Space Harrier
Sunset Riders
Taiko no Tatsujin
Terminator Salvation
Tetris The Grand Master 3: Terror Instinct
Thunder Dragon 2
Top Landing
And a TON of shoot 'em ups (almost entirely on Egret II cabinets)

Arcana Heart 3
BlazBlue: Continuum Shift
Fatal Fury 3: Road to the Final Victory
Guilty Gear XX Λ Core
Mobile Suit Gundam: Gundam vs. Gundam Next
A bunch of other Gundam games with weird titles
Street Fighter IV
Super Street Fighter IV Arcade Edition location testing
Tekken 6: Bloodline Rebellion
The King of Fighters '95
The King of Fighters '98
The King of Fighters 2002
The King of Fighters XIII
Vampire Savior: The Lord of Vampire

Capsule Machines
Border Break
Dragon Quest: Monster Battle Road II Legends
Eternal Wheel
Football (I think it was World Club Champion Football)
Lord of Vermilion II
Kamen Rider Battle: Ganbaride
Kidō Senshi Gundam: Senjō no Kizuna
Kidou Senshi Gundam 0083 Card Builder
Sangokushi Taisen 3 War Begins
Shining Force Cross
The iDOLM@STER
World Soccer: Winning Eleven 2010 - Arcade Championship

A Day in Akihabara (Episode 03 - Coming Someday)
Club SEGA
Super Potato - Coming Someday
List of Episodes
Introduction to the Series

Japan Uncut: Club SEGA

SEGA GiGO was a great experience, but I knew the best had yet to come. It didn't take long to see how other arcades in the area compared, as this was the first thing we saw turning the corner out of Akihabara Station on the morning of July 18th, 2010:

Similar to GiGO, Club SEGA is a six-level arcade complex with the first floor dedicated to claw games. Passing by some Hatsune Miku gear and Mickey Mouse pillows, we headed down to B1 to discover the Japanese arcade experience I'd been hearing about for so long. In front of us were a total of 45 fighting game cabinets. Divided between Virtua Fighter 5 R and Tekken 6: Bloodline Rebellion, this place was absolutely packed with people. If someone wasn't fighting, they were standing around watching the matches, and after taking a quick browse of the place, my brother and I split up to test our abilities against those obviously far more skilled than us. I started out on Virtua Fighter 5 R, a series I'm most familiar with via capsule toys in Shenmue. Having never been real deep into fighting games, the most confusing aspect was figuring out what buttons did what and knowing if I needed to press a specific button to block, like in Virtua Fighter, or if I just needed to push back, like in Tekken.

After getting my ass kicked pretty thoroughly, I purchased a Tekken-Net ID card and went over to my brother, who had been playing Bloodline Rebellion against a Japanese fellow and fared about as well as you'd expect. I decided to give his opponent a try, so I sat down, sliding the overflowing ash tray to my side (apparently people smoke a lot more when playing fighting games), and inserted my card. I chose Steve, a character I always stuck with for the rare times I played Tekken 4, and began to fight. My opponent stayed with Hwoarang the whole time, and though I did better than my brother, I never won a full match. Sure, I could get it down to a tiebreaker with us each having two wins, but I could never pull it off in the final round. I think he was messing with me and getting my hopes on purpose, actually. After coming to the conclusion that I would never win and not wanting to waste any more of my precious 100-yen coins, I got up to head to the 2nd floor. As I left, I looked over to see who my opponent was. I think he had a cigarette hanging out of his mouth and was wearing a fedora, but that may just be my memory making him seem cooler than he was.

**This card holds the proof of my shame.**

If B1 was the fighting floor, then 2F was the racing floor. 20 racing cabinets - divided up between Initial D: Arcade Stage 5, R-Tuned: Ultimate Street Racing, and Wangan Midnight Maximum Tune 3DX Plus - took up the majority of the floor space. However, it seemed that most people there were far more interested in playing Hatsune Miku: Project DIVA Arcade, even if it meant waiting in a roped-off line for a while. Not in the mood for racing or waiting, I decided to play another rhythm-based game where you hit giant buttons called pop'n music. Originally released in 1998 by Konami, the version I was playing had recently been updated in 2010. The game's difficulty is based on whether you want to play with five buttons or nine, and I was able to play five songs on the former for 200 yen. Here are my scores I wrote down:

Butterfly - 96
Gradius (Full Speed) - 75
Rhythm and Police - 99
Bonus Round: Battle W/O Honor or Humanity (Kill Bill theme) - ??. I wasn't looking at the screen when the score came up.

Another rhythm-based game on this floor was Taiko no Tatsujin 13, which you may be familiar with as "that drum game" from Lost in Translation (though that was an earlier version). I watched a few gaijin play it for future reference and scaled the stairs up to the third floor. Similar to B1 in amount of fighting game cabinets but unmatched in sheer variety, 3F contained: Sengoku Basara X, The King of Fighters 2002, BlazBlue: Continuum Shift, Arcana Heart 3, Melty Blood, Guilty Gear XX Λ Core, The King of Fighters XIII, and Street Fighter IV. After playing as Terry Bogard in The King of Fighters 2002 and getting destroyed by another stranger, we went up to the fourth floor. With the exception of four Power Smash 3 (Virtua Tennis) machines, 4F was the mech floor, mostly consisting of Gundam. Intimidated by most of the games, my brother and I sat down and played a Gundam game that, like Cyber Troopers Virtual-On Force, was linked to the other cabinets, though I was able to grasp the game better. My boost ability, beam sword, and projectile weapon weren't enough to win, however, and I had to wait for my brother to play another round as he somehow wasn't defeated by the guys we were playing with. He had no idea how, either.

We went up to the fifth, and final, floor of Club SEGA, in which I soon witnessed the greatest arcade setup I have ever seen. Imagine eight players, all with their own arcade cabinets, controlling and managing their football (or soccer or whatever the hell you want to call it) players via collectible trading cards and then seeing the results of their actions on a 100-inch+ screen in front of them that's showcasing the match as if it were a live football broadcast. World Club Champion Football Intercontinental Clubs 2008-2009 made me wish I cared about the sport, and it was so impressive that I almost missed the three Shining Force Cross machines behind me. There was a guy at the end playing the game by himself, and from what I could tell by watching the demo, it was a multiplayer action RPG with touchscreen functionality, and it looked more fun and familiar than anything I had come across yet. My brother sat down at the middle cabinet, and I bought us each an IC card so we could save our progress. Nothing in the game was in English, but we managed to grasp things pretty quickly. Time ran out for me on the character creation screen as I was still figuring out all the options, like how to put "Charles" as my name and how to change the color of my hair, eyes, and skin. Not knowing how to go back to the creation screen and not wanting to play with a character I wasn't happy with, I bought another IC card and managed to get it right the second time. With my new character, "Charles", I was placed into a single-player tutorial before being able to play with others. By the time my brother and I finished and moved on to the multiplayer, the other guy had left. I was disappointed we weren't going to play with him, but that was before we met Yuto and $auels, two Japanese players who were who-knows-where. It was awesome, and the game reminded me so much of Phantasy Star Online, a game I absolutely loved. There was a little chat box where you could use emoticons to say things like "Thank you" and such, using smileys and other universal symbols to communicate with fellow players, which reminded me of the days when I had a keyboard hooked up to my Dreamcast and would stand around in groups of Japanese players saying things like "Hello" with a smiley face and thinking how amazing it was that I was communicating with these people from across the world on my gaming console. The game itself was also a lot of fun; I could have played it all damn day, really, but my brother and I agreed we should probably head out in search of the next place on our list. If I ever get to play Shining Force Cross again, it'll be as a level 7 character with 8302 EXP.

Both of my Shining Force Cross IC cards and a help booklet.

It was about a minute later after leaving that we inadvertently bumped into Taito HEY. I wondered if it could match up to the fantastic experience that was Club SEGA.

Club SEGA

MJ4 Evolution (8)
Tekken 6: Bloodline Rebellion (20)
Virtua Fighter 5 R (25)

Claw Games

Capsule Machines
Dragon Quest: Monster Battle Road II Legends
Hatsune Miku: Project DIVA Arcade (4)
Initial D: Arcade Stage 5 (8)
Kamen Rider Battle: Ganbaride
Midnight Maximum Tune 3DX Plus (8)
pop'n music
R-Tuned: Ultimate Street Racing (4)
Sangokushi Taisen 3 War Begins
Taiko no Tatsujin 13

Arcana Heart 3
BlazBlue: Continuum Shift (8)
Guilty Gear XX Λ Core (10)
Melty Blood (6)
Sengoku Basara X
Street Fighter IV (6)
The King of Fighters 2002
The King of Fighters XIII (4)

Power Smash 3 (4)
Various Mech Games including Gundam

Shining Force Cross (3)
World Club Champion Football Intercontinental Clubs 2008-2009

A pamphlet on SEGA Moba and a hand wipe used for cleaning arcade buttons and headphones.

A Day in Akihabara (Episode 03 - Coming Someday)
Taito HEY
Super Potato - Coming Someday
List of Episodes
Introduction to the Series

Japan: Electric Town (Episode 02)

Up at 4 AM and too excited to sleep, I fiddled around on my brother's laptop and began what would become my early morning ritual of watching weird Japanese television. We decided to make Akihabara the first place we visit, not only because it's the place to go if you're into video games, but also because we needed extra batteries for our video camera and a power strip to charge all of our electronics at once. (The hotel room only had a total of two outlets, one of which was in the bathroom.)

Since my brother and I got ready so early, the only place we knew of to eat at, and the least intimidating, was a Western-style breakfast cafe on the 7th floor of the Annex tower of the Shinagawa Prince. It was a nice place to eat, with large windows covering the room allowing one to look out at the surrounding city, with nearby buildings growing lush yards of green grass on their roofs. The cafe served exclusively a generic breakfast combo in which the only choice given was how you wanted your eggs cooked and whether you wanted coffee or tea. Besides that, you're given a nice variety of things to eat: two sausages, potato salad, regular salad, a fruit cup, a roll, and Texas-style toast along with some kind of soup and orange juice. The meal was pretty good, though I didn't care for the soup. It was at this cafe that I started noticing the amusing pattern of all the Japanese people speaking English to me as I spoke Japanese to them.

We left and walked the couple of minutes it takes to get to Shinagawa Station (I would recommend this hotel on its location alone) and took the Yamanote Line to Akihabara Station. As soon as you enter the district, it's immediately apparent that the moniker "Electric Town" is well deserved. Dozens of shops line the streets selling every type of electronic you could think of, with plenty of arcades and capsule machines in between. Our first task here was to buy the Canon BP-827 batteries we needed; they were nowhere to be found in Texas, and the ones we ordered online never shipped like they were supposed to. In Akihabara, we literally walked into the first shop we saw and there was a rack full of them. Shortly afterward we obtained the power strip, and in less than 10 minutes all the important shopping I was worrying about was complete.

Some advertisements along with the power strip we bought.

Down the street was Akihabara's SEGA GiGO arcade complex. I made a separate, unedited video of our visit here. Knowing filming wasn't allowed, I held the camera at my side most of the time, resulting in a lot of shaky footage. It may be unwatchable for some, but I also wrote about our experience here.

Near the complex was a row of capsule machines, one of which featured Dragon Ball Z characters. (You can watch my brother and I fail miserably at obtaining a Vegeta Final Flash figure in the video.) We then went into a store called Asobit City which, like many others, had several floors that each had a different theme. The first floor contained video games, including a section devoted to English-release titles like Red Dead Redemption, and also had an area full of capsule dispensers. One of the dispensers had six different Famicom-themed holograms, so we went back to SEGA GiGO to use a change machine (we didn't notice the one right behind us) so I could get them all. Thankfully the holograms were given in order, so there was no worry of receiving a duplicate.

The 2nd floor focused on toys and figurines and the like, ranging from Rockman to Batman, Aliens, and a wide range of anime characters I didn't recognize. There were also Persona 4 keychains and a Jack Frost plushie that stood out. The 3rd floor was devoted entirely to Gundam which, if I were a huge Gundam fan, would have been amazing - having only seen a couple of episodes, however, we didn't linger in this area for long. The 4th floor was a hobby and crafts area, featuring trains, models, and building materials. The 5th floor contained a large arsenal of airsoft guns which, in Japan, look incredibly realistic and don't have orange tips. There were Tommy guns, UZIs, M1 Garands, a Peacemaker, and various other machine guns, submachine guns, and pistols. In one of the aisles was the awesome picture you see below. As my brother was fishing for the camera in his backpack, a male employee watched us and approached when he took it out and said, "No picture." We pointed at the amusing photoshop to indicate that's all we wanted to shoot, and the employee laughed and said, "Just that." He was very nice, and we put the camera up right afterward. I'm not sure if it was this floor or one of the previous ones, but Asobit City also had a section for cosplay. The one that stood out to us was a mannequin wearing a full SS uniform with swastika and all. It reminded me of the incident with Prince Harry several years ago, though I didn't see his actual outfit until yesterday. I thought it was far more than just an armband.

**After her successful guest appearance on "30 Rock", Condoleezza Rice went on to star in the Tomb Raider reboot.**

The 6th floor was the shooting range, which we didn't bother checking out. As we were leaving Asobit City, we noticed we had missed the basement level. Upon entering, we were greeted by rows and rows of porn. I didn't take specific notes on this area, but it was by far the most crowded floor of the entire complex and walking through the aisles was difficult. It was here that I showed my brother his first taste of lolicon (or so I'm assuming). While most things were censored here, there was a small poster featuring a drawn depiction of an underage girl, let's say... somewhere between seven and ten years old, completely naked, vagina fully visible and all. That's something you won't see so easily in the States! And while I felt a bit weird being here, everyone else was so casual about it. There was a male and female running the checkout counter with a long line of people waiting to purchase their pornographies. It felt so normal. I liked that, but I'm also a pervert.

Our next stop was a place called Big Apple, a massive pachinko parlor. Unlike similar machines I've seen in America that feature boring 7s and cherries, these were far more interesting, making you match up pictures of things like Neon Genesis Evangelion characters instead. The floor above had a video game theme, like a Resident Evil machine (Pachi-slot Biohazard is its official name) that, graphically, reminded me of the remake for the GameCube. This machine was a bit more interactive - as I watched a guy hit the buttons to stop the slots, he was also shooting a monster as Chris Redfield.

We headed back to Shinagawa Station, dropping by Super Market for the first time. I got some milk (there were cows on the side of the carton so I knew!), a bag of "Tortilla Chips Adelita Au Fromage" (basically Belgian Nacho Cheese Doritos), McVitie's Strawberry Cream Digestive Biscuits, and something else that I don't know the name of since I threw away the label before taking notes. I also bought a box of Pokémon Diamond and Pearl Kraft Macaroni & Cheese that I didn't get to eat until I got back to the States. We returned to the hotel to charge our electronics, and it was then that the front desk called. I picked up the phone and said, "Moshi moshi" ("Hello"), a customary greeting for when one answers the phone and something I've always wanted to do. It might have been better for me to just say hello in English, however, as the employee started speaking in Japanese. I replied, "Nihongo wa hanasemasen" ("I don't speak Japanese"), and he proceeded to ask, in English, if we wanted the room cleaned today. I said no and decided to never answer the phone in Japanese again. On a side note, these may totally be the wrong English spellings as I don't spend my language-learning time on rōmaji.

Om nom nom nom nom nom

Though fairly exhausted, I knew I needed to eat a proper meal before retiring for the day, so, a bit later, we went to the food court on the second floor of the Annex tower for the first time, which soon became a common place for us to eat. Various restaurants are located in a sort of semicircle, with seating and a beverage counter in the middle along with an eating area outside. Instead of ordering your food at the restaurants and having the chefs handle your money, you use touchscreen kiosks located at the entrance. You put in your money, pick your selection of restaurant and food, and a ticket is printed out with your order that you hand the cooks at your restaurant. My brother went to the Soba Udon place and ordered minced tuna and rice and was handed a yellow numbered ticket after ordering. I went to Shinagawa Ramen and got the... Shinagawa Ramen. I was given an electronic device that beeps when your order is ready (like the ones you would find at a Buffalo Wild Wings or Olive Garden). We went to the beverage counter while our orders were being made to get our drinks. For dessert, we ordered from a place simply called "Crepe", whose motto is "Sweet, fruity & happy taste." My brother got the crepe wrapped around green tea ice cream, which he thought was OK but tasted weird (like, DUH). I got the super delicious banana crepe, which was warm and wrapped in a cone shape, holding cool cream and banana slices inside. Happy taste, indeed.

We decided to head back to the Super Market before returning to our hotel room. My brother's green tea dessert started to melt and, after commenting that finding a trash can in Japan is like trying to find a toilet in France (extremely difficult), abandoned me in front of Shinagawa Station for what felt like far more than the ten minutes he claimed. He apparently bumped into some sort of festival where they were serving food and was able to discard his dessert in a cardboard box they were using to collect trash. We bought more milk (a red carton instead of blue this time!), and my brother got some Asahi Tea and Asahi Beer.

A Weekly Shōnen Jump I picked up somewhere. Also, all the receipts I have from July 17th! Woooooooo, receipts!

Back at the hotel my brother rested as I organized some stuff related to the trip. I also began research on the Takarazuka Revue, an all-female musical theater troupe. I can't remember why, but something reminded me of Phoenix Wright, which in turn reminded me of the Phoenix Wright musicals the troupe had put on a couple of years back. I got the urge to see if the same cast was performing locally and started researching things like how to get to the theater, how to obtain tickets, how one should dress, etc. I eventually discovered that the Cosmos troupe, considered the more experimental troupe of the theater and the ones that performed the Phoenix Wright musicals, were performing Trafalgar at the Tokyo Takarazuka Theater, which was only a short walk and train ride away from Shinagawa Station. After struggling to order the tickets online, I discovered a Yahoo! Group dedicated to the very subject. I posted a message there seeking assistance and went to bed.

We would be returning to Akihabara in the morning.

SmugMug Version
Inside Akihabara's SEGA GiGO Arcade
List of Episodes
Introduction to the Series

Mario Bros.

Date Initially Beaten: Unknown Platform: Nintendo Entertainment System — **Date Initially Beaten:** Unknown
**Platform:** Nintendo Entertainment System

Like Duck Hunt, Mario Bros. is another NES game that I first played in the early '90s in Georgia, USA (it may be the first video game I ever played, period). Whereas I enjoyed playing Duck Hunt, however, I never really cared much for Mario Bros. Increasing a high score has never been much of an incentive for me in video games, so when that's a game's main draw, especially one as repetitive as Mario Bros., it's hard for me to get into it. Duck Hunt shares this same issue, but give a kid a toy gun and they'll automatically be more interested in whatever's in front of them.

Every stage, or "phase", retains the same layout throughout the whole game, though the platforms occasionally change color every so often so you can kind of feel like you're progressing. As you advance, the game adds harder enemies, fireballs (fuck fireballs), and sometimes covers the platforms in ice to make moving around even more annoying. After Phase 11 the game starts to reuse various phases and it continues like that until Phase 99, in which the game goes to Phase 0 and starts over. No kill screen here!

Though I didn't play the game much, I do remember playing it with my mom and brother. It may be the first game where I learned to grief as I enthusiastically did everything in my power to get my brother killed, despite his protests. Along with that, my favorite things about the game were using the POW Blocks and running to one side of the screen and appearing at the opposite. I thought that was so cool.

I mistakenly thought my copy of the game was a dual game pak that included Duck Hunt, but that seems to have been Super Mario Bros. The version in my head apparently doesn't exist!

Games I've Beaten
Entry #4
#3: Duck Hunt

Duck Hunt

A light-gun shooter released for the NES in October 1985 (or April 1984 if you lived in Japan), Duck Hunt came out about three years before I was born. One of my earliest memories as a human being is of playing this game - it might even be the first video game I ever played, actually - which means we would have had it in the early '90s in Georgia, USA. Naturally I don't remember too much, with the sound effects being what stuck with me the most: the intro music when you begin a game, the jingle it plays when the dog shows the ducks you killed, the sound of the gunshot, and the dog's bark as he jumps into the grass; and, of course, his damned laugh when you fail. I do know that I tried to shoot that dog on multiple occasions, and if I were playing Vs. Duck Hunt, the arcade version of the game, I would have been able to!

I played the game with my brother and mom. I seem to remember her getting on to us for pressing the barrel of the NES Zapper against the television screen when we were trying to "cheat". For our multiplayer, I think we just took turns with the Zapper as opposed to hooking up an NES controller so another player could control the ducks. I'm not sure we even knew about this two-player option!

I always thought the copy we owned contained the original Mario Bros. and Duck Hunt, not Super Mario Bros. The version I have in my head doesn't seem to exist, so we must have owned Mario Bros. separately. This leads me to believe that my family bought the NES "Action Set" bundle, released in 1988. From Wikipedia's NES article:

... the NES was released in four different bundles: the Deluxe Set, the Control Deck, the Action Set and the Power Set.

...

The Action Set, however, was released in 1988 was sold for US$149.99 and came with the console, two game controllers, an NES Zapper, and a dual game pak containing Super Mario Bros. and Duck Hunt.

I didn't know that! We wouldn't have owned the Action Set until the early '90s, however, as we didn't own any game consoles until we moved to Georgia, which was sometime in either 1990 or 1991. I suspect this was because we lived in Germany beforehand.

Some may question why Duck Hunt is on my "Game I've Beaten" list. Games that don't have a defined end (reaching the kill screen after level 99 doesn't count) can be added to the list as long as I experienced most, or all, of the content the game has to offer. Playing all three modes in Duck Hunt qualifies for this (though I was never really a fan of the clay shooting), as the game doesn't really change throughout. I do wish I had some record of my highscores or even the latest round I reached, though.

Games I've Beaten
Entry #3
#2: Rez HD / #4: Mario Bros.

My "Heroes of the Internet" Trading Card

I figured now would be a good time to post my "Heroes of the Internet" trading card since I changed my username (and since Whiskey Media no longer exists).

When a Whiskey Media user completed a specific task (I don't think it's been officially revealed), these cards were emailed to them by Dave Snider. Each card is unique to the user it was sent to and feature pictures Dave took around the office. It was a neat thing that made me love Whiskey Media even more.

I unlocked card #0013, Brad Shoemaker. My old username can be seen at the bottom of the card. Though many of the cards remain secret, several more of them can be found here.

My "Heroes of the Internet" trading card. This was emailed to me by Dave Snider of Whiskey Media when I did a certain task.

Katamari Hack

Katamari Hack is a "bookmarklet" that Katamari Damacys any website you're on. After selecting the page you want to roll up, you click the "Katamari!" button that you added to your browser's bookmarks bar, customizing your experience by choosing your controls, the color of your katamari, the maximum amount of objects you can pick up, and whether or not you want the Katamari Damacy theme to play. Then, using your mouse (or fingers if you're on a touch-based device), you roll up the elements of the webpage you're on. It's a silly thing you'll only use a couple of times, but it's still worth checking out. I've included a few screens I took while using it, but you can get Katamari Hack yourself by going here.

Japan Uncut: Inside Akihabara's SEGA GiGO Arcade

Welcome to the first entry of Japan Uncut! This series is a supplement to Japan: The Series. Videos with the "Japan Uncut" label are videos that were either too long or too shaky to include in the main series.

This video takes place on July 17th, 2010, as my brother and I explore our first Japanese arcade: Akihabara's SEGA GiGO complex. Knowing I wasn't supposed to be filming, I kept the camera at my side, resulting in the footage being very shaky. I've done everything I can to stabilize the image as much as possible, but I understand and apologize if it's not enough. I thought that some might want to see what the inside of one of these places looks like, however, so I decided to upload the video we shot in its entirety.

SEGA GiGO is a six-story complex full of arcade machines, claw games, and capsule dispensers. The first couple of floors are filled with these last two, where players can win trinkets, figurines, stuffed toys, and body pillows of various anime characters, with the music of Hatsune Miku nearly drowning out whatever sounds these machines would make. The third floor and up are where the actual arcade games began. (I have a detailed list of the machines at the bottom of this post.)

It was the third floor where I discovered Pokémon Battrio, the first Pokémon arcade game ever made. I didn't even know it existed (I had to create its wiki page on Giant Bomb) and decided to make it my first Japanese arcade game. And for my first time playing an arcade game in a language I didn't know, I didn't do too bad! I actually won a match, somehow, and it wasn't until reading about the game later that I realized just how clueless I was. It turns out there are pog-like items that you purchase separately and then position on the grids near the buttons (I was wondering what they were for...) and a bunch of other mechanics I had no hope of figuring out. It was at this machine where a nice Japanese lady walked over and made a giant 'X' symbol with her arms, politely telling us we weren't allowed to film there.

Me Playing Pokémon Battrio in Akihabara's SEGA GiGO Complex.

After failing Chimchar and the rest of my Pokémon squad, I decided to try one of GiGO's many claw games. A slime from Dragon Quest caught my eye, so I tried my luck, receiving five tries for 500 yen. My mom took the fun out of these games when she told me the operator of the machine simply sets how often the claw will actually grasp something, so I didn't bother wasting more money when I didn't win.

Exiting the escalator on the fourth floor, my brother and I were greeted by eight massive P.O.D.s (panoramic optical displays), which, after a little examining, were for Kidō Senshi Gundam: Senjō no Kizuna (Mobile Suit Gundam: Bonds of the Battlefield). Near the P.O.D.s were two "pilot terminals" in which you could watch the games being played on an LCD screen or buy game cards to save your own progress. A bit too intimidating for me, I opted to play the Tekken 5 machine in the back (I unknowingly passed Street Fighter IV). As I sat down at the cabinet, I remembered a 2008 Giant Bombcast I heard during the Tokyo Game Show in which the crew discussed the difference in setups between Japanese and American arcades. In America (in my experiences, at least), a fighting game like Tekken 5 would be played side-by-side with your opponent on the same cabinet, with a player needing two out of three wins to be declared victor. In Japan, each player gets their own cabinet, which is placed back-to-back with their opponent's, and the winner isn't decided until a player nets three out of five wins. I prefer the Japanese way since you get your own screen, don't have to acknowledge your opponent, and get to play longer. It's like playing online, except there's no lag and way more cigarette smoke! Speaking of which, each cabinet had its own ashtray (I thought they were to hold 100 yen coins, at first). No one seemed to actually be smoking there, thankfully.

What the panoramic optical display (P.O.D.) setups look like for Kidō Senshi Gundam: Senjō no Kizuna.

After warming up with the familiar, my brother and I headed to the fifth floor to find something a bit more... foreign. While we passed by eight Border Breaks, an interesting-looking mech-based action game that supports up to 20 players via network connectivity, we decided to skip it since it looked too complicated. The fact that there were four "GiGO Border Break Rookie Guides" laying on a table didn't encourage us. So we went up to the sixth and final floor and found another mech game called Cyber Troopers Virtual-On Force. Attracted by its 4-player setup, I played as a lolita robot against my brother and a random Japanese dude. I won the second round, but I never grasped the controls and was merely haphazardly mashing buttons and wiggling the joystick around. Eventually losing and seeing everything GiGO had to offer, my brother and I descended the complex and left.

It was nice to exit an arcade without thinking, "Man, that employee was an asshole," or "I wish that machine had actually worked." GiGO was a place full of people there to have fun and play games. It was a place with employees on each floor willing to politely assist if needed. It was clean, every machine worked as it was supposed to, and it had the latest releases. It even had a designated area to trade cards and read guide books for the more complicated games! GiGO represented what an arcade was supposed to be, something I hadn't experienced for a quite a while prior to my visit. I knew the best was yet to come, however, so my brother and I went to further explore Akihabara.

Here's a list of everything I took notes on in the arcade:

B1 - Caffe Pasta Restaurant

First Floor - Various claw games and capsule dispensers

Second Floor - More claw games: pillows with anime characters, anime figurines, slimes, stuffed Rilakkumas, etc.

Third Floor - More claw games and capsule dispensers. One Piece, Hatsune Miku: Project DIVA Arcade, World Club Champion Football, Pokémon Battrio, Dragon Quest: Monster Battle Road II Legends

Fourth Floor - Kidō Senshi Gundam: Senjō no Kizuna (8 P.O.D.s), Tekken 5, Street Fighter IV

Fifth Floor - Border Break (8), Sangokushi Taisen 3 War Begins

Sixth Floor - Cyber Troopers Virtual-On Force (12), DVS (6), MJ4 Evolution (11 - Mahjong), Shining Force Cross (8)

SmugMug Version
List of Episodes
Introduction to the Series

Halo 3: ODST is the Best PS3 Game Ever Made

This is spam I received on Vito's Verdict, an old blog I used to have. Nice try, Nydia!

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Taito HEY/Hirose Honsya Bldg.

A Day in Akihabara (Episode 03 - Coming Someday)Club SEGASuper Potato - Coming SomedayList of EpisodesIntroduction to the Series

Club SEGA

A Day in Akihabara (Episode 03 - Coming Someday)Taito HEYSuper Potato - Coming SomedayList of EpisodesIntroduction to the Series

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A Day in Akihabara (Episode 03 - Coming Someday)
Club SEGA
Super Potato - Coming Someday
List of Episodes
Introduction to the Series

A Day in Akihabara (Episode 03 - Coming Someday)
Taito HEY
Super Potato - Coming Someday
List of Episodes
Introduction to the Series

Games I've Beaten
Entry #4
#3: Duck Hunt

Games I've Beaten
Entry #3
#2: Rez HD / #4: Mario Bros.