Summer Haul


After a grueling seven months of what seemed like non-stop work, I'm finally free! Well, almost. Work never REALLY ends when you have your own company, as I've come to learn, but I've at least been able to sneak out of Tokyo for a couple of weeks to chill out back at the home base in sunny New Jersey. We're in the midst of one of the worst heat waves in years here (and now they're saying a hurricane may be on the way -- nice), but alas, it feels good to be home.

Whenever I'm back on break like this, I tend to spend a lot of money on certain types of media--namely games, books, magazines, and manga. I've been here a little under a week so far, and I've already bought quite a bit, as you can see above. Here's a quick breakdown:

PSP games: I brought Loco Roco and Tales of Eternia with me, so I've already got plenty to keep me occupied on my PSP, but I decided to pick up a few others while I was here. Exit, because it looks cool and unique but costs way too much in Japan (Taito doesn't seem to understand the worth of their products, sadly; the Ys series remakes they did on PS2 were worth about 1800 yen each, yet they had the nerve to charge 5800 to 6800 yen a pop!), Metal Gear Solid: Digital Graphic Novel, because I'm interested in the concept of putting digital comics on handhelds, Valkyrie Profile: Lenneth, because I've been hearing good things about it for years but never actually got around to playing it on PS1, and Lumines, because I was curious how the US version turned out. Speaking of Lumines, apparently Every Extend Extra just showed up at the office the other day, so I'm looking forward to getting back and giving it a whirl. I might just import a copy for myself here, since I don't feel like waiting two more weeks to get my hands on it!

DS and GBA games: At the airport on the way over last week, I caught a lucky break when I found the second round of Bit Generations games being sold a day early at that rinky-dink little toy shop in Narita. I picked up Digidrive and Sound Voyager-- Digidrive is interesting and kinda fun, but I haven't played enough to really get immersed yet; Sound Voyager, on the other hand, I don't understand at all yet. I haven't really played much, but the 10 minutes or so I played, I had no idea what I was supposed to be doing. After I arrived in the US, I had Drill Dozer and Big Brain Academy waiting for me (the former ordered for $10 from bestbuy.com, the latter picked up by a friend when it first came out), and then today I finally tracked down a copy of Summon Night: Swordcraft Story after a few days of fruitless searching. I couldn't find it at any of the major retailers like Best Buy or GameStop; does this mean Atlus has poor distribution, or does it mean the big guys aren't interested in GBA anymore? What happened to the third pillar?

Guitar Hero: 18 months ago, Taiko: Drum Master was a big hit during my visit home. This time, it'll be Guitar Hero. With so many of my good friends over at 1UP raving over this one over the past nine months, it was just a matter of time before I picked up my own. Lugging it back to Tokyo isn't going to be fun, but...what can you do!

Books and mags: Not shown here are two books by Haruki Murakami; Birthday Stories, a collection of birthday-related short stories compiled by Murakami himself, and Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman, his latest short story collection. I also picked up the first (?) Penny-Arcade book, Attack of the Bacon Robots (gotta support those guys in any way possible), as well as the Dragon Quest VIII: Journey of the Cursed King Official Strategy Guide, because, well, I'm a Dragon Quest dork. On the magazine front, I picked up the latest EGM (my alma mater, if you will), last month's Nintendo Power (believe it or not, it's been really good ever since they redesigned a year or two ago), the new Play (I've always enjoyed Casey Loe's stuff), and last month's Edge (nice interviews, but their E3 news story made me feel like they were at a different show than I was). Oh, and I like to read "normal" magazines too, so I nabbed the new issues of Time and Entertainment Weekly. Just 'cause I'm a game geek doesn't mean I can't read about the latest advancements in stem cell research!

Manga: And finally, my secret love: manga. I don't read a whole lot of it, but what I do read, I tend to get really into. I picked up the third volume of Dr. Slump, one of my favorites (Akira Toriyama before he went all spiky-haired fireball-crazy on us), as well as the latest Vagabond (#21 -- I really wish Viz would hurry up with these; we're already up to #23 in Japan and have been for a few weeks now). And then there's my newest addiction--Death Note, by Tsugumi Ohba. I started reading it in Japanese after my friend Chrissy went gaga over it on her blog, and it was really good. But then my girlfriend got hooked on it, and that was the last I saw of it. :) SO, I decided to check it out in English, instead. I picked up the first six volumes; unfortunately they're only up to volume 6 in America, so I'll probably have to tackle the second half in Japanese, because I don't feel like waiting months to get the rest of the story.

Anyway, this is just the first week--I'm sure I'll pick up some other stuff while I'm here. I'm especially interested in Yoshitaka Amano's new (well, old in Japan) Tale of Genji book, but if I can't find it while I'm here, I may just scout out the Japanese version when I get back. I also want Rhythm Tengoku, the new rhythm action game from the Made in Wario team, which is out tomorrow in Japan. Maybe I'll import it along with Every Extend Extra so I have something to play on the flight home. :)

BTW, I know I've been really bad about updating, but I'm hoping to change that soon, so don't give up on me just yet! I just got a new camera, too, so I'm thinking about possibly reviving super deluxe so I can start posting some of my random photos again. Stay tuned!