Well, I've already got Yakuza 3 preordered after playing the awesome demo, but some more news has just come out.

Sega are "localising" the game.

Anyone who watches anime knows the pain up the backside that is localisation. In the hands of people who want to make the product as widespread as possible; characters personalities can take complete U-turns, key plot points are omitted and sometimes the entire story can be different. All this in the name of making it more appealing to eastern/western audiences.

So what's Sega done? Well for starters they omitted a Japanese history quiz. Fair enough, I don't expect many westerners to know Japanese historical figures like Oda Nobunaga just as I don't expect the average Japanese person to know about King Richard III. What else? Host bars are taken out.

For those who don't know, host bars are just regular bars where you "rent" someone to keep you company. And no, I don't mean "keep you company" as in prostitution, I mean literally just sit, chat and drink with you.

I can't really see this being a problem. Apparently they're going to keep the story coherent to not need host bars but it does seem like being a strange move. It's like taking cockney accents out of The Getaway.

Anyone else getting this game?

I've just had a random thought and realised that I've not moved anywhere before.

I've lived in the same house with my parents for 22 years with almost no change to it. Obviously there's been paint jobs and new furniture, but the basic structure and layout has been the same. I tried moving out for university, but they screwed me over with bureaucratic nonsense

If I get onto the JET programme, which I'll find out in April, then I will actually be moving to a random location in Japan. The thought struck me that going from no change to having absolutely no safety net is both awesome and terrifying. Hell, it's only been the past month I've taught myself how to use the bloody washing machine.

I don't really see a problem with living with my parents. They're very realistic about most things and are very understanding of my situation (re: too qualified for bad jobs, too inexperienced for good jobs) so it's not like I'm still having my room tidied by them or have breakfast made for me or anything. I'm very independent and I have taken care of myself for a month while they were away.

Most of my friends have moved at least once, but most of those were within the same town or a few miles. I'm not sure if that "counts", if you catch my drift.

Has anyone here ever moved? What was it like?

I really can't decide between the two. Chrome has a much nicer interface and is much faster, but eats RAM like nobody's business. Firefox takes up less resources and has a ton more add-ons readily availble, but it takes ages on cold startups and I find the interface to be a bit...basic.

Which browser do you use?

Also, on a side-note, I published my first blog on the brand new Tokyo.JapanTimes.

The game is literally unplayable.

I cannot stay in the same group for more than 2-3 matches without a "server" timeout, failure to connect to host or failed host migration. I cannot actually play the game without a constant lag. Americans have the upper hand of being close to each other but playing from across the pond puts me at a major disadvantage. I'm certainly not bad at the game, and I know when I have been playing bad, but this is a severe problem. More than anything, there is a massive glitch that prevents me from playing with my Steam friends. No matter who invites who we always get the "joining game session attempt #14" before it times out.

Until IW see sense and realise peer-to-peer multiplayer simply doesn't work with PC gaming, I won't be playing this game again.

So I've been in London for the past two days. Finally home and put all my photos onto me comp, so here it is.

Bugger. Virgin Rail screwed me on a "window seat". Off to a good start.

The bloke sat across from me kept wandering off, either for the toilet or getting food on the next carriage over, leaving his laptop on his table. I dunno, I found it really weird. I'm very protective of my stuff, I won't even take my phone out of my pocket in some places. Do any of you have any qualms leaving your stuff about? Or do you guard it like a hawk like me? :P

Lots of Japanese shops in the area I was staying in. Lunch consisted of pork gyoza with udon in a spicy broth, a mochi and a can of disgusting green tea. I just can't seem to get into green tea no matter how hard I try. It just tastes like stale pond water. Anyone here actually like green tea? :?

My hotel room. Called a "Captain's Cabin" it's a little bit bigger than a cupboard. It was actually on a floor of it's own and I'm pretty sure it used to be a utility cupboard.

Snack time. Chicken onigiri and another mochi (those things are bloody tasty). I removed my Ubuntu 9.10 partition and replaced it with Ubuntu Netbook Remix. It's good, but just have an ethernet cable handy. It won't install your wireless drivers until you download an update (see the catch 22?) which is a daft move, seeing as it installs the drivers on the live session.

Dinner time. Found this fantastic Japanese restaurant called Cha no Mo (I think it means "tea as well"). Had a bento of pork katsu, aubergine in soy ginger, salmon skin in soy vinegar and rice.

I don't know if all of London was like this, but everywhere I went was always full of traffic. You can't seem to escape it. Even the parks are surrounded by 4-8 lanes of traffic which you can always hear.

Arrived at the embassy a little early (4 hours) so went for a walk.

As a general rule: if the shop doesn't have price tags on anything, you're more than likely never going to be able to afford what they're selling. ^_^;

Getting anywhere was a nightmare. There was construction work going on nigh on everywhere. Even the underground had several lines shut for construction work.

For those not in the know, I'm applying to work in Japan as an English teacher. This is the Japanese embassy which has a very grand and almost intimidating interior, but when you go for an interview you get an ex-JET to take you around and talk to you. The one I was chatting with ended up talking about Japanese toilet habits. :lol:

You're not allowed to say what goes on in the interview or the short grammar test you get, but anyone applying and worried about it shouldn't be. There really is no way you can prepare yourself for them unless you're a walking dictionary. I feel that the whole thing went well, but you can't really can't tell with these things. I'll find out if I've got a place or not in April.

Has anyone been to London before? Did you like it?

Home time. I have the absolute worst luck when it comes to window seats. :cry:

Just arrived at my hotel in London and set up wifi. The room I'm in is best described as "why are you sleeping in the cupboard?". I'm at the Japanese Embassy tomorrow afternoon but I'm leaving (very) early for checking out and making sure I know where the bloody place is (I'm a "just in case" kinda guy).

The train down, for the price, is hard to put into words. "Extortionate", "unimpressive" and "nauseating" all spring to mind. I booked a window seat which was very similar to my Air France experience which meant there was no buggering window. They had the radiators at your feet on full blast, but were filthy, so I had hot smelly air circulating around my lungs for two and a half hours.

I'm a bit nervous about my interview tomorrow but I feel confident. It's only just under an hour (30 mins watching a video, short grammar test & chatting to an ex-JET, and then a 20 min interview) but still. Going to walk around Oxford Street now, I think.

Laters.

The Apple iPad was officially announced today. With a 9.5" screen it's a little smaller than a netbook; so is Apple finally trying to tap into the netbook market, what with hackintoshes being so popular?

Well...no.

See when you look at the specs of the iPad one thing is abundantly clear - it's a giant iPod Touch. The maximum hard drive space you can have is 64GB. Hell, the standard for netbooks these days is 160GB, two and a half times that of the iPad and at under half the cost ($699 Wifi only model, $829 3G model).

I have no idea who Apple are trying to market this to. As a gaming device, you can buy both the PSP and the DS for the same price as one of these. As a music or video player, the iPod Touch is just as good (re: exactly the chuffing same) and as a web browser, a netbook has the benefit of having a full keyboard AND the ability to use every other bloody software available to Windows or Linux.

This looks like a disaster waiting to happen. Apple hit it big with the iPod and the iPhone, but this looks like it's going to be dead on arrival.

Well, you got that bit right.

Okay, I feel in the swing of 2010 now. Still waiting on my hover shoes and fridge/computer/sex doll hybrid but for the meantime, let's keep this simple. Here's a short list of what I want out of the 10 year anniversary of Y2k.

1. Get to Japan - got an interview at the Embassy of Japan next week in London, so one step closer to that

2. Get a Mac Mini - it's been a bit of a dream for me to own a decent Mac, I've had one I got second hand but it wasn't very good. ^_^;
Until then, there's always Mac4Linux.

3. More extensions for Google Chrome - there's a real need for a decent RSS feed extension and an adblock extension. All the ones out that I've tried have failed to impress me. Same for any decent theme.

4. More variety of games - 2009 was a pretty meh year for me in terms of games. There were many great games, like Persona 4 and FEAR 2, but they were few and far between. Hopefully this year will bring more variety than the COD-clones that come out by the dozen.

5. Finish the unfinished - learn my damn music theory, finish the piles of games I've left 75% complete, finish my story, get rid of all the crap that's cluttering my room that I never everuse, and finally get a proper desk of some kind.

Now that I reread it, it looks more like a late New Year's resolution list, but oh well. ^_^;

I've just come out of a game of Modern Warfare 2. It originally said it was a team deathmatch and then the screen said "changing level". When the level reloaded it was still in team deathmatch mode, but it shouted "free for all". Next thing, friendly fire is on and every time you killed someone you got thisL

When I come out of the game, I've suddenly jumped to Level 70 and I've unlocked all the weapons (but none of the extras).

What's the weirdest glitch you've come across in a game?

So it's officially the tenth anniversary of 2000. Feels like only yesterday everyone were bricking themselves over the Y2K bug and drooling over the PlayStation 2's 128bit glory. E3 still meant something and nerds were refusing to upgrade Windows 98 to Windows 2000. It was a simpler time. It was a better time. So I've decided to half arsedly fire off my top ten games of the decade, catagorised by year.

2000
Dino Crisis 2 - PlayStation

I admit, 2000 was a bit of a slow year despite the whole Y2K hype. The PlayStation was getting old and everyone was moving onto the PS2. As we all know, launch titles are rarely anything to write home about. This year Dino Crisis 2 took home my GOTY with an almost bitter aftertaste. I loved the original Resident Evil-styIe Dino Crisis, but this sequal was far more arcadey than I anticipated. Regardless, I still found it very enjoyable and it did entice me to play it several times to try and beat my high score.

Honourable mention: TimeSplitters (PS2)

2001
Final Fantasy IX - PlayStation

With the PS2 still in it's infancy there was still a lot of support for the good ol' PSX. It was two years since the last Final Fantasy and it was well worth the wait. Taking control of a live-in-the-moment ragamuffin thief was a refreshing change from the past two angsty teens and the introduction of the greatest magic user ever, Vivi, made this a fantastic fairwell for Squaresoft's PSX era. The steampunk settings and enthralling story enticed you, but the battle system is where it truly shined.

Honourable mention: Silent Hill 2 (PS2), Ico (PS2)

2002
TimeSplitters 2 - PlayStation 2

Metal Gear Solid 2 was a very strong candidate for my 2002 GOTY. It really was. Unfortunately it just wasn't anywhere near as devilishly addictive as TimeSplitters 2 was. Whilst TS1 focused more on pure multiplayer, with single player simply being variations of Capture the Flag or Deathmatches using bots, TS2 added a very nice story adding tons of variety to the gameplay while maintaining it's fiendishly awesome multiplayer. Oh, did I say "bot"? See, waaaay before the internet began messing with our games with patches and updates, developers used to have the decency to program in computer controlled characters for you to play multiplayer games by yourself. "Bot" back then meant "NPC", not "hacker" like it is today. *sits in rocking chair and smokes a pipe*

Honourable mention: Metal Gear Solid 2 (PS2)

2003
Pokemon Ruby - GameBoy Advance

Being the Pokenut that I am, I surely couldn't have given this year's GOTY award to anything else. Ruby (and Sapphire) were the first of the GBA Pokemons and I have to say the best. The graphics were absolutely spot on, the gameplay flawless and the Pokemon just bordering the "too many to remember" mark. The sheer addiction these games can have will undoubtedly land you in rehab in future years.

Honourable mentions: Skies of Arcadia (GC), Virtua Fighter 4 (PS2), Dark Chronicle (PS2)

2004
Metal Gear Solid: Twin Snakes - GameCube

I have to say, 2004 didn't entertain me all that much. It felt like there was a bit of a games slowdown. Still, the Cube was nice enough to give us a very nice remake of the original trip to Shadow Moses, with some lovely updated graphics and THAT scene with Grey Fox.

Honourable mention: Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas (PS2)

2005
Resident Evil 4 - GameCube

Resident Evil 3 entered a kind of stale silly phase with the introduction of the Nemesis, but RE4 gave the entire series a fresh kick in the spuds. Exchanging fixed cameras and pre-rendered backgrounds for a now industry standard over-the-shoulder cam, and sparse corridors for enemy infested villages, RE4 reintroduced itself as the action-adventure game it always wanted to be. Having full control over aiming made the gory headshots all the more satisfying.

Honourable mentions: Fahrenheit (PC), Kingdom Hearts (PS2)

2006
Kingdom Hearts II - PlayStation 2

Kingdom Hearts has a bit of a soft spot for me. The Disney element gave me the initial impression that the games might be a bit easy and kiddy to accomodate that audience, but the brutal and unforgiving boss that is Sephiroth proved me otherwise. Whilst the second KH may have had one of the slowest starts to a game I've ever encountered, the rest of the game just makes you forget all about the time wasted.

Honourable mention: Oblivion (360)

2007
Eternal Sonata - Xbox 360

With everything officially moving onto "next generation" platforms, I was disheartened by the complete and utter lack of colour in games. Everything was tinted grey or brown, lighting was at bear minimal level to show off the latest stubble shadow effects on disgruntled soldiers' chiseled jaws, and everything ended up looking like wet rock. Then along came Eternal Sonata with an absolutely gorgeous visual styIe only surpasses the next year by Valkyria Chronicles. You come for the story, characters and music, but you stay for the gameplay.

Honourable mention: Bioshock (360)

2008
Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 3 - PlayStation 2

I always thought that I was most addicted to Pokemon games. I obviously didn't know that Persona 3 was on it's way. On paper it looks like a disaster waiting to happen: half dating sim, half turn based RPG. However Atlus managed to pull off both phenomenally well. Already a sucker for turn based RPGs, the dating sim element was an almost guilty pleasure as a sociopath spark in my brain started chasing one girl after another. The story, the humour, and the characters were all just so well thought out and charming.

Honourable mention: Valkyria Chronicles (PS3)

2009
Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 4 - PlayStation 2

Yup, two years running the PS2 takes my GOTY. Not bad for a so-called "dead system" (quote direct from my old boss at a games shop). Persona 4 took what Persona 3 did and just ran with it. The battle system is updated so you can control all your characters instead of giving them general directions and praying that they understand English, and there's a new part-time job side quest(ish) thing to earn a bit more cash. I felt that everything, especially the characters, were much better in P4 with the exception of the story. Without giving too much away; in P3 it felt like the story was more thought out, whereas P4 has the tendency to just throw in characters you've never seen or barely remember from hours ago in some weird plot twist. The true ending is particularly annoying, as you have to actively know what you're doing in order to finish the game properly. However, with all that said, we do have Naoto, Kanji and, my personal favourite character of the year, Chie to keep us entertained throughout this fantastic game.

Honourable mentions: Dragon Age: Origins (PC), F.E.A.R.2 (PC), Batman: Arkham Asylum (PS3)