Shadow of the Colossus

Outside my house, Kagoshima Prefecture

Japan is a country where technology and cultural history collide to form a fantastic array of imaginative and fascinating games. Today, a little about the relationship between Japan and games.

Japan is by no means a consistent country, and whilst many people in the west imagine it is some sort of high tech mecca, I have experienced a very different side of Japan. Here in the south of Kyushu, the furthest southern part of mainland Japan (further south is Okinawa), I am so far away from the robots and used underwear vending machines that I rarely get a fix of drive-by technological perversion. It is a shame.

However, gaming is very much alive, even in the poorest prefectures of Japan, and one of the most glorious and obvious indicators of this are the arcades. Where I live, arcades are screaming beeps and flashing lights almost twenty-four hours a day, and are far more prolific and popular than games arcades are back home (I don’t think I’ve seen a single one in Edinburgh outside of the Edinburgh University student union). I imagine that if arcades were around in Scotland like they are in Japan, they would be frequented by paedophiles and drunk homeless men who need a place to sleep. And whilst I don’t really know what a Japanese paedophile looks like (I always imagine British ones to look like John Prescott) I usually feel very safe in an arcade in Japan because they are always busy; a place for serious, contemplative gaming or equally, drunk hilarious competitiveness. I often battle teenage girls high on the sugar content of melon soda at the Taiko drumming games or the Guitar Hero style machines, teenage boys at the beat-em-ups (I always lose), and men my age at driving games (I hold my own occasionally). All life can be found in a Japanese arcade. My favourite local arcade has a 24-hour McDonald’s attached to it, which is a very business-shrewd idea and means that you have to walk past the arcade, and wait outside it, to get a burger. It seems like the two businesses have a symbiotic relationship.

In addition to this, the latest games also get to the arcade very quickly. I remember seeing Street Fighter IV in an arcade in Tokyo extremely early on when Britain hadn’t even got a release date for it yet. I didn’t have the guts to play it because seasoned arcade professionals clutched the joysticks like they were deadly katanas, their K.O. battle scars lit at the back of blood-crazed eyes.

I really stand out in a Japanese arcade; I’m a woman of twenty-three who is taller than the men of my age here. Until recently I had blonde hair and I have blue eyes and a bust Japanese women stare at. People regard me as if I just stepped out of the space ship in Close Encounters when I walk into an arcade. They stop short at communicating in musical notes but they initially seem kind of weirded out that I am there. But the arcade is the perfect place to overcome cultural barriers; everything is based on either fun or competition, and both are available in abundance. Any kind of initial weirdness is ironed out in the gaming process. My favourite thing about the arcades, above all else, is that arcade classics are never shifted out of the door in favour of the latest fashion. Street Fighter II Turbo has pride of place at my local arcade, and I still got it with Chun Li. I don’t got it as much as the Japanese kids who play me, but I still got it…. in the western sense.

The Street Fighter IV stand, Tokyo Game Show 2008

The interesting thing with Japanese gaming culture is that history plays a huge part in what you would think is a forward-looking industry. Japanese history and culture are the focus or inspiration of the content of many games, such as quiet smash hits like Sony’s Ico and Shadow of the Colossus which are inspired by traditional Japanese architecture. Okami also was very obviously inspired by the Japanese art of brush pen writing – a metaphor for the power of the written word in Japanese culture. History and games go hand in hand with each other here, although you would never question the lack of FPS war games (Call Of Duty is a sore point on this side of the ocean).

This relationship between history and the Japanese games industry was recently summed up by a photograph I took at New Year. In Kumamoto Castle, a teenage girl was singlehandedly preserving some Japanese traditional paintings through the omnipresence of the Nintendo DSi lens:

Now that's what I call progress.

I’ve been off video games for the past few weeks. I had one of those gaming experiences where you start to wonder seriously about whether you’ve wasted days of your life and whether you wouldn’t be a much better person if you swore off video games forever and took up some kind of improving hobby involving classical music.

It all started innocuously enough. I’ve been playing through the updated version of Final Fantasy IV on the DS and bumped into this guy:

You wouldn’t think it to look at him, but he’s 10% rabbity cuteness and 90% time-sucking evil. As you might guess from the picture he’s called Namingway. In the original FFIV he was there to allow you to rename your characters (a sensible provision, given that the lead character is called Cecil). As the DS remake involves a fair amount of spoken dialogue in which characters are called by name, Namingway is still in the game but is unable to rename you. This realisation sends him off into a whole subplot in which he has a series of existential crises and keeps changing his occupation and name – Lovingway, Campingway, Jammingway, you get the idea.

My downfall came when Namingway had become Puddingway – a rabbit with a girlfriend who demanded Rainbow Pudding. Rainbow Pudding is an item which certain types of monsters have a 0.4% likelihood of dropping after a fight. That’s less than 1 in 200 and that assumes you’re not having to wade through scores of other useless monsters who are hanging around the same area.

After a couple of evenings of trailing around dungeons I finally won a Rainbow Pudding only to realise on saving the game that I had spent five and a half hours looking for it. Five and a half hours. I could have watched a full version of Hamlet in that time and still had time to go for a Cornetto in the interval. I could have completed a marathon (and, most likely, keeled over directly afterwards). I could have made a full roast dinner with a 10kg turkey. But all I actually achieved was to get a piece of imaginary nonsense for a rabbit in a clearly abusive afters-based relationship.

After a bit of time away from the DS I’ve come to terms with the time I’ve spent on FFIV. It’s time spent doing something I enjoy, so it’s only time wasted if I start beating myself up about it. I have, however, learned two very valuable lessons:
– pudding isn’t something you can just demand from someone else; in fact demanding pudding is grounds for the immediate termination of the relationship.
– eating Cornettos makes whatever you’re doing more like high culture. To avoid this problem in future I will be punctuating my gameplay with Cornettos from here on in.

If you are a gamer, you must have bought this by now. If you haven’t, I assume you are out of the loop, are a girl gamer and have been put off by the male-marketed packaging, or simply do not care for shaving.

Attempting to be serious for a change, I wonder exactly why this is a gamer’s razor, and also at what possible time a gamer finds himself (or herself) thinking, I really need a gamer’s razor. As for the benefits to Gillette, I can only conclude that there is a link between slapping “gamer” on the packaging, and gamers, who have been statistically proven fairly affluent, buying the product.

As if you go to the shops one day, see the label “gamer” on something, and think, “Wait a sec, I’m a gamer! I must buy it!” If they slapped “for Neo Cons” on the packaging after the description “Ice Cream” on Haagen Dazs would Neo Cons be more compelled to buy it? Would it reaffirm their existence? And if they were buying it more, would that not be the most bizarre thing for Republicans to do since increasing big government power?

Of course, it might be implying that you should buy the razor if you play a “game” sport such as tennis. But even that is kind of weird, isn’t it? You can’t market a razor as a specialist product for sports or activities; gaming and tennis have nothing directly to do with being hairless, unless you count those thirteen year olds who play too much Halo all the time. It’s not really a specialist tool unless you are a barber…. or a stripper. On that note, I suggest Gillette LAP DANCE edition, for strippers who need that extra close shave every day. You can put a heroin-chic blonde wearing only her knickers on the front of the package. It will sell like baked goods, slightly warmed.

Parodius on the SNES gives Gillette advice

Admittedly, there have been times where I have thought, man, gamers really need to shave more.

Think three day LAN hookups, or any kind of mass multiplayer gaming taking place in one, dark, room. When you enter the first thing that happens is that a stale sweat, energy drink, and burp aroma drifts into your reluctant nasal passage. The second thing that you notice has to be the temper tantrums of gamers regressing into a childlike state, which if you are lucky result in a shouting match, game-long snide smack-talking or the breaking of peripherals and input devices. Which for me, is the main reason I brave the room in the first place; it is like cultural anthropology, and I am David Attenborough. “And here, see, the young, Lesser-Sighted Gamer has put on his glasses and spied his virtual prey. See now, he will ambush his prey savagely, using only a knife in the back. COD will never be the same for the Lesser-Sighted’s victim. See how the victim writhes in pain, wailing expletives and claiming `haxx0rz`. Watch him total his keyboard in wild rage, whilst the Lesser-Sighted simulates mating with his monitor.”

Then it will hit you that all of the men in the room haven’t bothered shaving for the three days they have been there, and they haven’t showered either. The women (perhaps some Swedish babes and some stray girlfriends), on the other hand, somehow have managed a shower and / or at least a change of clothes and look upbeat compared to the men; they don’t have to shave their faces. Unless they are very feminist gamers (myself). In this situation, how long the LAN has gone on for can be ascertained by the size of the beards, just like you can tell the age of a tree by counting the number of rings inside the trunk. You can also tell the length of a LAN by how many finished boxes of Empire Biscuits and empty bottles of Kick are lying around, from my experience. And for the uninitiated, no Empire Biscuits are not Darth Vader’s favourite LAN snack.

So, perhaps in the event of a ten day LAN (God forbid), Gillette could come to the door and attempt to flog Gamer Razors to the unsuspecting masses, but that’s opportunism, rather than slapping a “gamer” label on something. And anyway, gamers are the least narcissistic section of society; I doubt that male gamers really give a crap that their beard is getting long. You heard me Gillette, I’m saying it’s not going to work. Best bring out that Lap Dancer edition.

PS I would like to thank my friend Thomas for bringing to mind what happens when you do not shave at a LAN. You know who you are, my previously fuzzy ginger friend…