Category: Video Games

Nagoya, Aichi, Japan

stackstubsLeave a comment

Like my trip to Las Vegas, my recent time in Japan had three distinct parts: a city break in Nagoya, the Formula 1 Japanese Grand Prix, and a beach holiday in Okinawa. I’ll address each in a separate blog post over the coming weeks, beginning with the three days I spent amusing myself in the city.

So there I was, with three empty days before the Grand Prix to fill in a place the internet called “the most boring city in Japan”. I’d been to Nagoya before and seen the castle, so I needed to find things to do beyond the obvious (for the sake of brevity, I’ll also avoid rambling about my love for small but cool Japanese things like subway etiquette). Luckily, I’d done some research before leaving home, and had some actvities planned…

On Day One I decided to take a relaxed stroll and indulge my nerdy side. It’s no Akihabara, but in Nagoya’s Osu shopping district (and beyond) there are some video game shops that far exceed anything we have in the UK – Super Potato and Meikoya, for a start, along with games sections in bigger second-hand stores like Hard-Off. I made my way around these, stopping in the large department stores and Hisaya-Odori Garden in between, and after some consideration bought a Japanese copy of the Dead Rising PS4 remaster (which had no physical release in the UK) for about £12 at Book-Off.

Left to right: Super Potato and Hisaya-Odori Garden, Nagoya City Science Museum, Oasis 21 and izakaya food

I felt like I should do something just a little bit touristy on Day Two, and headed for Nagoya City Science Museum, home of the world’s largest planetarium. The place was crawling with schoolkids, and I can’t say I learnt much as the show and all the plaques were in Japanese, but it was worth it for the spectacle. For dinner, a friend took me to a traditional izakaya, where I ate a large amount of various delicious meats (I’m not entirely sure what they all were, just that I was told one of them was similar to haggis) with beer.

Day Three was a bit disjointed. I needed to move hotels in the morning, so I waited until the rush hour had died down (or so I thought!) and dragged my suitcase through the bustling subway. After dropping it off at my new hotel, I revisted some of the places I’d been in the last couple of days to buy some of the things I’d seen: a new raincoat from Muji, a few neat little Rollbahn notebooks from a shop called Smith, a very nice light jacket from a store called Hideaways, and some gifts for friends and family back home.

So my time in Nagoya wasn’t the most exciting period of my stay in Japan, but there was plenty to occupy my time – especially as I’m quite geeky and was keen to find some unique things to take home with me. And in amongst all that there was plenty of tasty food (everything local to Nagoya comes with miso) to keep me full and energised.

This is post one of three on my recent trip to Japan. The next one will cover the Japanese Grand Prix at Suzuka Circuit, and the final one will be on my stay on Okinawa’s main island.

Grand Theft Auto IV

stackstubsLeave a comment

Grand Theft Auto IV… Probably the last GTA of an era when you bought a game, put the DVD in your console, and played. Probably the last GTA without a never-ending online mode designed to milk money from players. And definitely the last GTA where, without the internet detailing every square inch of the map, rumours and secrets spread between friends added to the excitement of exploring a new Rockstar creation.

GTA IV was grittier than any other entry in the series – much more grounded. The map was denser, too – when you stepped into Liberty City, you really felt like you were walking around New York, discovering little bits and pieces on each corner. These were back in the days when you could simply wander the streets listening to pedestrians’ conversations, too. They wouldn’t inexplicably turn hostile like the bystanders in GTA V.

Nothing keeps Niko Bellic from a round of bowling

The police in GTA IV also had one up on their successors in that ther AI just… made sense. Cops patrolled the map – they didn’t just spawn as soon as the player committed a crime – and they would make an effort to try to arrest Nico, rather than almost immediately making crazy attempts to shoot him down or ram him off the road. Like the setting, it made GTA IV feel more realistic and immersive and less… gamey.

With six years having passed since the release of GTA V, Rockstar must be deep into the development of a sequel, and it can’t be long until the public gets a peek. I don’t know how likely it is given the success of the latest game (and its online mode), but I really hope that GTA VI’s atmopshere is more like that of our last trip to Liberty City – less jetpacks and fighter jets, more grimy streets and a smaller, more carefully crafted map.

Watch Dogs: Legion E3 reveal

stackstubsLeave a comment

The first Watch Dogs was dull and suffered the consequences of going back on its promises. The second Watch Dogs was a lot more fun and one of the underrated greats of this generation. There were a lot of rumours around the third title – a London setting, multiple player characters – but what would Ubisoft actually deliver?

E3 2019 gave us the answers, and while it would be easy to focus on the bad (the dodgy English accents, the abundance of gunplay in a game about hacking, the non-existent Trafalgar Square Tube station), the demo gameplay gripped me as much as a technology enthusiast as it did as a gamer. Some of the systems at play were simply spectacular.

At least the future Piccadilly Circus has fewer tourists

Watch Dogs: Legion, as it turned out to be called, has no main character. Your DedSec squad can be assembled from any of the inhabitants of near-future, cyberpunk London, all of whom have their own lives, their own opinions on the hacking group, and go about their day-to-day business in the city. If what was said is accurate, it’s a huge acievement.

The mind boggles when you think of all of the character generation systems, writing, voice acting, cut scene development, and background processes that went into this. And by coupling such an exciting feature with an neon-augmented open-world London, Ubisoft have guaranteed that they will have my attention until the game’s release next March.

Hitman

stackstubsLeave a comment

Can we talk for a moment about what a masterpiece Hitman (the 2016 reboot) is? I’d seen bits and pieces of it before when it was popular with streamers, but I finally picked up my own copy the other day in a Steam sale and have been hooked ever since.

I’ve always liked stealth games like Splinter Cell and Metal Gear Solid, but their detection systems generally work in a binary basis – either you’re hidden or you’re being shot at. The Hitman series has always tried to do more than this, with disguises and varying levels of suspicion on the part of targets, guards, and bystanders, but this is the game that finally pulls it off in the way I’m sure the developers have always dreamt of.

The larger, crowded environments are particular highlights

This plays out in various subtle ways during your missions, but none more so than when you do mess up. Rather than all going onto instant alert (think the Metal Gear exclamation mark), NPCs communicate your description to each other and word about Agent 47 slowly spreads around the map, giving you vital time to find a hiding place or another costume.

All of this takes place against some gorgeous, densely populated backdrops, each littered with genuinely funny dialogue and a variety of opportunities to take out your targets in your own way. Unfortunately, Hitman’s price tends to be a little on the high side, but if you get the chance I’d really recommend picking it up and giving it a go.