Around a year ago, I picked up a cheap as chips PS3 but I’ve struggled ever since to find exclusive games that interested me. The PS3 has actually had far more use as a media centre as opposed to a console, the exact opposite of the Xbox 360 which has so many fantastic exclusives, but limited appeal as a media centre.
Cue surprise hit, Uncharted. This was and still is a must-have title for any PS3 owner, showcasing some of the finest production values for a game. It’s received near perfect reviews and praise and when Naughty Dog dropped the bombshell of a sequel, I know I certainly jumped for joy.
The game had some big shoes to fill, laid out by its big brother, and its surpassed the first game in every conceivable way. Naughty Dog have listened to the criticisms and have taken them on board, without diluting the features that makes Uncharted what it is. They’ve removed all the stupid Six-Axis pad stuff and have made grenades far easier to throw in the middle of a firefight. They’ve mixed up the puzzles and gunfights, making both balanced and a refreshing change from each other when they occur. The multiplayer is a nice addition, and does not dilute the single player experience at all. In fact, to get the most out of the multiplayer game, one has to first complete the single player game to unlock various abilities to avoid being crippled immediately online. And the graphics, wow, the graphics! Easily best looking game of this generation by a country mile. The vistas are stunning and simply go on forever (do a slow 360 when you’re on top of the hotel).
The voice acting, dialogue, and animation are as tight as ever. All the characters are very believable, especially Nathan as the flawed hero that does make mistakes and doesn’t always do the right thing. The love triangle between him, Elena, and Chloe is also a joy to watch, with all three clearly trying to hide their affection.
It’s been a long time since I’ve had to forcibly remove myself from the console because a game was eating up too much time, but each chapter of Uncharted 2 is perfectly crafted, seducing you to play just a little more. Uncharted 2 is game of the year material, through and through, and makes me proud to own a PS3. If you’re considering a PS3 purchase (Mike…), then this and the first Uncharted definitely deliver the goods.
Few gaming franchises have the testicular fortitude to release a spin-off which does not include its posterboy. Bungie and Microsoft have just today launched Halo 3: ODST, which is essentially Halo 2.5, a side story detailing the events prior to Halo 3.
You play a rookie with the ODST (Orbital Drop Shock Troopers), sent into New Mombasa to clear it of Covenant hordes. The way the game plays is much more Halo 1 rather than 2 or 3; there’s no dual wielding, or use of equipment. There’s no Cortana-like AI guiding you along the way either, so it’s a very lonely and bleak game. Playing as a regular human soldier, you also feel much more vulnerable during the near pitch-black city sections.
One of the big complaints of the Halo series, and many other story based FPS games is how linear the gameplay is, i.e. you need to go through A, B, and C, before going to D, E, and F. ODST creates the illusion of being able to free roam using a hub world, where you then go off and unlock missions to further the story. This is all well and good, but you still need to do missions A, B, and C, before going on to D, E, and F. Oh well, at least with linearity, you never miss anything crucial.
The music is clearly Halo, but lacks any of the tunes heard in any of the other games, sounding almost like Halo meets Resident Evil; it’s haunting and fits the dark and brooding atmosphere presented to the player.
There is a new multiplayer mode, called Firefight. It is essentially a clone of Gears of War 2’s Horde mode, where you face wave after wave of increasingly tough enemies. I’ve not had a chance to play this mode yet, due to wanting to get the campaign finished though I will post my findings later.
All in all, a welcome addition to the Halo universe (much more so than Halo Wars). If I have to make one complaint, it’s that Bungie really need to work on their models for women because they look FUGLY. The female lead of the game is made out to be eye-candy amongst the ODST team, but Christ, lady looks like a dude!
Oh, also netted myself a freebie last night from Gamestation’s midnight launch. Only twenty or so of us turned up, and the store manager decided to reward our loyalty with a fetching ODST t-shirt. It’s superbly made and better than some t-shirts I’ve spent hard earned money on!
I absolutely adored Dead Rising on the 360, being one of the games that sold the system for me. It had it’s so called problems do with some people not being able to get to grips with the time based missions, though I personally had no issues with it at all. To hear that Capcom have farmed out the sequel to a Canadian developer was worrying at first, though from the looks of the above trailer, it appears to be in good hands.
I’m loving the suggested ability to combine weapons together to create crazy make-shift combinations, like the twin chainsaws attached to a broomstick. The moosehead mask is also very creative. The new setting looks like it’ll be just as varied as the original shoppingmall location, obviously based on Las Vegas. Since our hero this time is not a journalist or photographer, I hope they’ve gotten rid of the whole photography sub-element. It made sense froma character design point of view, but it felt horribly tacked on. I would also hope that they decide not to ditch the time sensitive missions, since the freedom to pick and choose what you participated in gave the game a charm that breathed life into the setting.
Went to Leeds on Saturday for the day to visit Sammy-boy and I’d happened to catch a cold just a few days before. The same thing happened last year when I visited Leeds with Jim-bob and company.
I arrived roughly an hour behind schedule due to setting off late from Birmingham, and coupled with severe roadworks on the M1 limiting traffic to 50mph, I hit Leeds at around 12:30pm. I had a look around Sam’s new pad and boy is it gorgeous. He’s living in an awesome studio apartment literally 2 minutes away from the Leeds Hilton, affording fantastic views of the surrounding area. Rent is a bit steep he tells me but he’s got so much more free time now since he’s not having to do his previously ridiculous commute. He does however have a ridiculous cupboard in his kitchen as you can see from the photo above.
We didn’t really have anything to do, though I did need to visit Maplins to pick up a few bits and pieces for my pending MacBook Pro upgrade. Using Google maps on the iPhone, we got there swiftly and had a look around. Sam had no idea a place like Maplins existed and was rather impressed by all the components available. I picked up a precision screwdriver set, which happened to be on buy-one-get-one-free so I gave one set to Sam. I also bought an external 2.5″ SATA hard drive caddy to recycle the hard drive I’m taking out of the Mac.
We had a wander around Leeds city centre, which I do prefer to Birmingham. The sun was shining and the place seemed to have character, unlike Birmingham’s mish-mash of 70s and modern architecture. We had lunch at Wagamama since Sam loves the place and none of his friends do, so I couldn’t deprive him of a visit. We’d noticed that Zavvi seem to have been bought out by a company called Head. They had 25% off everything, meaning you could pick up a mainstream Blu-ray for just under £10! This co-incides with the Zavvi on Oxford Street in London apparently reopening as a Virgin Megastore.
Due to the cold I had, I was drinking an inordinate amount of water so was pissing like a racehorse. The huge Starbucks coffee I had below Sam’s apartment complex didn’t help either, though it had to be the quietest and plushest Starbucks I’ve ever seen.
We had a quick blast through a few chapters on Resi 5, and it’s clear that the game benefits from two co-op players. Incidentally, I cleared the game again on veteran difficulty and unlocked the infinite ammo gatling gun. Mowing down enemies in a hail of bullets has never been so fun.
It was now time to head back home since Sam had friends to meet up with and it would take over 2 hours to drive home. I might get the train the next time I visit him again seeing as he lives virtually next to the train station.
Capcom really have been spoiling me as of late with Street Fighter 4 a few weeks ago and now, Resident Evil 5. I’m a huge Resident Evil fan and ever since the first release on the PlayStation, the campy acting and dodgy B-movie story captivated me and over ten years later, it is arguably my most treasured gaming series.
I attended the midnight launch at Birmingam’s main Gamestation branch and they get two thumbs up for effort. They’d rented some smoke machines and all staff members had dressed up as something from the Resi universe, such as zombies, scientists, or some sort of soldier; they even had some pot plants on the counter resembling the herbs you collect throughout the games. I was second in the queue and actually wished I’d been further back because the guy in front of me was a few nuts short of a fruit cake; what else would I expect from somebody who has the dedication to be first? Once we were let in, the queue moved fairly swiftly and I bought my limited edition of the game with free crazy axeman figure, which for a freebie is actually very high quality.
I’ve installed the game on the 360, which takes up 6.8gb but reduces the load times to mere seconds and considering how impressive the graphics and textures are, is no small feat. Anybody who has played the demo will know that it is really Resident Evil 4 with HD graphics. They play virtually like-for-like but personally, I feel the gameplay is worse than Resi 4’s due to a number of new inclusions and ommisions. When it was announced that Capcom had included co-op, many felt that they had done so purely because co-op and online play is the “done thing” right now. Thing is, Resident Evil has always been a solitary experience. Even when you have had a partner AI character, it never made the game feel any worse because it was the only option available. This time around though, certain levels have been designed to maximise co-op play and as a result, you feel like you’re missing out if you are not playing with a human co-op partner. Some of the boss battles suffer because the AI partner doesn’t cover you quickly enough, or position themselves in the right place at the right time. Only a few of my friends have bought the game, and nobody wants to participate in a co-op game until they have finished through on their own first so that they can soak in the story. People new to the franchise will no doubt play through on co-op first and it simply feels like a slap in the face to fans of a more traditional Resi game.
It’s taken over five years to develop this?
The above isn’t entirely game breaking, but definitely makes the game feel more like one of the many action-adventure games out there. What is saddening is that this looks like the direction that has been laid out for future Resi games…
There are some major spoilers below so only read on if you have no clue about the Resident Evil universe, or don’t plan on playing the game:
Last chance to stop reading!
After playing Resi 4, the story was severely lacking and very little of it made any sense. The inclusion and introduction of Leon’s old comrade, Krauser, lacked any tension because we’d never heard of him until that point! For Resi 5 (according to the making of disc at least), they tackled it as if it were a big budget action movie and had real actors and motion-capture to help the audience believe what they were presented with. The story and plot is lavish and saves the game for me. Seeing as it features Chris Redfield, it was always going to be plot heavy and would undoubtedly see cameo appearances from Albert Wesker. For some, Jill Valentine’s inclusion will come as a total surprise, though a pleasant one. Based on the trailers, I knew it was coming and you could tell from a mile away that she was the hooded character, pulling the strings in the background. It was nice to see Chris and Jill together again in a canon Resi game, something they haven’t done since the original. There are plenty of information files littered throughout the game and even suggests that Billy Coen from Resident Evil 0 was present at the events which lead to Resi 5’s outcomes. Pure Resi fan-service.
Ultimately, it feels as if the creative team at Capcom are having a bit of an identity crisis with Resident Evil. Resi 4 got the gameplay right but was sorely lacking in story. Resi 5 has the story in spades but has broken the gameplay to cater for what could be said to be a Western audience. This change in direction is largely reflective of the entire Japanese games industry, which seems to be stuck in a lull. Their answer to a next-gen title is to spruce up an existing franchise with HD graphics. There has been very little innovation from Japan this generation and even the Wii has been abused to churn out party game, after party game. Seeing that it’s taken so long for a entry this generation, I’d hazzard a guess that it won’t be until next generation before we see a main canon game.
You folks may recall that I wasn’t overly impressed by Street Fighter 4 when I was in Tokyo. The graphics didn’t really appeal to me all that much, and the cabinet’s controls were at odds with me. I’ve now done a complete 180 since getting the home version of the game on Friday.
It’s been a quiet period for console games, with very few high profile releases coming out since the run up to Christmas. Street Fighter 4 marks the beginning of 2009’s big releases (Resi 5 to follow next month) and has finally landed here in the West. Wayne and I popped into Gamestation on Friday during lunch and I picked up the game on PS3 as well as the highly sought after arcade stick. I had a credit note burning a hole in my pocket and coupled with student discount (shhh…), I saved nearly £25 on the entire package.
Getting back to work, Wayne and I duly opened up the box for the stick and boy, is it a work of art. It’s a huge piece of kit and sits nicely on the lap or on a coffee table for some home-style arcade gaming. It features a lovely vinyl graphic of the entire cast as well as “Japanese style components”. What that means is that the Tournament edition of the stick actually uses authentic Sanwa parts and this version has Chinese made parts which closely resemble Sanwa’s. The nice thing is that all of the stock parts are easily swappable with Sanwa’s and I have a pending order for some replacement buttons and stick-top to customise my stick further.
The game itself is very polished, much more so than its arcade counterpart. The opening intro features a cool theme song by EXILE of Japan and you can even choose whether you want the Japanese or English lyrics to play. The same applies to the rest of the game where you can have all Japanese, all English, or even partial language options for which ever characters you choose. Now that’s customisation! Unlike a lot of recent fighting games, it’s a full-fat fighter first and foremost. There’s no silly RPG, or create-your-own-character mode; just pure one on one fighting. The character roster is larger than the arcade version with plenty of unlockable fighters, mixing the old with the new. The new cast members leave me cold, bar Abel. He plays very much like a faster version of Zangief. Speaking of Zangief, he is now so broken thanks to his higher priority grapple moves. Playing against the CPU, almost every time he grabbed me, it was then followed up with some super powerful throw which is nigh on impossible to escape from. The new mechanics promote more offensive maneuvers, making for more exciting gameplay. The super bars charge more quickly, remaining neutral in how they reward offensive and defensive players making the gameplay truly balanced. The online play is pretty good, with Khang and I having most games with no lag between us. I still prefer to play side by side with somebody where it just seems more frantic, which Daniel will atest to after a good 3 hour long Street Fighter sesh.
Only time will tell, but I can see this game remaining popular with the tournament circuit for years to come, thanks largely to its hidden depth and accessibility. Go get it now (for PS3)!
Recently picked up a PS3 just before Christmas, seating me firmly in the next-gen gaming arena. I’ve wanted one for a fair while now, ever since Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune launched this time last year.
A few things did put me off though, like the high entry price for a substandard PAL model, and region B Blu-ray playback for said PAL model. Because of this, I was hunting around for either a Japanese or USA model, and since Sony have really clamped down on imports (their own fault really that people go down the import route), it was becoming increasingly difficult to acquire an import model. Gérard picked up a USA model from www.videogamesplus.ca and avoided any tax duty when it arrived which was great for him, and at the time, the British pound was strong compared to the US or Canadian dollar. That’s not the case now and because of that, I had to go down the second-hand road.
Scouring eBay and gaming forums, I managed to find an 80gb Japanese model with backwards compatibility (software) from a seller right here in Birmingham! He originally wanted £250 but the auction had run for nearly a week, and would only accept pickup, I decided to have a go and offered him £200 cash that very evening. We settled on £210 and I had me a mint condition, full-fat PS3 with all the original features (4 USB ports, backwards compatibility, wifi, media card slots) which have since been stripped out to cut production costs. It also does region A Blu-ray playback, complimenting my region B Blu-ray player. The guy threw in Resistance: Fall of Man (traded in), and Dark Kingdom (given to Garratley since it was a US copy), making the total price £205.
There aren’t too many PS3 exclusives that I’m after, and any multiplatform releases I go for are 360 based due to achievements, and larger friends base to play against. As mentioned, Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune was the big hitter I was after and I picked up a used, non Platinum release for £12.99. I also picked up Ridge Racer 7, new and sealed for £9.71 from Currys (a guilty pleasure), and Initial D – Extreme Stage since the PS3 hardware and software is largely region-free.
So far, I like the PS3 hardware a lot. It does a lot more out of the box than the 360, but at a higher cost. The Blu-ray playback is first rate and identical to my dedicated player, as is DVD playback, unlike the PS2 which suffered from heavy restrictions (no RGB scart). It also does DivX playback out of the box, and is handy for just plugging in USB keys with movies on; just last night, I watched Mr Vampire this way. It lacks some of the more sophisticated features that my modded Xbox can do, but for Joe Public, it’s a nice extra. It’s also quiet and generally stays quite cool, unlike my 360 which sounds like a plane taking off on boot-up.
There are of course some things I don’t like so much. The gloss black design is a dust magnet, and goes well with my dust magnet of a TV. The physical size of the thing has a larger footprint than the 360, and doesn’t look right standing up, unlike the 360. The way the OS sorts games, downloads etc is laughable, because it doesn’t; you can however meta-tag everything yourself but this is a chore unless you do it from the very beginning.
Graphically, it’s better and worse than the 360. The PS3 has more graphical grunt and is capable of more complex rendering on-screen, though it lacks hardware anti-aliasing, so games often have jagged edges and it’s up to the developers to employ software methods to smooth things out. The 360 has less raw power, but it does have more sophisticated hardware, allowing for a more rounded and polished look to its games.
All in all, a worthy purchase and a welcome roster to my gaming hardware. Completed Uncharted last night, so will write up a review in my next post.
Finally got my hands on the much anticipated Gears of War 2 on Friday. Went to Gamestation in Birmingham to join the madness at midnight, only to join a queue of people which peaked at 30 or so people. When Halo 3 came out, there was so much more of a crowd, though that may have been down to the 15 certificate as opposed to Gears’ 18. Oh, and it was bloody freezing outside too. I decided to get the limited edition since it was only £7 more and came with an a metal case, an art book, a replica photo of Dom and Maria, and online codes for some exclusive multiplayer maps and a gold lancer.
There aren’t any spoilers below so read on!
I have since completed the campaign mode and was thoroughly pleased with the game overall. Epic have cranked everything from the original up by a few factors and the result is, well, epic! There are more Locust on screen, the scenery and textures are more impressive, there’s more vehicles, characters, so on and so forth. The story is also more involving, and whilst you are sort of thrown into the middle once again, the familiarity with the existing characters stop the experience from being so jarring. People have likened it to The Empire Strikes Back as a sequel, which I largely agree with; there’s more exposition and revelations, raising more questions than answers. There is no doubt that there will be a third installment to round things up properly, though whether we’ll see it on the 360 or not is anybody’s guess.
Multiplayer Gears has never really floated my goat because it became too inaccessible. I only jumped on the 360 bandwagon last year and by that point, the original Gears had already been out for a year or so, making everybody leagues ahead of me. I still have no desire to play online deathmatches, though there is a fantastic mode in the game called Hoarde, which is basically the game in its purest form. You team up with 4 other players, and you’re pitted against 50 waves of increasingly tougher opponents. You’re able to die and continue so long as there is at least one team member who completes the round, allowing everybody to respawn. So far, I have reached level 17 I believe before I took a boomshot to the face, losing it for my entire team…
After a night of wanting to throw up due to the room spinning, I woke up with a stinking hangover. Jim-bob was also suffering and definitely in a state far worse than me. Keiko didn’t hear us return, thankfully, but did later comment that Jimothy’s snoring did wake her up and despite being pushed and prodded, he was dead to the world hehe.
The day was gorgeous by British standards (and probably by Japanese standards, given the days before), with blue skies and a temperature of around 25 degrees. Since we were both feeling fragile, we took it easy that morning and went for a casual stroll around the neighbourhood. Being the geeks that we are, an arcade was our first port of call. It was incredibly priced, with Initial D costing only 100 Yen (50p or so). It was also incredibly dead so I continued to load the machine up with the monies until the ushii came home. Jimbo played some Virtua Cop 3 and something else that I don’t recall. We found another arcade where Jimothy showed me his music game skills and had a few goes on Drum Mania, Guitar Freaks, and Beat Mania; don’t ask me to tell you the versions, I have absolutely no idea. We made our way to the station where somehow, we ended up talking about women’s underwear for some reason or another.
To Yokohama we ventured, where we had arranged to meet Chikara. Sawa and Keiko were after new laptops and we were going to have a goosey-gander in Yodobashi Camera for some netbooks from Asus, Acer, and so on. We waited around by the street level entrance, but the usually punctual Chikara was late (shock horror!), so we took some photos to pass the time. I’m actually very impressed with Jim-bob’s composition work, and a few of his shots on my SLR have impressed me. Chikara eventually turned up and we made our way to Sogo for lunch. Sogo is one of my favourite department stores, with my first introduction to the chain in Hong Kong. There was a store in London many, many years ago, but that was taken over by Virgin, and it’s now an empty shop lot. Once again, the department stores in Japan are all very plush and full-fat affairs, with the restaurant section on the top floor resembling an outdoor water and rock garden of sorts – all very intricate. Chikara took us to his favourite ramen restaurant where we all had the regular ramen, with Jimbo and Chikara opting for their salt soup base (a house special) and shoyu soup base for myself. The ramen was superb and not badly priced at 3200 Yen (£16) for the 3 of us.
After lunch, we had a look at the rooftop where there was some astroturf for football and a view of Yokohama Bay, which wasn’t all that impressive. We returned to Yodobashi Camera for a look around and it really is heaven on Earth for geeks. Looking at the mobile phones, I was thoroughly impressed by the variety available. I even saw the phone which inspired the look of Tony Stark’s phone in Iron Man (the flippy-swivelly one). According to Jimbo, the reason why there are so many phones on the Japanese market is due to everybody wanting largely the same features, but in a certain colour or a certain style; on Softbank for example, the new Panna (?) was available in at least 10 different colours. The floor of camera equipment was also a sight to behold, squeezing the Birmingham branch of Jessops (second largest in the UK) into what is an electronics department store, with far more on the shelves at that. During our perusal of the store, the highly addictive Yodobashi Camera theme (reworked Battle Hymn of the Republic) was playing on a loop:
After our geek-out, we decided to do some touring of Yokohama and headed over to the Sea Bass (Sea Bus) station. The Sea Bass is simply a boat which takes you across Yokohama Bay and affords some great photo opportunities of the Bay Bridge and Landmark Tower. Out came the camera no less…
We were all diseased or injured, with Chikara suffering from a sore knee, Jimbo with a sore throat, and me with a sore ankle. All day long, we were chanting “my foot”, “my throat”, “my knee”, trying to get sympathy from the public and each other. I miss the banter…
We arrived on the other side of the bay which looked fantastically shiney and new. Got some great views of the ferris wheel, made famous for me by the wonderful anime, “Honey & Clover”. Leo would have loved it and it made me feel some nostalgia for the Summer of 2005.
The area was amass with shopping complexes, restaurants, conference halls, and sculptures. In many ways, this particular part of Yokohama reminded me of the redeveloped parts of Manchester or the London Docklands as Jimothy’s already pointed out on his blog. It was lovely to just walk around, taking in the sights and sounds. Chikara mentioned that at Christmas, there is a massive tree indoors which is supposed to look absolutely stunning. They don’t do things by halves in Japan it seems. There was also a weird and whacky piece of installation art of a lad about to do the high dive…
I’ve already talked about having to pay to go to the top of Tokyo Tower in Roppongi and it’s no different for Landmark Tower, though at 1000 Yen a pop, we decided to give it a miss. I kind of regret that decision now because it was such a nice day and it would have been a nice opportunity to take some photos which weren’t cloudy and overcast. Apparently, there was also a Pokémon store inside the shopping complex for the tower; I know some folks who would have creamed themselves to have been able to set foot inside.
The 3 of us decided to make our way towards the Nippon Maru, which had opted to close in the next few minutes. Due to meet Keiko after she finished work for the day, we headed in that direction, passing a baseball stadium (I forget the team) and entering a swanky looking part of town, with plenty of fancy western style cafes and restaurants. Having some time to kill, we popped into a cafe for some drinks and a smoke for me. The smoking and non-smoking sections of this cafe were laughable, with nothing more than some simple wood beams which were not even connected, separating the two areas. We had a chat about possible places that Jimothy and Keiko could move to, making both of their commutes to work easier. Since I’d been on my feet for most of the holiday, I didn’t really get much time to buy souvenirs for people back in Blighty. For the folks back at work, I decided to get some Hi-Chus since they went down a treat the last time I brought some in. We went to an Am Pm combini and I must have grabbed about 12 packs of strawberry and apple flavour which came to about 1200 Yen, which is still more reasonable than the £1.50 a pack in Covent Garden’s Cyber Candy (though the Japan Centre sells them for 78p each!). We soon met up with Keiko and made our way to a station, somewhere in Yokohama…
We popped into an import food store on the way to meet Sawa, where they sold a decent variety of food stuffs from Europe and the US. Prices were steep with a jar of Sharwoods curry sauce costing about 700 Yen (£3.50 or so). They also had stuff which you could pick up in Lidl for less than a quid, but if you’re desperate… There was a film crew shooting a scene for either a movie or drama of some sort, with 2 characters dressed up in Santa suits and surrounded in Christmas decorations. How they were going to break the illusion of people walking past in t-shirts and shorts when it’s supposed to be Winter is anybody’s guess. We eventually found Sawa who very kindly got me some pastries for my birthday (and delicious they were too). The walk to the yakitori place took maybe 10 minutes, but involved walking inside a long and noisy tunnel, and nearly being mowed down by cyclists.
Chikara told us that he typically visits this particular yakitori place once or twice a year. It looked fairly traditional and we were able to have an entire room to ourselves, so you can bet we were as noisy and silly as possible. The food selection we chose from the menu was ecclectic, with such juicy morsels like yaki cheese (grilled/fried cheese), chicken heart, and yaki onigiri (grilled rice balls). The most memorable dish for me though is without a doubt the chicken sashimi. For those not in the know, it was essentially raw chicken. Now having grown up in salmonela and E Coli infested Britain, this immediately raised alarm bells, but then you have to remember that Japan’s livestock are typically not raised or treated like they are in the West. Everybody reassured me that it was perfectly safe to consume, though Jimbo commented that I might have a minor dicky tummy the next day (I didn’t in the end). So, “when in Rome, do as the Romans do”, as the saying goes since I’d probably not get the opportunity again. And how did it taste? Oddly, I quite enjoyed it though I probably couldn’t have had more than a few mouth-fulls. Rather strangely, it all tasted very familiar which raises the question of where have I had raw chicken before in the UK?? I had a wonderful time, and it was nice to just relax and chat with everybody, which is now a real luxury for me. The bill came to about 20, 000 Yen for the 5 of us, which ain’t too bad at all really.
Sadly, it was time to leave but that did give me a chance to get a shot of the funky tunnel and Jimothy… We all made our way towards the station and after a few stops, we soon had to say goodbye to Chikara and Sawa. I do miss them, Chikara especially for his sense of humour. He really is one of the funniest guys I’ve met in such a long time thanks to his rather unique sense of humour. Hopefully I’ll be able to see them again in the Spring if I can get myself out to Japan again. It was soon time to bid Jim-bob and Keiko goodnight also. I would thankfully be seeing them again the following night for dinner at an izakaya, after the original plan of dinner and drinks at the New York Bar and Grill in the <insert version> Hyatt fell flat (next time!).
This day and the previous one were my favourites from my trip. Yokohama is a lovely place and has real character where ever you go. I will most definitely have to give the place a more thorough look on my next visit.
Photos of the day can be found here, here, and here.
Tomorrow would be my last day in Japan, as well as being my birthday. I planned to visit Asakusa, and made repeat visits to Akihabara, Shibuya, Harajuku, Omottesando, and Shinjuku, as well as dining with Jimothy and Keiko which I’d decided to name “the last supper”.
