Posts with tagged with "japan"

One of the complaints I hear most often about the AR cards for Kid Icarus Uprising (other than that their in-game use is pretty limited) is that the damn things are just so hard to find. Until now, the only real ways to get them have consisted of buying the game and getting the six card pack inside, attending promotional events, buying Japanese rat poison, or grabbing some from Club Nintendo at random.

Only a fool would sink their teeth directly into a Kid Icarus Uprising Choco Snack, packages of which now adorn the shelves of various grocery marts peppering the cities of Japan. Yes, to recklessly crunch right into one of the blackened Medusa droppings is not unlike biting into a gigantic piece of Cocoa Puffs cereal, which I have not eaten in years because Japan does not believe in cereal. You see, a true connoisseur of these gastrointestinal reset bombs foregoes the immediate pleasures of instant gratification, instead opting to let the discolored balls simmer in their mouth as though dropped into their own personal Fiend's Cauldron.

As soon as I saw the weird, tendril-like metal coils, the large, molded handgrip, and the suction-cup button covers, I knew I had to have it. How could something so grotesque seem so exciting at the same time? Not something you play with on its own, the Ultech 3 requires you to bring your own equipment to the party, and this fits right on top of it. That equipment is one standard Family Computer control pad, and that party is about to get frisky.

I don't know about you, but when I find myself here in Japan where I have somehow been for the last three years, and I am desperately scanning the shelves for a drink, oh god anything will do. That's why I naturally gravitate toward the bottles of stinkwater that have free toys latched onto the tops. This method has ensured the adorning of my various man bags, murses, European carry-alls, bropouches, and fanny packs with a variety of mind-numbing baubles running the gamut from tiny rubber sushi to a bear dressed like a chef to the plastic likeness of a brown-suited salaryman literally on his hands and knees begging for forgiveness.

Though all we got out of Nintendo regarding karaoke during their preshow was the distinctly western-centric Sing, it's not at all hard to believe that a more Japanese-oriented implementation of karaoke could be just the ticket to trojan horse the Wii U into homes across Japan. One needs do little more than enter a karaoke box in any number of the massive buildings peppering Japanese city streets to see the resemblance between commercial karaoke gear and what the Wii U will—very shortly—be ushering into homes.