Posts Tagged: video games

Family — 7 Comments
9
Nov 07

My Wife Has Gaming Skills

Nintendo DS TetrisShe denies it now, but when the Nintendo DS was released, Mami begged me to get her one. Like most husbands, I thought it would be a great chance to get my wife into gaming, so I rushed out and got her a little, white DS Lite with Tetris and Super Mario Bros.

Hooked on the Nintendo DS

Mami was over the moon and played it day and night. Some nights, she wouldn’t come to bed until 5am. She had blisters on her fingers, sore eyes, and the Tetris music still haunts us to this day. However, with barely a week passed, she lost all interest in her new little friend.

Why did Mami’s gaming obsession come to a halt?

The DS has been gathering dust ever since Mami last put it down over a year ago. But why the sudden loss of interest? It turns out that my wife has an incredible talent for Nintendo games. Pass her a Playstation controller and she’s lost, but give her a DS and she’s in her element. Needless to say, she finished both Tetris and Mario and satisfied her craving for games.

Tetris has an ending?

Before I met Mami, I had no idea that Tetris was actually finishable. Time and time again, she completed the game with 200 lines and sat through the end-of-game credits that scroll down the screen. Never had I met someone who could beat Tetris. I think my record was 97 lines or something like that.

How about you? Does your better half like video games? What is your Tetris record?

Japan — 2 Comments
22
Sep 07

Nintendo DS Face Training

I previously blogged about Shaberu! DS Oryouri Navi, the very unique “recipe navigator” for the Nintendo DS, which followed hot on the heels of Eigo Zuke and Brain Age, games to improve your English and your brain power respectively. It wasn’t such a surprise then to see a TV commerical for the latest “training” game for the hugely popular Nintendo DS. This time it’s Face Training!

I’m sure you’ll excuse me for not doing any in-depth research into the “game”, but it’s safe to assume you attach a camera to your DS, position it on a special stand and pull funny faces. This is probably accompanied by scientific research suggesting the “face pulling” strengthens the muscles, reduces wrinkles and reverses aging.

Read more on Amazon.com: Nintendo DS Face Training – Japanese Version

Japan — 1 Comment
18
Dec 06

Japanese pizza and recipe navigator

Recently, Mami and I have been ordering a pizza every weekend. This is a bit of a luxury and something we would never have done just a year ago, but we feel like spoiling ourselves at the moment. So when we get a craving for pizza, we turn to Aoki’s Pizza, for our fill of cheese and tomato.

I won’t fill up this post with a bunch of pizza pictures, but it’s worth checking out Aoki’s menu page on their website even if you can’t read Japanese. So let’s see, we can choose from delights such as “Squid, Shrimp and Salmon”, “Potato Curry”, “Rice Cake Pizza”, “Egg and Tuna Potato” and many others. Mami and I usually settle for a simple “Super Combo” which has all the things we’d consider ‘normal’.

The Aoki’s website is quite impressive, especially the opening page which greets you with this wonderfully appealing slogan:

Aoki's greeting

I don’t know about room, freedom and a dream, but there’s plenty of fish, corn and egg!

When Christmas in Japan comes around, the fast food restaurants and convenience stores go mad promoting their chicken and sponge cakes, but Aoki’s takes it a step further by sending out their delivery boys in Santa suits! Maybe this is common overseas too, but I’d never seen it till I came to Japan. I mention this because I saw some guy from Aoki’s in the ‘coin laundry’ next to my school today washing half a dozen of them.

Still, not even a Santa suit will encourage the Japanese to pay a tip, but that’s another story.

Oryouri Navi On a related note, I saw a TV commercial today for Shaberu! DS Oryouri Navi, the latest novelty ‘game’ for the Nintendo DS. It’s actually not a game at all, but rather a talking cookbook that holds over 200 recipes and talks you through each step in the cooking process. Check out the Japanese site here.

The Nintendo DS has taken Japan by storm with, I guess, almost every household owning one. Surprisingly, games such as Brain Age, a brain training game for adults, and Eigo Zuke, an English teaching program, have made it incredibly popular with adults. Apparently the recipe navigator, Shaberu! DS Oryouri Navi, sold 120,000 copies in its first week alone!

At least I know what to get Mami for Christmas!