I was happy to see that top shelf pictured at the Junkudo book store in Ikebukuro, bringing together that great little collection of Japanese pop culture books from Kodansha International. I remember that when Arcade Mania came out, because we were the first, it was actually challenging for bookstores to place the book, as it wasn’t obvious where it should go. But with the addition of all those other books that ended up using the same format — Matt Alt and Hiroko Yoda’s Yokai Attack and Ninja Attack, Brian’s Japanese Schoolgirl Confidential, and Patrick W. Galbraith’s The Otaku Encyclopedia — it now makes sense to display them together. I think the next step is the creation of a box set — how great a Christmas gift would that be!

My initial intention with this post was to bring up the fact that Kieron Gillen, longtime games journalist, has effectively said goodbye to his game writing days (for the most part) to concentrate fully on his comic writing career, in part bolstered by the fact that he just recently signed an exclusivity deal with Marvel Comics, and that later this year he’ll be co-writing one of the company’s flagship titles, Uncanny X-Men. I especially wanted to bring this up because as a farewell message, he wrote a terrific essay on what it’s like to be a writer in the gaming press, and how to deal with it (and the shitty pay).

But, what all of this also brought to mind for me was how it’s yet another WEF alumni making it big in the comics industry. WEF, that’s the Warren Ellis Forum, a message board that Warren had back in the day (must be around 10 years or so now) on which I was a regular poster/reader. Not only did it count a lot of people who back then were just thinking of getting into comics (or maybe not even thinking about it), people like Kieron, Matt Fraction, Brian Wood, Antony Johnston, just to name a few, who are now writing some terrific books, and making up a sort of new guard if you will.

What you may not know as well is that it was actually from the WEF, after being invited by Warren to participate on a project, that I did what I consider to be my first foray into this career of mine. See, even though he tweets like a motherfucker (literally), there’s a heart of gold in that man.

Most people think of me — and with reason — as someone who is tied to the art and design world, and so often don’t really understand why I tweet so much about gaming-related topics, or why I hang out with so many people who work in the gaming industry. It’s no secret that gaming is in fact one of my absolute obsessions, one that has been a part of my life since the very early days of the medium (from the Atari 2600, Intellivision, and Vic-20 of the 70-80s to the very latest consoles, with a lot of coins spent in arcade cabinets throughout). More recently (in 2008), I covered the industry for close to a year as a contributing editor on Wired‘s Game|Life blog, and I also co-authored a book with Kotaku‘s Brian Ashcraft on the world of Japanese game centers called, appropriately enough, Arcade Mania. There’s also my little “Game” site, which admittedly I don’t update as much as I’d like to, but is still a good place to check out games that I’ve really enjoyed.

Throughout this time, I’ve made a lot of good friends on both sides of the industry (on the development/publishing side, as well as on the press side), and these friendships have continued despite my “moving on” (i.e. again, working more in the arts/design side of things, and my involvement with PechaKucha). One of my favorite regular outings are almost weekly lunches I have with CheapyD (the founder of mega gaming deals site Cheap Ass Gamer) and the crew from game localization company 8-4 (John Ricciardi, Mark MacDonald, Hiroko Minamoto et al.), which often includes some of their visiting friends (a lot of EGM/1UP alums). I should also mention that 8-4 are getting ready to launch a new podcast called 8-4 PLAY (it should be up later tonight) for the 1UP network, and I will probably be popping up as a guest occasionally.

But this brings me to what I really wanted to talk about in this post, and that’s this year’s edition of the Tokyo Game Show. As many of you know, I missed last year’s edition because of my spine injury, and so was quite looking forward to it this year, not just for the games, but also to see all of the people who come to Tokyo for the show. This was also the first time in quite a few years that I didn’t have to work during the show (I did get an offer to cover it, but I just had time to go on one day), which made for a much more relaxed and enjoyable experience, with lots of great parties (CheapyD and Weekend Confirmed‘s Garnett Lee’s birthday bash on Saturday, 8-4′s big pre-TGS party on Tuesday, and then last night with Microsoft’s press party, followed by the always amazing industry drink-up at Ootaru in Nakameguro, pictured above and below).

As for the show, I’ll start by saying that it does feel like there were more interesting game announcements than last year (which was pretty lackluster in terms of news), but walking around the show floor you couldn’t help but feel that there were less booths and less people (even if I was there on a business day, which is closed off to the public). I was getting the same reaction from a lot of people, and so this is definitely not just coming from me.

I didn’t play that many games — I’m usually happy just walking around and seeing what’s on offer — but did at least get to try a few. As I’m a rather big fan of racing games, I was quite happy to try out both MotorStorm 3 (or MotorStorm: Apocalypse, as it’s known in the West) and Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit, and had an absolute blast playing both. One of the games I’ve been looking forward to the most this fall is Fable 3 (I have terrific memories of playing Fable 2), and playing the demo just confirmed what I already expected (i.e. it’s going to be right up my alley).

But the game that really surprised me was El Shaddai — and yes, this game is indeed named after one of the Judaic names used for the “God Almighty.” The visuals are a joy throughout — very stylish and unique, in the same way that games like Ico and Shadow of the Colossus pushed the boundaries of what an action/adventure game can look like — but especially stand out during the 2D side-scrolling sections, with stunning backgrounds that use color and shadow to great effect. This game has suddenly become one of my most anticipated titles for the coming year.

I mentioned last week that I’d be a guest this week on game developer Grasshopper Manufacture‘s podcast (Flower, Sun, & Podcast), and the episode (5) is now up and you can download it here (it should be on iTunes too). Check it out if you want to hear me ramble (and ramble) about mostly game-related topics.

Pictured, the Grasshopper conference room — complete with ping-pong table — where we recorded the episode. Big thanks to Grasshopper producer Esteban Salazar for inviting me on the show.

I’m still not quite sure why, but for some reason I’ve been invited to guest on next week’s episode of Tokyo-based game developer Grasshopper Manufacture‘s podcast. So expect me to talk to about, yes, games, although I’m sure some design-related talk will happen as well — Grasshopper’s games are quite known for their stylish uniqueness in terms of graphic look. Another link I have with the studio is that I interviewed its founder, Suda 51, for Arcade Mania (for the retro chapter). I believe it will be up next Friday, and I’ll post a link to it when it does.

Very nice to see that when my friend Jeriaska decided to interview Michiru Yamane, composer to the Castlevania series, he did so at Cafe Pause here in Ikebukuro. You can read the full interview here, as part of his “Chiptuned” column on the 1UP site.

Rush is a cool new iPhone game based on the terrific Arkedo series of games (especially the third one, Pixel!) that came out on Microsoft’s Indie Games service for the Xbox 360. Why do I bring it up here? Well, the company behind it, Pix’n Love, is also the publisher of the French edition of Arcade Mania, which is pretty damn neat.

HUGE thanks to everyone who made it out to PauseTalk Vol. 40 tonight to help me celebrate the event’s 4th anniversary. The conversation maybe wasn’t so smooth — due to the turnout of 30 or so — but it was great to see so many people there, and the overall vibe was definitely good. Lots of people were there for the first time, and they mentioned really looking forward to the next edition. And big thanks to Design Festa‘s Stephen Lebovits for treating everyone with tickets to this weekend’s bash at Tokyo Big Sight. Even my dog showed up to help celebrate, and seemed to be quite the hit with those who went outside to hang out with him for a bit.

Since it’s become so difficult to keep track of everyone who comes, I think it’s time to stop with the attendee lists, especially since they are always so incomplete. Also, I mentioned it in passing towards the end, but I’m going to have a special game-themed edition sometime this summer (not a regular edition) with the idea of bringing together people working in the industry. More details to be revealed when we eventually choose a date. The next regular edition of PauseTalk (Vol. 41) happens June 7.

Update: Here are a couple of photos from last night’s event, as well as one of my dog posing with attendees.

Some very good news: Arcade Mania is getting a 3rd print run! Huge thanks to everyone who has picked up the book so far — hoping you’ve enjoyed it — and here’s an invitation to everyone who hasn’t done so yet. The book is available in bookstores, but of course on Amazons worldwide too (Amazon US, Amazon Japan).

Marxy has a piece up on CNNGo covering some of his top picks in terms of underappreciated Japanese music releases of the past decade. Above, Macdonald Duck Eclair‘s “The Eyes Just Like a Fawn’s,” as played through the game Audiosurf.

Just a note to say that I continue to update my new gaming site, GAME, on a regular basis, with a new selection going up every couple of days. The latest additions are the flash “experience” Every Day the Same Dream (pictured above), the latest PixelJunk release (Shooter), classic PlayStation-era platform/puzzler Oddworld: Abe’s Oddysee, and the PS3 Breakout-homage Shatter.

Also, I am open to the idea of sponsorship, although it would need to be done in a way that fits the site’s aesthetic (meaning no “block” ads). If you’re interested, get in touch.

Kotaku has posted a great essay by Tim Rogers covering today’s launch of Final Fantasy XIII in Japan — or rather, from the point of view of taking a sensible approach to the launch.

What do I do on Friday nights? Well, this last one I decided to build a site from scratch from an idea I had earlier this week (last Saturday night, actually) and the result is now online, and called Game. As I explain in the “About” page, the idea is simply to recommend games — these are not reviews, I will only include games I like — using a format that’s short and to the point. Also, I wanted a look for the site that was at an extreme opposite to what gaming websites usually look like.

Why do this? It’s been just over a year now since Arcade Mania came out, as well as me leaving Wired’s Game|Life blog, and I started missing writing about games. Anyone who follows my Twitter feed will know that I tend to recommend a lot of stuff there, but I wanted to do something that had a bit more permanence.

For now, my plan is to add 2-3 games a week, and they don’t have to be absolute new releases — right now, anything released in 2009 is still fair game I feel. Also, games will cover every platform, so expect flash/browser games, iPhone games, console games, etc.

I hope at least a few people find this useful, and I invite everyone to follow along on the site (and you can of course subscribe to the feed as well).

Is it just me, or does this photo from MUJI’s Xmas 2009 page for their “gateau au chocolat” mix look like a certain yellow pill-popping fiend.

Matt Alt shares the responses from a 2channel post that asks Japanese gamers what they play when they go to game centers. The last one he highlights is a bit sad (but almost understandable):

Whenever my friends and I go to the game center we basically stand around for a while and leave because there isn’t anything a beginner can just start playing.

I wouldn’t be doing my job if I didn’t mention that for more on the game center scene in Japan, you should definitely pick up a copy of Arcade Mania by Brian Ashcraft and little ol’ me — makes for a great stocking stuffer!