the dentist

Last week, I had to hand in a game review as part of the degree I am dragging myself through. Prior to writing the review, I did some reading on "old" vs "new" game journalism - something that I found interesting. There was an article posted on the subject website by a game journalist in the UK, talking about the shift in focus from reviewing the mechanics of a game, to putting the emphasis of a review on the gamer's experience. He used the analogy that game reviewers should become "travel writers to imaginary places". I started to think about my Wii, and the direction Nintendo has taken over the last few years, coupled with the fact that the original gamer generation (my generation - people who grew up with atari 2600, C64, NES, SNES, etc) is getting older and couldn't agree more about this idea of new game journalism. I am all for reviews allowing themselves to be somewhat more intellectual, and incorporating cultural references from outside the video game canon.

I set about writing a review for the game Okami (PS2) and attempted to try and explain to a non-traditional-gamer audience why I love video games through the review - by explaining those small instances of time, where the interaction between the controller and your hands, or the screen and your eyes, makes you feel something. I'm not sure how successful I was at doing that, but the end result was that of the ~1000 words that I wrote, not many of them focused purely on the game in an isolated sense - disconnected from the fact that I was playing and I was describing my experiences with playing it. Some may see this as self-indulgent, and in fact more an op-ed piece than a game review, but my aim was to describe a gaming experience to an audience that doesn't necessarily understand why people play games at all - and isn't that the game industry's Brave New World?

I'm not sure whether I want to post the actual review; I'm not sure anyone is all that interested anyway.

I got back from the dentist an hour or so ago - I had gone 17 years without seeing a dentist, and despite 10 years of smoking and more of compulsive coffee drinking, all I needed was 2 fillings. They were done a few weeks back, and today I went in just for a clean. It hurt a bit and made my gums bleed, but I now have shiny white teeth for the first time in years. The strange thing was this is the same dentist I went to last - 17 years ago - and not a thing has changed. He is located in the town that my parents live. The office is exactly the same. The room he works in is the same - same chair, same light, same aerial picture of the area stuck to the roof for you to look at while he drills your teeth. He says he remembers me too. The only thing that had changed was that they removed the fish tank from the waiting room. That was the best part!

I have been studying lots of Japanese in the last couple of days, with Shinpei-sensei and Yoko-sensei, as well as listening to Alex and Beb. I will get around to posting some resources that I have found - for now, check out a now defunct podcast called Talk Sushi - done by an Australian guy living in Japan. The site used to be a subscription based thing, but then he opened it up to everyone for free, so check it out. I want to scan some of the Japanese children's books that Yoko gave me to study with too - I'll do it soon.

30th birthday party tonight - we are getting old, that's for sure.