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Come test read some of my game-related writing!
Posted: Tue Mar 18, 2008 9:27 am
by Jim_Sensei
http://testreadmystuff.blogspot.com/
Just finished this piece. Been showing it around to my friends lately, got some good feedback, showing it to you guys now. It's called nothing right now, but it is a written essay on stereotypical American video game characters. Haven't come up with a title yet, and I still have yet to shop it to some of my editor friends to see if they are interested in using it. It will not be posted and kept on blog spot once I get some feedback.
2356 words, written in about two days. Heavy brainstorming, hit a block, help me.
Some questions:
1) Should more characters be added or mention? Which ones?
2) Any facts seem off to you?
3) Does the whole thing come off as racist?
Also, a lot of this was written with a strong sense of sarcasm and irony. Just a heads up because some people can miss that stuff.
Posted: Tue Mar 18, 2008 12:02 pm
by Artemio
Hello Jim_Sensei, I just read your piece. I found it well written, and the only complain I have is the second paragraph... I found it out of place and somewhat distracting. I understand your point with it, and also feel that you wanted to fit it somewhere.. it always happens when we write something. It is somewhat fitting, but is the one that fits the less.
The other point of course is a conclusion. I don't feel a decent conclusion can be reached, and that might be your show stopper there. Or maybe you just need more development. When I've written a piece, I've always had the conclusion in mind before staring, and go backwards from it. Then I clear up some ideas in the way and maybe even modify or enrich the conclusion by it, but I've never worked the other way around. If that is your case I wouldn't know what to recommend. Otherwise, I'd recommend listing the relevant points of your conclusion and developing each into a paragraph, then find the themes they have in common and develop those. Maybe just a list of ideas and order them in a way that is logical to you, the rewrite all that is needed.
I don't regard it as racist, but I am neither American or Japanese =P. I do feel you need to put more characters in there though, since that would be the main body and you had a large introduction. I feel that the body should have more meat than the introduction. I feel that stronger cases are needed, in order to support your thesis.
Posted: Tue Mar 18, 2008 12:34 pm
by Jim_Sensei
Hello Jim_Sensei, I just read your piece. I found it well written, and the only complain I have is the second paragraph... I found it out of place and somewhat distracting. I understand your point with it, and also feel that you wanted to fit it somewhere.. it always happens when we write something. It is somewhat fitting, but is the one that fits the less.
I never really liked it, so I went ahead and removed it after hearing what you had to say. It was a filler paragraph added in to extend reading time, and outside of making little-to-no-sense, it wasn't funny at all.
The other point of course is a conclusion. I don't feel a decent conclusion can be reached, and that might be your show stopper there. Or maybe you just need more development. When I've written a piece, I've always had the conclusion in mind before staring, and go backwards from it. Then I clear up some ideas in the way and maybe even modify or enrich the conclusion by it, but I've never worked the other way around. If that is your case I wouldn't know what to recommend. Otherwise, I'd recommend listing the relevant points of your conclusion and developing each into a paragraph, then find the themes they have in common and develop those. Maybe just a list of ideas and order them in a way that is logical to you, the rewrite all that is needed.
The point of the article is to be informative about the many American stereotypes featured in Japanese video games. In theory, there is no way to conclude an article like this as its push is to inform the reader about the topic at hand, and the reader chooses where to take it or end it from there. If you're referring to an ending to the article itself, I haven't added that yet as I feel like more could be added. I have a couple of characters in mind right now that I'd like to add, and once I feel like the points made in their entries are strong enough, then I'll work on a big-bang closing.
I feel that the body should have more meat than the introduction. I feel that stronger cases are needed, in order to support your thesis.
Brainstorming this right now.
Posted: Tue Mar 18, 2008 8:57 pm
by JimboKudo
Just to answer one of your worries. I read it and anyone who would think that is racist is wound a BIT too tight. Don't worry about getting in trouble for talking about the Japanese, because they don't care. And as for the American thing, people wouldn't generally care about that either (unless they are in the wound-to-tight class). You shouldn't worry about that article being racist at all, since it isn't offensive in the least bit.
Posted: Wed Mar 19, 2008 7:28 am
by Jim_Sensei
Okay, updated it a little to increase the focus. Second paragraph is completely different, Wikipedia paragraph has been removed. I am going to go through my pile of games tonight and dig out someone I think would be interesting enough to write about.
Posted: Thu Apr 03, 2008 2:45 am
by Made in DNA
To be able to purchase a title that usually goes online as an import for about sixty bucks, can be purchased for a mere five bucks in some bargain bin.
Uh... rare indeed would be this moment used retro games can bring more than original prices.
Japanese TV is wacky, always reality-based, subways and buildings as far as the eye can see, vending machines that serve coffee and panties, etcetera, etcetera. I've heard and read all of it.
'wacky' is a subjective term. Please define.
Subways and buildings as far as the eye can see IN TOKYO and OSAKA only. The rest of the country is endless countryside.
I have seen panties in vending machine since the mid 90s.
To be able to purchase a title that usually goes online as an import for about sixty bucks, can be purchased for a mere five bucks in some bargain bin.
But I always find myself asking; is Japan everything it's made out to be? I've heard the same things from different groups of people. Japanese TV is wacky, always reality-based, subways and buildings as far as the eye can see, vending machines that serve coffee and panties, etcetera, etcetera. I've heard and read all of it.
Not sure what movies you have been watching, but this is not representative of general Japanese cinema. Typical Japanese cinematic fare is slow-paced chic-flick melodramas centering on high school, family (especially post-war Japan), or 'friends'. 'Friend' movies have been BIG since around 2000. It's almost sickening.
thirteen year-old girls dressing up as a prostitute and singing in terrible English
Beyond this note right here, I am not even touching this.
And I am not going to continue to go through this piece. Sorry. Hard to read.
Jim, I have great respect for your effort. You get an A. For your knowledge of current Japanese culture... well, let's just focus on that A for effort.
You may ask my qualifications on the subject and you'd be right in doing so, so without trying to sound too much like I am blowing my own horn: 10 years of living and working in Japan, married with children (to a Japanese woman), graduated from CalState Long Beach with a degree in Japanese (and currently working on translation qualifications), and have been travelling back and forth between Japan and the US (my home) for 20 years as of 2009.
I hope you don't take all that as me trying to sound like a jerk. I just think you need to reconsider your research a little. Hope that helps.
Posted: Thu Apr 03, 2008 5:04 am
by Jim_Sensei
And that is pretty much why I never finished the piece. I felt it wouldn't touch the right spot for everyone. The piece was written to be heavily ironic, but not many people share the same sense of humor.
Posted: Thu Apr 03, 2008 11:31 am
by Anubis
Although the piece was well written, I disagree with much of it. I think Japanese misunderstanding of American culture isn't any worse than American misunderstanding of Japanese culture.
Just because you know about Japanese culture doesn't not mean that anyone else does.
The only other thing that got to me was when you mentioned Japan in the 1960's. While I'm not positive on this, I thought that japan was very similar to America in the 60's.
Posted: Thu Apr 03, 2008 1:28 pm
by JimboKudo
(Kind of off topic) Is Osaka really full of huge buildings and subways? I had always heard that Osaka was hicksville and so I figured that it wasn't at all like Tokyo.
Posted: Thu Apr 03, 2008 1:34 pm
by 87th
Osaka is a huge city, filled with incredibly tall skyscrapers. The people there are often stereotyped as being less sophisticated and polite than those in other areas of Japan (as are most in the Kansai area), so I think that's probably where your "hicksville" idea comes from.
Posted: Thu Apr 03, 2008 3:51 pm
by JimboKudo
Yeah, if anyone watched Azumanga Daioh, Osaka is supposed to be a complete hick. I guess I should really visit Japan so i can get a proper perspective.
Posted: Thu Apr 03, 2008 8:08 pm
by Jim_Sensei
By the way, if anyone here actually cares, got two more pieces going up on HG101.

Posted: Thu Apr 03, 2008 8:24 pm
by 87th
Cool. Which games are they, this time?
Posted: Thu Apr 03, 2008 9:23 pm
by JimboKudo
Please post some links when you find the time/finish writing them.

Posted: Fri Apr 04, 2008 8:30 am
by Jim_Sensei
87th wrote:Cool. Which games are they, this time?
Just wait and see.
I personally go for the games that are somewhat known or heard of and can be easily purchased. I feel a lot of the games featured on the site are obscure and hard to come by unless you really feel the need to import or download illegally.
Posted: Fri Apr 04, 2008 12:22 pm
by 87th
It's a good idea. One of the main reasons I've been so insistent that people buy God Hand, recently, is that I expect it will become quite rare very soon. It's bound to become highly sought-after in the future, due to its enthusiastic fans and status as Clover's last game.
I'd rather get people to find out about the game when the price is still low. I felt a little responsible when people were paying up to £120 to buy ICO, because they didn't know anything about it when it came out.
Posted: Fri Apr 04, 2008 3:10 pm
by JimboKudo
87th wrote: I felt a little responsible when people were paying up to £120 to buy ICO, because they didn't know anything about it when it came out.
Yeah, I feel so stupid about ICO, because the Game Crazy store near my house had four copies of the game, all of which were going for 12 bucks a piece. If I had bought at least one of the copies, I wouldn't have had to pay 70 bucks later on. I plan on getting God Hand, but I'm not sure where to find it. Maybe I'll just get it off of Amazon.com or someplace like that (it seems to be a bit hard to find in gamestores).
Posted: Fri Apr 04, 2008 3:49 pm
by 87th
After around several months of trying to find the game in game shops around town, I resorted to buying my copy on an Amazon Marketplace store. I think it was around £14, which a huge bargain, considering how much I ended up enjoying the game.
Posted: Sat Apr 05, 2008 7:59 pm
by Jim_Sensei
87th wrote:It's a good idea. One of the main reasons I've been so insistent that people buy God Hand, recently, is that I expect it will become quite rare very soon. It's bound to become highly sought-after in the future, due to its enthusiastic fans and status as Clover's last game.
When I write something, I make sure to question whether the work I'm doing will make a point or get a message across. When I wrote my God Hand article, I wanted to put the spotlight on Clover's last game (which was later revealed to be outsourced to another development house, meaning Okami is the last real Clover game). Clover is a company that is relevant to this industry for reasons I think are pretty obvious. Their designs were innovative, their game play was finely tuned, and their work overall was done with care. They were the last of their breed, and now they're dead and gone (and I'm aware of SEEDS/Platinum Games).
I stopped working on the Japan/US article because I couldn't get my message clear enough while still entertaining. I didn't have the time to punch it up or anything. In addition, the message would probably fall on deaf ears as people miss the irony and bash me for stereotyping Japan as shown earlier. Believe it or not, I actually have a whole folder of written work that I started then stopped because of this.
The only thing I do not like about HG 101 is that a lot of the authors focus too much on obscure Japanese games. I can understand that a lot of people might be interested in that, but I feel that the works are usually done without a purpose. A lot of the featured games seem like they were only mentioned because they are obscure and, well, Japanese. I don't feel like a lot of those games are relevant whatsoever. I enjoy a lot of the work on the site though, which is what attracted me to writing stuff for it.
Posted: Sat Apr 05, 2008 9:31 pm
by 87th
Personally, I quite like the site. I'd consider myself to be pretty hardcore already, but it's turned me onto stuff I hadn't even heard of. A lot of great games don't sell, but a lot of those get written about. I really enjoy finding games that haven't been so widely acknowledged by gamers.
I think there's a place for writing about hard-to-find classics, but the ignored games that are right in front of our faces are just as worthy of attention, if they're of the same level of quality, that is.
Posted: Sun Apr 06, 2008 12:08 am
by Jim_Sensei
87th wrote:Personally, I quite like the site. I'd consider myself to be pretty hardcore already, but it's turned me onto stuff I hadn't even heard of. A lot of great games don't sell, but a lot of those get written about. I really enjoy finding games that haven't been so widely acknowledged by gamers.
I think there's a place for writing about hard-to-find classics, but the ignored games that are right in front of our faces are just as worthy of attention, if they're of the same level of quality, that is.
I guess it's one of those "agree to disagree" kind of things. I find a lot of the games mentioned on the site to be average at best (and definitely not worthy of 20 paragraph pieces), but there are a lot of great games featured that even I haven't heard of.
Posted: Sun Apr 06, 2008 5:09 am
by Henry Spencer
I love the website, since, as a gamer who is hard to please, I can find something I would really enjoy. The Strider series for example, is the best of its kind, if you ask me. Same goes for the Shinobi series. Both are long forgotten 2D series classics that deserve to be played. I wouldn't have even known Strider 2 for the Playstation even existed, since it has been publicised so little, yet, it's the greatest game of its kind for me. That was all thanks to me checking out the article on Hardcore Gaming 101. I've also had the pleasure of playing games like Snatcher, Klonoa, Rez, Psychonauts and Killer7 because of them. I wouldn't have been interested in such games, if it wasn't for their articles.
Definitely the only resource for games that I go for, since I've played just about every mainstream game I'd ever be interested in, and don't need some website telling me what to play and what not to; HG101 just tell you what the game is actually like, without force feeding me whether you should play it or not.
Plus they've just posted a Streets Of Rage article. HG101 do, now and then, give their thoughts about classic series such as that. They've been adding entries on Final Fantasy lately, as well. So yeah, I think it's a great website overall.
Posted: Sun Apr 06, 2008 6:23 am
by 87th
Actually, after reading HG 101's writing submission guidelines, I'm quite tempted to submit a couple of articles about some of Goichi Suda's earlier games, and maybe a couple other things. The idea of bringing up a balanced article about a game that has been overrated by the hardcore crowd appeals to me. It'd mean playing buying the Japanese/American releases of a few games that I didn't really think too much of, though.
Posted: Sun Apr 06, 2008 10:37 am
by Jim_Sensei
87th wrote:Actually, after reading HG 101's writing submission guidelines, I'm quite tempted to submit a couple of articles about some of Goichi Suda's earlier games, and maybe a couple other things. The idea of bringing up a balanced article about a game that has been overrated by the hardcore crowd appeals to me. It'd mean playing buying the Japanese/American releases of a few games that I didn't really think too much of, though.
I would very much appreciate this. I kind of want to play Flower, Sun, and Rain. Not so interested in the Twilight games, and I've already played Fire Pro.
Posted: Sun Apr 06, 2008 11:46 am
by 87th
I'll wait until the DS versions of Flower, Sun & Rain and The Silver Case are out before doing them, but I could probably get a hold of the Japanese version of Michigan or the American Samurai Champloo soon and write something on them (not strictly Suda games, but he did work on them).
I'd like to start out with Sonic Pocket Adventure, but they prefer you to cover either standalone games or full series', so I'm unsure about it. I might do Donkey Kong Jungle Beat, but I need to get the right equipment to take screenshots, first. Annoyingly, I can't put a video card in my laptop, but I think one of my friends has a USB equivalent.