I have had more time to play games in Japanese arcades and have run across a few more interesting titles.

Tetris Plus 2: This is a fun Japanese only spin-off of Tetris. In the Puzzle Mode, you get to control either a Professor or her Apprentice through Tetris levels with a bit of a twist: you have to make the Tetris board completely empty in the time limit. Your cartoon avatar runs arounds the blocks as you make lines and a spiked wall tries to crush you as the time limit goes down-- the higher your blocks are, the more your avatar wants to climb to the top to get killed! It is a fun take on Tetris.

Just picked up the latest issue of Famitsu Weekly and I am pleased to see they are still doing some retro coverage in their 20th Anniversary sections. The supplementary booklet this time around focuses on games from 1998-2005 with less detail than in the previous issue, but it's still interesting for a glance at what games were popular in Japan.

The Games History section focuses on a variety of sports genres in video games, giving several examples of each. It makes me want to buy a better Japanese dictionary when I get home so I can try some translating, although my Japanese grammar skills aren't great! Among the more curious types of sports games mentioned are Fishing Games and Winter Sports Games.

I am browsing the Internet right now from an Internet Cafe in Japan and I have to say that the way they do Net Cafes over here is excellent.

I have sampled about 5 different Net Cafes, but the one I am in now is far and away the best: Manboo.

Despite its unfortunate name, for 200 Yen an hour you get a private cubicle, a nice leather chair, headphones, a high speed internet connection, and a big screen TV. You can check out mangas and DVDs to browse in your cubicle just like in a library.