Dojo

Yeah yeah. Today since it's Sunday is the perfect time to talk about the reason I became an ethusiast in the interactive entertainment industry in the first place and that my friends is Japanese games. I started importing in December of 2000 when I was in Jacksonville, Florida after playing Guilty Gear X on one of my favorite platforms of all time, the Sega Dreamcast. Afterwards I knew that the game wasn't coming to North America/NTSC or Europe/PAL territories and this was certified after the worst news I've ever experienced was announced when Sega Enterprises declared that they was leaving the hardware business on January 31, 2001. Well I touch up upon Sega and my history at a later date but right now I wanted to talk about imports. Now many people are confused as to why people who play games go out of their way to import from Japan/Asia or Europe. It all comes down to censorship. See here in America sex is frowned upon. Last year a survey was conducted in which the most feared thing in which parents fear for their children is sex in gaming but I'm not gonna get into all that since I don't have much time left. The deal is that when a game is translated to English the translation gets lost most of the time, and the thing in which I absolutely cannot stand is dubbing. In numerous cases it has been revealed that dubbed (foreign to native voice over) content actually censors the original dialouge just to get around the Electronic Software Ratings Board or ESRB or for what people may view as controversial such as anti American sentiment.

Well first an import game costs more. Lol. Second you mostly have to find out whether the game is region locked or not. Third if it is region locked then you have to find way to play it on your console. Usually a mod chip a disc utility will take care of this. Finally you have to find an import store. Some cities have this. In this country the mecca of import gaming is the state of California. Websites that I recommend are the National Console Support Inc. based in Flushing, NY and their website is ncsx.com and either Play-Asia which is play-asia.com, HimeyaShop at himeyashop.com, or YESASIA at yesasia.com. I'll get into a lot more about importing when I get back from work. Slash.