NTT Publishing, April 4, 2003 Japanese gamers get advance peek at Virtual On Marz, Initial D Special Stage Beginning April 12, the Zaurus 1 Software Building of the Namba Sofmap GIGA store in Osaka will host the "Sega Game Advance Trial Event," giving gamers the chance to play "Virtual On Marz," scheduled to be released for the PS2 on May 29, and "Initial D Special Stage," scheduled to be released for the PS2 on June 26. "Virtual On Marz" is a 3D robot action game in which the player operates a robot called a "virtuaroid" and advances through a variety of missions. Word is that in this newest version of the Virtual On series, which has been an arcade hit, the company pursued qualities that would yield improved home play, including operating and story. "Initial D Special Stage" is a racing game based on the popular comic strip published in "Young Magazine." With features like a memory card system that allows gamers to save their results from playing the arcade version, and the same "mizo otoshi"* driving technique that was used in the comic, this new release is causing a lot of buzz. The PS2 version will feature a story mode based on the story in the comic book and other original elements. Participants will receive a free present - a special memory-card-sized sticker with the name of the game that they played. Date/Time: April 12 (Saturday) 2003, noon-6 p.m. (rain or shine) Place: Sofmap Giga Store, Namba Branch, Zaurus 1 Software Building *note - I had to go ask a Japanese friend to find out just what the heck "mizo otoshi" meant. He thought that was pretty funny - I guess it's something like having a Japanese guy ask you very seriously "What does 'Go, Joe!' mean?" When he settled down, he explained that it's a street-racing technique to get around curves faster; it refers to dropping your inside tires into the roadside gutter. Japanese gutters are deep, with square edges, so this basically turns the the car into a slot car, and allows the driver to corner at speeds that would otherwise make his car slide off to the outside of the turn. This friend of mine owns a souped-up Skyline, and he knows a bit about driving at inappropriately high speeds on Japanese roads. According to him, this isn't just a manga conceit, and people have been known to actually try this, though he never has, 'cause as he put it, "You'd never be sure when things were going to let go and you'd end up across the road and through a guardrail. Besides, tires are expensive." Comments Just another article giving incontrovertible proof that Japanese gamers have it better than us. Not only do they get their hands on the latest Virtual On months before we do (I haven't even seen a planned release date for the U.S. market yet), Sega gives them free goodies for doing so! Seriously though, Virtual On is one of my favorite franchises, and I'm pretty excited to get my hands on this one - right now it's only available for the PS2, and this just might be the game that would convince me to buy that console. I haven't seen anything solid on twin stick controllers though; granted the PS2 controller has those little vestigial thumbsticks, but that's just not the same as the big bad controllers that Sega put out for the Saturn and Dreamcast Virtual On releases. Of course, heads are probably still rolling in Sega for the poor demand forecasting on these babies - I couldn't get the DC twin sticks for love or money, but the Saturn twin sticks were massively overproduced. Last year, I bought a shipping case of 4 brand-new Saturn Twin Sticks for 500 yen for the lot. (That's less than $5.) Considering this game came out in 1996, it's a pretty bad sign if you're still sitting on controller inventory in 2002. So it may be that Sega has gotten scared away from the twin stick market; if that's the case, hopefully some peripheral manufacturer will step in so we can play this game at home the way it was meant to be.