Dan Dickinson: The Primary Vivid Weblog

I'll spare you the prologue; my impressions is that this the most awaited out of all of the yearly gaming posts. So much so that I'm actually going to put screenshots in this one. You can see where my priorities are.

It was difficult to narrow this down - but in the name of brevity, I've narrowed it down to a dozen titles that every iPhone owner should have on their phones. As I write this, to buy all of these games will cost you $30 - probably less than any one of the console games I recommended yesterday.

High Points & Surprises

Hook Champ is easily my iPhone title of the year. At it's core, you have a simple premise - swing away from the ghost chasing you, grabbing treasure all the way. That would nearly be enough - but when you add in an addictive equipment upgrade system, retro-y pixel graphics, challenging levels, online challenges, and regular major updates to the game, and you get one of the most addictive arcade games of 2009.

I like Texas Hold'em. I like word games. I like competition. Ergo, I like Word Ace, Self Aware Games' incredibly fun (and often frustrating) game that blends Texas Hold'Em and Scrabble into something even better than those individual games. I loved the game so much, I leapt at the chance to buy a physical deck of Word Ace cards - enough so to end up with the very first one. Most everyone I've shown this to has loved it as well, and at a cost of $0 it is hard to resist.

I tend to stay away from games that use tilt controls as a primary input method - they are nearly impossible to play while commuting, which tends to be one of my heaviest iPhone usage periods. But Labyrinth 2 has that moxxy to make my not care. The framerate is as smooth as I've ever seen on the device, there's a limitless set of levels available for download, and there's a nicely progressing set of awards and achievements to keep you going.

There's something wrong with the world when a great physics puzzler like Orbital can go under most everyone's radar. Fire orbs into space to destroy the orbs you've already fired - a simple concept, with one touch controls. The glowing graphics are slightly reminiscent of Geometry Wars, as is the Facebook integration to compare your scores against those that you know.

Block pushing puzzles have been popular for years, and Blockoban is a notable release this year. It would be enough that the block sliding controls work great, and that there's a random board generator, but the business model seals the deal even further. The first 100 puzzles are free. If you want another 800 (!), as well as all the solutions, it's just a $3 in-app purchase. If you need a puzzle game that lasts, this may be up your alley.

I like when a company is willing to take a franchise and evolve it. Space Invaders Infinity Gene may play that "evolution" card a little obviously, but this is a shining example of taking something that people love and making it better across the board. Lots to unlock, dynamically-generated levels based on your music, and a really clean look make this the game I dumped the most time into mid-year.

A mix of Pong and platforming, Squareball has you dragging the landscape around to bounce your square ball through some tricky terrain. It's hard to get excited from the screen shots, but trust me - in motion, it's a blast.

Canabalt captured hearts and minds early this year as a simple Flash game that had you vaulting across rooftops to escape an unnamed threat. The iPhone version was initially a little feature-starved, but it finally received an internet high score board and is now rock-solid.

Let's say you like the idea of Canabalt, but you're not into this whole futuristic minimalism asthetic. No, let's say you want a business man who's behind schedule and who has to leap over dinosaurs, samurais, and fat cosplayers. Behold! Konami's Tomena Sanner is the game for you! It's Canabalt with a sense of humor. The load times can be a bit excessive, and there's no internet ranking, but this game actually made me laugh at some of the jokes - a rare feat.

I see the appeal of people wanting Tetris on every conceivable platform - it's a very familiar block puzzle. But if you're willing to try something a little different, give Unify a spin. Pieces drop from the left and right (you're matching colors rather than making lines), and the controls are so well tuned that you'll be playing on both sides without too much trouble. Block dropping junkies would do well to pick this up.

The iPhone has given rise to what's been dubbed "chaos management" games, and with Firemint's Flight Control having sold two million copies, I doubt there's a lot of people unfamiliar with the concept of dragging everything into the right place. Voxel Agents' Train Conductor manages to constrain the chaos a bit to generate a frantic train-transferring experience. The game mechanic makes it easy to get into a trance state where you're just reacting without thinking, something I can't quite do with Flight Control.

Popcap promised us Peggle. They delivered us Peggle. Things were never quite the same. (The iPhone version of Peggle destroyed the DS version by having better controls and far better graphics, never mind being a fraction of the price.)

Low Points & Disappointments

It was inevitable that a few iPhone games wouldn't live up to the hype this year.

ngmoco:) had hyped Eliminate Pro for months before it finally hit the market and turned out to be a pretty unremarkable FPS game. Kudos for actually shipping a full blown FPS game, but it just didn't feel particularly fun, and the initial nonsense with having to "recharge" killed any momentum I had.

EA knocked out great game after great game this year - except for Rock Band. Perhaps no one should've had high hopes for a conversion of a series so reliant on plastic instruments, but there's been plenty of decent music games on the platform. The iPhone edition of Rock Band just feels lazy, almost like a generic J2ME game.

Steam hit a new stride this year, causing me to open my wallet thirty-six separate times. I don't want to count how many games that translates into for just this year - but the total game count on my Steam account is now at a sickening 195 titles. I didn't start on Steam until late in 2007, so that means I'm averaging a disturbing 1.6 games a week.

Nothing can illustrate what causes this than the current front page of the Steam store. Right now, there's a midweek sale for Psychonauts - a well received game from 2005, that I do not currently own - for $2. I am trying to write this post and not take the 30 seconds it would take to purchase it.

Steam has leveraged, on a slightly broader scale, what has made the iPhone app market so dynamic and prone to impulse purchasing - the ability to quickly drop prices, sometimes up to 90%. When you shave an award winning game down to $2, price conscious gamers will react strongly.

Most of my purchases this year were either games from past years or multiplatform titles, so much of my PC playing has already been covered. There were a few standout titles that haven't quite shown up anywhere else, as well as some awful ports, so let's make notes below:

High Points & Surprises

I frequently have limitations on my gaming capacity, so finding a game that can run nearly anywhere and remain fun whether I'm playing for 5 minutes or 5 hours has always been something I've tried to find, often without much luck. This year, I stumbled onto Altitude, which may actually be that Holy Grail. Airplane based with multiple game types, nearly entirely over the network, with a perk and challenge system not unlike most FPS games - and it's a Java app, so I can play in OS X or Windows or in a web browser. All my stats and unlocks are kept on the central servers, so my profile follows me around. I've spent way too much time in the last two months playing BALL mode, which is like a chaotic game of soccer. There's a three hour demo available, and should you try it through this link you'll automatically show up on my friends list. It's worth a try.

While I am not at all a fan of Impulse, I closed my eyes held my breath when Demigod went on sale, and found that the game hit the spot I was looking for between an RTS and a sort of top down adventure game. It's a weird mix, but it's fun - I just wish I didn't have to run Impulse to play it.

For those who identified with the Diablo addiction mentioned in my Borderlands mention, but would rather play a game that's actually more like Diablo than an FPS, Torchlight is the de facto choice for Best Diablo Game That Isn't Named Diablo. I'm not entirely sure how this shipped without multiplayer, but it's not priced as a full retail title, so you'll certainly get an appropriate level of enjoyment out of it.

Popcap's Plants vs. Zombies is a lovely casual defense game with a lot of charm. I'm eagerly awaiting the iPhone version, along with most of the free world.

Even if the game was crap, I would be giving AaaaaAAaaaAAAaaAAAAaAAAAA!!! - A Reckless Disregard for Gravity some acknowledgement for the best named game of the year. Luckily, the game - a sort of base jumping arcade game - is good in its own right.

Low Points & Disappointments

Last year, I praised Saints Row 2 to the high heavens. This year, I managed to find the PC version on the cheap - and then I realized it was so cheap. Even with a high powered computer, it drops frames all over the place, and it will probably never get a patch to fix it. With Red Faction: Guerilla running so well on the PC, a port this sloppy is inexcusable.

While we're on crappy ports: Popcap and Square combined forces to create what could have been a game to destroy the world. Popcap's addicting puzzles crossed with Square's over the top production values could've been the end of many gamers' lives. But Gyromancer didn't quite come off properly, and worse, the launch version would not run if you weren't on a 4:3 aspect ratio - which many people are not. There's a workaround, but not catching this in QA means I can't in good faith recommend the game.

Lastly, I wish the Zeno Clash team had spent as much time on varying the gameplay (more than just "this is a slightly different kind of fight") and the throwaway plot that they did on the brilliant art direction.

I don't know who lit the fire under third party developers this year, but there were some amazingly strong titles kicking around. Every game (save one) on my High Points & Surprises list was triple platform: PS3, Xbox 360, and PC. Unfortunately for you Wii-only owners, only two of them showed up there - and both of those are the music games.

High Points & Surprises

In a rare moment where I held off on pulling the trigger until it was on sale, I acquired Dragon Age: Origins a day before we were going to leave for Japan. I managed to clock maybe three hours that day - enough to get through my character's prologue, but not enough to get into the full story. Even that little taste was enough to give me a slight case withdrawal while halfway around the world. I'm not even close to done, which means I'll be holding off on Mass Effect 2 for quite a while.

Perhaps you saw the overwhelming praise that Rocksteady Studios (say it with me: who?!) got for their superhero game and scratched your head. Licensed superheroes never have good games - that's the rules of gaming, right? And an unknown studio couldn't bat their first major title out of the park, could they? They can, they did, and they probably will again. Sure, Batman: Arkham Asylum nails the atmosphere, the characters, and the backstory from top to bottom - you know why everyone loves it, though? Because it's the best 3D Metroidvania game you've ever played.

After making a huge mess with Saint's Row 2 (see the forthcoming PC post for more on that), Volition polished the engine and made something a bit more focused in Red Faction: Guerilla. As someone who loved the first Mercenaries game, this speaks to my deep-seated gaming urges to be able to take down buildings in any fashion I choose to. Possibly the most underrated gem of the year, based on how many of my friends haven't played it.

There weren't a lot of racing games filling 2009, so "best racing game" could have practically been a default. Codemasters didn't slouch, though: DiRT 2 is a ridiculously fun time, and builds on everything they got right in 2008's GRiD to make a satisfying rally racer. It will tide me over until Gran Turismo 5 finally hits, if not longer.

Harmonix opted to not release Rock Band 3 this year, instead focusing their efforts and love to produce The Beatles: Rock Band. All bands should strive to have such a legacy that people want to make games like this about them.

There's a class of gamers who thrive on games where randomly generated equipment drops from enemies, and after a rigorous examination and comparison process, characters are made incrementally better and excess loot is sold. If you are one such gamer - and there's a reasonable chance you are - you may have been lamenting the long lead time that Diablo 3 is taking. Rest easy; Borderlands will tide you over until D3 finally ships. It is a hell of a drug in its own right - satisfying on both the loot front and the FPS front. If only the plot wasn't garbage.

My biggest surprise of the year: even though it was an Activision game filled with generic characters, even though it featured yet another space-filling plastic controller, and even though the DLC is priced absurdly high, DJ Hero managed to actually be kind of enjoyable. Thank the extremely well produced soundtrack of unique mashups and mixes for that one.

Finally, I would be remiss to not point out that if you don't own Street Fighter IV, you are part of the problem. ("Problem" here meaning "people who miss out on excellent fighting games".) Penance can be achieved by purchasing Super Street Fighter IV, which is due out early 2010.

Low Points & Disappointments

Realizing that I just got done railing on Nintendo over a nostalgia cash-in: nostalgia isn't always off-limits in games. The Beatles: Rock Band, pointed out above, is essentially a nostalgia game/love letter. And while it's hard to believe that anyone might want a well produced nostalgia trip about professional wrestling, WWE Legends of Wrestlemania failed to come across as anything other than a mid-year gap filler in THQ's wrestling line-up. I tore through it in a weekend, and never looked back. I miss the days when we had proper wrestling titles.

It is hard to take a beloved title and make a sequel that squanders almost all of the good will that the first game had. Hard, but not impossible - hell, Puzzle Quest: Galactrix made it look easy. By leaving too much of the core gaming mechanic to chance, intentionally road-blocking game progress with timed puzzles, and just generally sucking all the fun out of the experience, Galactrix is one of the few games this year where I honestly wished I could get a refund. When I have to hack the game configuration to make the game playable, you have done a disservice. (Good thing I was on the PC - the DS version, by all accounts, was worse and couldn't be hacked.)

Speaking of killing goodwill - Capcom came off a huge high from Resident Evil 4 and released the fairly mundane Resident Evil 5, which returned us to the level of nonsense plot we hadn't seen in a few years. The last twenty minutes of the game play like a parody of Resident Evil games, with the COMPLETE GLOBAL SATURATION and Chris Redfield vs. The Boulder.

The PS3 again shouldered most of the load of my console gaming this year, and it shined bright with exclusives this year. Let's get right into it.

High Points & Surprises

Infamous allowed one of my favorite PS2 devs, Sucker Punch (creators of the excellent Sly Cooper series) to do a free-world game full of super powers, electric combat, enjoyable controls, and (admittedly mild) moral choices. It all came together to be the game that tided me over for a solid month early in the year.

After being disturbed by the backwards step taken in the PS2 -> PS3 jump when it came to Sony's flagship trivia series, Buzz: Quiz World righted all the wrongs with endlessly configurable games, significantly better online play, and more personality. Hell, Sony even finally splurged to license a few bars of Europe's seminal song when the final round of the game - The Final Countdown - begins. What was already a good party game became a great party game.

Uncharted 2: Among Thieves is not without it's flaws - the beginning is slow, some combat sequences are painful, and Naughty Dog couldn't resist throwing Nazis and the supernatural into the plot. But with a huge list of everything else they got right, I could go on for an entire post about how much I enjoyed this game. Worth getting a PS3 for.

"No risk, no reward." describes both the gameplay and Atlus' decision to release Demon's Souls in the US. As the gaming world starves for solid next-gen RPGs, Atlus took From Software's punishingly difficult action RPG and threw it down in front of US gamers. Having double dipped - my Korean copy sits next to my US one - I can understand why multiple friends have given up in disgust at a game that often feels unfair or cheap. But having inched my way through the darkness to lay waste to the monsters dancing in the shadows, I can think of few games in my life that felt so rewarding to scrape through.

When the iPhone app store launched, Critter Crunch was one of the first games to be downloaded, loved for a few days, and then yanked off the phone to make room for others. But this year's PSN release feels like the way the game should've been in the first place - beautiful drawn artwork, cutely inventive puzzle gameplay, and full of personality.

It took a while, but now Dylan Cuthbert's studio can release a generic title for a game and a few random screenshots and get the fans frothing. Luckily, PixelJunk Shooter excelled as a hybrid shooter/puzzle/fluid dynamics simulator. Hard to explain, but harder to put down.

Sidhe created the excellent Gripshift in 2005 (and again in 2007); 2009 brought Shatter, which broke my head with multi-directional brick busting. Extra credit for an amazing electronic soundtrack, which you should buy.

Low Points & Disappointments

Kudos to the team who made Killzone 2, as it simulated running around in heavy body armor better than any game I've played yet. Unfortunately it never clicked in single player, and online was a near disaster. A perk system that rewarded the grinders meant I couldn't compete; a standard mode that feature multiple short objective rounds meant I often had to wonder if my teammates didn't understand how to read. All in all, a let down.

I appreciate that Sony is finding talent in the demoscene to make software, but there's no reason that detuned. should have cost any money.

Last year, I complained about Jeopardy in this section. The presentation was "horrible" - a combination of there being no announcer and a multiple choice answer method. Wheel Of Fortune fixes the input method by nature of not being a trivia game, but still doesn't have anyone talking. A complete failure; I look forward to Sony ruining another game show property on PSN in the future. (You know one of the many reasons I like Buzz? Because the game actually HAS VOICE WORK.)

When it comes to my attention span, these consoles lost out in 2009.

The PSP software market, already a bit dry, turned desert-like this year. It was hard to find titles that weren't reviewed poorly (Gran Turismo Portable) or overpriced to hell (LittleBigPlanet PSP, GTA:Chinatown Wars).

The Wii and DS repeated their performance from last year, with the Wii managing 2 retail purchases but no downloaded titles, and the DS managing one retail purchase.

The 360, which last year managed a whopping 1 retail game purchase, managed to sink to an abysmal 0 retail games and about 4 XBLA purchases. (The 360 continues to get a bit of a free pass since every game on the Multiplatform list is available for it.)

With this poor performance in mind, let's find some silver lining in an otherwise dreary year.

High Points & Surprises

It was a good year for patient rhythm gamers. Nine months after the Japanese version was released, but Nintendo did the world right and finally released Rhythm Heaven in the US. Essential for any DS owner, even if you have no rhythm. Pentavision's wonderful DJ Max series also finally saw a US release as DJ Max Fever. As of press time, it's available on the PSN store, so PSP owners have little excuse for not picking up the best portable music title on the market.

The PSP most held my interest when it came to tweaking heroes. Half Minute Hero took the 8-bit RPG formula and gave it a short fuse and a sense of humor. Prinny: Can I Really Be The Hero?! went for platforming with crushing difficulty and even more humor. Both are great in short doses.

Some folks will want you to think that Shadow Complex was the best Xbox 360 game of the year. I won't deny the game it's due - it's worth a single playthrough - but Trials HD destroyed it in fun, online integration, and "just one more try" gameplay. Trials HD causes thumb-numbing levels of addiction, the likes of which you probably haven't felt since years.

It's a little closer to the line between surprise and disappointment than I'd like, but New Super Mario Bros Wii did get me closer to 1991-style Mario than any game since, and that's worth recognition. I dare not play it multiplayer in order to avoid ending friendships.

Low Points & Disappointments

As someone who has rocked his way through Super Punch Out end-to-end around 16 times, and has logged plenty of hours on the NES original and the arcade game, the announcement of a Wii version of Punch Out was a ray of light, in the hopes that the series would be given the love it deserved. But, no - Nintendo did what Nintendo does best, reviving ten of the eleven boxers from the NES game and two from the SNES game. Only three opponents are new - no, wait: one of them is Donkey Kong, one of them is a Hulk-like version of the main character, and the other one is actually a boxer. One new character, after 15 years. This is not the Punch Out we had been patiently awaiting; this was a nostalgia cash-in. So it goes when it comes to Nintendo.

Scribblenauts came out the gates with promises across the board - write anything! It's in the game! - and the previews said it wasn't hype, it was true. The problem: the controls were ass, and you felt less like writing "anything" than "jetpack" and "rope" every level. Imagination frequently loses out to actually getting through the game.

House Of The Dead: Overkill was advertised to be ADULT and CRAZY and GRINDHOUSE-Y. It turned out to be GENERIC and POORLY CONSTRUCTED and WORTH LITTLE MORE THAN A RENTAL. That is, unless bad words in a game on a Nintendo platform is supposed to still be shocking in 2009.

Early last year, I churned out a series of posts that were surprisingly well received where I ran through the high points and low points for gaming across every platform I owned.

I have been struggling against the weight of a large pile of games to do the same for this year, and while the posts won't be as rapidly posted as they were last year, I am nearing the point where I feel ready to do this.

Expect to see the following in the coming days:

• Gaming 2009: DS/PSP/Xbox 360/Wii
• Gaming 2009: PS3
• Gaming 2009: Multiplatform
• Gaming 2009: PC
• Gaming 2009: iPhone
• Gaming 2009: Game Of The Year

January, 2000: Apple unveiled iTools. Provided for free to anyone running OS 9, it provided a POP email account at mac.com, 20 MB of internet-based storage referred to as iDisk, web hosting space, and internet filtering software to keep the kids safe. It was 2000, I was in college, it was free. I could not argue. I took the address remy@mac.com.

July, 2002: iTools relaunches as ".Mac". It begins to cost $100 a year. Having just graduated, and not wanting to be tied to my university email for the rest of my life, I opt to start paying in October.

October, 2003: I renew my .Mac account. I am happy with the service.

February 2004: I purchase my first Sidekick. It does not sync contacts with my phone, thus increasing the value of address book sync.

April, 2004: Gmail launches. Unable to take a name of less than six characters, I default back to "remydwd" as my user name. My .Mac email account falls out of favor, but continue to renew the account for address book synchronization.

October, 2004: I renew my .Mac account. I feel like I am getting enough out of the address book, bookmarks, and keychain sync to justify the cost, and Katie's email account is attached as a sub-account.

October, 2005: I renew my .Mac account. I still feel like I am getting enough out of the address book, bookmarks, and keychain sync to justify the cost, and Katie's email account is attached as a sub-account.

April, 2006: Google Calendar launches. Any use I had for iCal as a primary repository of my calendaring now goes out the window.

October, 2006: I renew my .Mac account. I'm not entirely sure I am getting enough out of the sync to justify the cost, but Katie's email account is attached as a sub-account.

June, 2007: The iPhone comes out. I buy one the day after release. I finally replace my Sidekick with a phone that can actually sync my address book.

October, 2007: Leopard launches, which features "Back to My Mac". I finally have some degree of reliable screen sharing between home and the office. I happily renew my .Mac account.

April, 2008: I get an invite to Dropbox. I immediately forget about the existence of iDisk - not that I had ever used it much to begin with.

June, 2008: .Mac relaunches as MobileMe. It is largely terrible for the first few months. I don't notice much as I'm not using the service - not even on my iPhone for over-the-air contact syncing, which blows out my address book the first time I try it. I get a three month service extension to compensate for the poor service.

January, 2009: I renew my .Mac account. Katie has switched to Gmail at long last, but Back To My Mac is still mostly useful.

June, 2009: iPhone OS 3.0 is released. "Find my iPhone" is added as a feature to MobileMe. I find it neat but ultimately useless, as I could remote wipe through a console at the office. I can now get both my work and personal calendar over the air, reliably. I refer to this as the "holy grail" around the office.

January 2010: I face reality. When you have extremely reliable, robust email from Google, cloud storage with every feature I can imagine from Dropbox, and I'm able to carry my address book with me on my iPhone all the time, I am unable to see any reason to continue with MobileMe. I decline to renew my account.

Narrative aside, there's a lesson here: if you're going to provide core internet services, consider the price differential between you and your strongest competitor. If it's a little, you only need to be a little better.

$100 a year for what feels like a worse product than what's available for free? Your business model is screwed. Start over, do better.

On May 3rd of last year, I made a critical decision that I never spoke about here: I began a shutdown of VJ Army and Pop'n Navy, the two Bemani community sites that had been the lifeblood of my web presence since 2004. (No, my blog is not called VJ Army.)

The decision was not a hard one: a lack of time/resources for programming had left both sites in a code stasis for over a year. Bugs weren't getting fixed, and no relief was in sight. Complicating things was a forum community that was mostly interested in sniping and trolling each other. I no longer felt like a member in my own forums, and that weighed heavily on my conscious. It was a deeply painful failure to keep what had once been a civil, "good" corner of the gaming community from turning toxic.

While the sites officially shut down a month later on my birthday (a perverse birthday gift for myself), users were able to export their personal data into a portable XML format until what was supposed to be December 31st, 2009.

As it turned out, that day I was in Akihabara, playing the very games that I had fallen in love with back in 2003. As my interest in Bemani has waned dramatically over the last few years, it's not lost on me that as I clicked away and slapped the plastic turntable back and forth, no thoughts passed through my head about recording scores or checking where I was ranked.

The data survived into 2010 until tonight, when I finally pulled the trigger and expunged all the data from my database. So if you hadn't exported your data yet - I apologize, but you're too late. I don't have a copy anymore.

There were countless things I learned from the five years the sites ran: nerdy things about database optimization and PHP's image libraries; hard fought struggles with moderating communities and building good controls for data review; pointers on staffing a no-profit web site and balancing life versus your projects. Maybe these lessons will surface in other posts over the coming year - maybe they won't. There is just one on my mind tonight:

The best schools and books and teachers in the world are no comparison to going out and building something that people want to use. Go: dig your hands into the soil (as it were), and create something. Be the president, the support technician, the artist, the lead programmer, the project manager. Take all of the credit and accept all of the blame.

I've quoted this before, but I can think of nothing more fitting:

Don't be afraid. If you want to do something, just go ahead and do it, but be prepared to take the blame, to feel the fall. Don't sit around waiting to be asked, to be given permission. Just get out there and do it.

As I said in the original shutdown notice - it was a great five years, and I wouldn't have traded it for anything.

All Tokyo 2009/2010 Posts

• Prelude
• Getting There
• Grappling With Technology
• Shibuya + Akihabara
• Engrossed
• Cat Room Chamamo
• Harajuku + Ikebukuro
• Akihabara Revisited + Marunouchi
• Tokyo DisneySea
• Fukubukuro
• A Scattered Final Day
• 26 Hour Party People
• Finale

Photos/Videos

Available on Flickr.

Survival Guide

I would not have been able to survive in Tokyo without the following:

TimeOut Guidebooks - extremely polished and well written (Pokemon Center location inaccuracy aside), TimeOut Tokyo City Guide this was our life blood for neighborhood specific maps, subway navigation, general information, critical phrases in Japanese, and address information. Doesn't cover everything, but covers the major points. Available at most major bookstores.

iPhone Applications - Human Japanese ($10) provides a fantastic introduction to the language, including sentence structure, hiragana/katakana guides, vocabulary lists, and cultural interludes. codefromtokyo's Japanese ($20) provides a well organized (sometimes redundant) dictionary, including phrases and stroke ordering for kanji. It also includes quick look charts for katakana/hiragana, word list functionality, and JLPT study guides. Both are worth carrying on your iPhone/iPod Touch.

smart.fm - recommended to me a day or two into the trip by longtime friend Andy Livy, smart.fm provides learning goals for most languages and topics through a mostly flash-based learning management system. Lots of social networking integration and good tools means this helped me get the syllabary comprehension a little better very quickly. Wish I had known about this before I left.

Citibank ATMs - while I am not a Citibank customer, they are notable because (a) their Tokyo ATMs are open 24/7, unlike many others and (b) they take American ATM cards, unlike nearly every other ATM around Tokyo. Even our hotel ATM wouldn't take our card. Find a nearby location, because you may need it in a pinch. While lots of places in Japan take cards, many still don't. Cash remains king.

Suica - the contactless smart card used by JR Railways (and vending machines and lots of convenience stores), Suica made it painless to ride JR's trains around everywhere. Foreigners can get a Suica/NEX package deal that represents substantial savings. Look for the blue signage near most train turnstiles - English screens are available if you press the "ENGLISH" button in the top right.

Airport Limousine - the last thing you may want to do when you arrive late at night is try to navigate the train system. Airport Limousine is more than likely going to be able to take you directly to your hotel, for about the same cost as a one-way NEX ticket. Ticket counters are on the first floor of Narita Airport and hard to miss.

Skype - so long as you have a good internet connection available to you, Skype remains the best way to deal with international calling. A number of calls home ended up costing us about $1.50. Load up before you go.

Friends - a thousand thank yous to John Scanlan, Richard Whittaker, Richard Bannister, Andy Livy, Ryan Bayne, and anyone else who sent recommendations and cultural advice my way over the last two weeks.

Today was the first day since Christmas where I did not have something to see, somewhere to go, or anything to do. The hum of the heater has replaced the drone of aircraft; the distant squeal of the Jersey City lightrail turning the corner has replaced the rushing sound of the JR Yamanote line.

Piled across the kitchen counter are the things we brought back - cute dolls, strange snacks, and a pile of CDs. Our suitcases remain nearby, still mostly full of our clothing and charging cords. They will be unpacked in due time. The fridge has been refilled, the laundry is slowly getting done, and I am mysteriously not jetlagged even in the slightest.

I will not return to work until Wednesday, and while I'm starting to respond to work emails again, for now, I sit contently.

I have spent over five days in a place that was foreign yet welcoming, busy yet quiet, energetic yet polite.

I have walked through neighborhoods I never thought I would set foot in, wandered without purpose in pedestrian malls, and blended into crowded trains and stores.

I have inhaled the cloud of smoke in pachinko parlors, downed sake and shochu, seen some really weird things on TV, and inadvertently walked into the adult section of more than one anime store in Akihabara.

And yet it still feels like there is more to do. Even with another week, another month, I wouldn't have been able to see it all. So we will continue working on our Japanese, keep our eyes peeled for new things to see when we are there, and start plotting for the next trip.

I can't wait.

(Very special thanks to all of you who left comments, suggestions, questions, and encouragement on my blog, on Twitter, and on Facebook over the last week. It felt like you were there with us.)