All was well until one of the girl ghosts told us the infection also attracted zombies. There was a big group of zombies headed our way right now and would be here in 24 hours to kill us. The only way we could escape them was to remove the infection, and the only way we could remove the infection was to kill ourselves. Wow. That has win-win written all over it!

It wasn’t entirely hopeless. There was an arcade game in the mall that had a big, plastic axe attached to it. The ghost said if we killed ourselves with the axe, we would still come back to life, and the infection would be gone. My roommate and I decided to try it. On the way to the mall, we passed by another girl ghost who was posing for a picture for the boy ghost. The girl waved at us. The boy scowled. Typical.

In the arcade, my roommate took the axe, slit his throat, and bled all over the place as he died. Uh… I was beginning to have second thoughts about this plan. The other customers weren’t too thrilled, either, and started screaming and running around. My roommate did get back up, though, so it worked. But before I could use the axe, the panicked crowd pushed us out of the mall.

I kept yelling, “I need to go back in there! I need to use the axe!” but it was no use. The police soon arrived and taped off all the entrances. They would not let me back in, and I only had a few hours left before the zombies would arrive. But once again, I’ll never know the outcome, because I woke up before they got there.

Okay… that’s swell and all, but how do you remember which one is first and which one is fourth? It’s easy to get them mixed up and makes reading typed-out pinyin a pain (wo3 yao4 gen1 ni3 shuo1 hua4).

Then one day, I wrote the tone markings side by side: – / V \ . Revelation time! They looked like a minus M, or -M. The M can even stand for Mandarin. The minus stands for… look, I’m not going to do all the work. Now, whenever I forget if the falling tone is second or fourth, I just have to think of it as it fits into the -M formula.

Left 4 Dead (Xbox 360)
My opinion of this first-person shooter would probably change drastically if I had an Xbox Live account, since the developers locked half the game’s content for paid subscribers only. Jerks. What’s left is a very short offline campaign that, fortunately, does support two-player splitscreen. You absolutely have to play this game with at least one other person, otherwise your AI teammates will drive you crazy. They always want to be a hero and won’t retreat to the safe house. I could see this being really fun with four human players, though. Even with just two humans, there were some great moments where we were holed up in the bathroom of a farmhouse, too afraid to go out and face the big monster zombie downstairs. If you thought you knew what zombies were like in games… you don’t. Unlike the slow, staggering zombies of Resident Evil fame, the zombies in Left 4 Dead are fast, crazy, and travel in huge numbers. Watching a crowd of them pile over a fence is pretty intense, four players or not.

Army of Two (Xbox 360)
At a glance, Army of Two seems like it’s just trying to rip off Gears of War. But then you play it for a few hours and start to understand what separates the two games. For starters, Army of Two is a lot clunkier. The characters, especially when interacting with objects or each other, are sluggish, and the button layout is unnecessarily convoluted. But that lovable “duck and cover” gameplay is back in full force, and it’s harder and more brutal here than in Gears. Even on the easiest difficulty, the AI’s aim is spot-on. It’s frustrating at first, until you learn how to work with your teammate (AI or human, but please choose human). It gets intense when the two of you are on opposite sides of a room filled with bad guys, taking turns getting their attention so the other can sneak up from behind. And because the AI is so good, each terrorist you kill makes a huge difference and feels that much more rewarding. Gears is still better, but I do like killing terrorists.

Jetpac Refuelled (Xbox Live Arcade)
All you need to do is spend two minutes with the original Jetpac to realize it wasn’t a good game. So why did it even garner such a polished remake? Refuelled looks really good, sounds really good, and plays really good. It’s a really good game… at first. You start out flying around a small 2D level, collecting parts to make a spaceship, then collecting fuel so you can blast off that wretched planet called Level 1. But then Level 2 comes around, and all you do is collect more fuel. Then Level 128 comes around, and you’re still collecting fuel! So… yeah, it tends to be a bit repetitive. The changes in the gameplay come from the enemies that swap out every level. It’s really great for the first 20 levels, because you are constantly seeing new types of enemies. But the developers quickly ran out of ideas and just started throwing more of the same at you. Onwards and upwards to Level 128! It’s still fun in short bursts, though, and has a nice two-player mode, which makes it worth the $5 asking price.

Dokapon Kingdom (Wii)
It’s about time somebody figured out how to do the party board game genre right. Dokapon Kingdom is one part RPG, though, making it a little harder for the whole family to jump right in. But the mechanics are easy to figure out, and, like Mario Party, much of the game is based on luck, anyway. It’s all about rolling the right numbers and being able to spot the best route to take. The battle system is just rock, paper, scissors, too, which, against the computer, is a matter of blind guessing. When you add in other players, though, Dokapon suddenly becomes really engaging and fun. There are so many opportunities to sabotage each other, whether it’s poisoning them with a spell, stealing ownership of one of their towns, or killing them in battle and changing their screen name to “ButtWipe.” What’s not to love?! Well, it is just a board game, so there’s a lot of waiting between turns. You definitely need to play with a group of people you get along with and who have a natural patience for RPGs.

While there, we walked around the city’s lake and came across a small amusement park. This particular ride made me laugh, and I had to get a video of it:

It’s a little hard to tell from the video, but the ride is playing the song “It’s a Small World,” and the people in the carts are shooting animals and dinosaurs with laser guns.

… and I’m ready to go back. Nah, just kidding. There are certainly things I miss about China (my girlfriend being first and foremost), but I really wasn’t getting much enjoyment out of teaching, and there are so many things about China that drive me crazy and would have continued to do so had I stayed. For the sake of my sanity, it was important to leave.

But being back in the US has been rather stressful. A lot of chores pile up while you’re away, and the job market ended up being considerably bleaker than I imagined. That’s a rude awakening. But there are some good things about being back, too. It’s nice to be around my family again, and it’s nice to have Mexican food and legitimate copies of video games readily available!

On the other hand, it’s hard to go from being a foreign teacher and being treated like a celebrity (for better or worse) to being just a plain, old US citizen again. I don’t stand out at all, and few people even bat an eye when they hear that I’ve been living overseas for 18 months. If that time has done anything for me, it’s just put me way out of the loop.

Part of the problem is that I’m from a small town in Utah. The population here has yet to break 10,000. Changzhou had a population of 3.5 million and enough shops and restaurants and fun things to do to support that many people. In a city that big and crazy (this is China, after all), every day was an adventure (again, for better or worse). Believe me, I’m hoping I can move soon, but for the time being, I really feel like I’m just treading water.

Beautiful Katamari (Xbox 360)
Six years ago, I thought the original Katamari Damacy was the most creative game ever. Today, it’s apparent the series has not progressed at all. As I played Beautiful Katamari (and grew increasingly angry with the stubborn controls), I kept asking myself, “Didn’t I already do this level in the first game?” It all pans out the same, anyway. You roll a little ball around, collecting bits of garbage or food or animals, until it grows bigger and bigger and starts engulfing ocean liners and entire cities. The idea is, admittedly, pretty amusing. If you haven’t seen a katamari ball roll up a herd of cows before, you really ought to get on that. But the biggest misgiving about the game is that watching it is actually more enjoyable than playing it. The controls, even after six years, suck. Rolling the ball requires the use of both analog sticks and maneuvers like a broken tank. If this series wants to keep going, the developers have got to reinvent the way you move, because I honestly can’t take another minute of it.

Dead Space: Extraction (Wii)
I’ve realized now that the Wii is only good for two things: Smash Bros. and on-rails shooters. Hey, on-rails shooters are awesome! But the enjoyment comes from playing with another player and seeing who can shoot those rascally space creatures faster. Dead Space has a nice, diverse selection of weapons and a satisfying limb dislocation system that lets you pin off a monster’s arms and legs one by one. The monsters make some really disturbing sounds when they die, though. I’d rather play Ghost Squad for that reason alone. Well… I also prefer Ghost Squad’s quick, skippable story. Dead Space lays on the dialogue and atmosphere a bit too thick, and there are times where several minutes have passed and nothing’s showed up to shoot. An on-rails shooter is not the medium to make me care about the characters! Granted, there is a challenge mode that’s all about shooting monsters, it just lacks any kind of purpose or reward. It wasn’t meant to be the game’s selling point.

Gears of War (Xbox 360)
I was always hesitant to try (and like) Gears of War. Maybe I was just tired of Cliff Bleszinski being the poster boy for game designers. But since the Gears clamor has finally died down, I’ve discovered that the game really is a fun experience. Its “duck and cover” gameplay is a nice change of pace from the usual “run in guns blazing” nature of shooters. The game’s even better in co-op, because you can coordinate strategies like having your friend be a decoy while you snipe from a safe distance. The enemy is doing the same thing, too, so there’s a lot of figuring out how to safely advance from one hiding spot to the next. Gears has an entire chapter, though, where you’re trudging through tight corridors, having to fight off monsters with a shotgun, because it’s too cramped to back up and aim at anything. And I kept thinking, “This is not what this game is good at.” What it is good at, however, are the open, epic battles against waves of monsters with plenty of walls to run and crouch behind. I’m definitely a fan of those.

Pinball Hall of Fame: Williams Collection (Xbox 360)
I don’t say this often enough. I love video pinball. But good pinball is hard to find, and I’ve often had to fall back on the Windows pack-in Space Cadet to get my fix. Pinball Hall of Fame, on the other hand, kicks ass… in more ways than one. This game is really tough. The problem with pinball (and Pinball Hall of Fame) is how the tables are designed so the ball always falls down the side holes. Every single time! But bumping the table is a legitimate strategy and actually feels like it does something in this game. It’s very rewarding when you can successfully nudge the ball away from the hole. It’s also very rewarding when you finally beat all the basic goals on one of the tables. Just don’t get me started on the wizard goals. Did I mention this game is hard? But that’s the beauty of pinball. For as frustrating as it is, it’s rarely the fault of crappy game design or physics. Yeah, some of the tables are just a little too unforgiving, but you’ve got 13 total to choose from. That’s a lot of tables for $10.

I decided to go talk to the owner and get some ideas on how to start a business. Today wasn’t a good day, though. He was freaking out, saying the world was going to flood, and everyone was going to die. But because he foresaw this, he had cooked a giant, flying pancake to protect himself. Unfortunately, he was right about the flood. Water crashed in through the windows and swept him away before he could get into the pancake. My girlfriend and I took it, instead, wiggling inside the dark, somewhat gooey center. Then we waited.

After 40 days, the pancake landed on dry ground. The flood was gone… and so were all the people. Well, they weren’t really gone, they had just turned into animals. Dogs. Cats. Other weird creatures. My girlfriend and I wanted to know what happened, so we started exploring some nearby caves. Underground, we came across more homes where the people had been replaced with animals. But then we found a fortress that belonged to a pale, little girl. Apparently, the girl was a witch, and the flood and the animals were her doing.

Naturally, I challenged to fight her. She set up an arena so all of her minions could watch her beat me. She also transformed into a giant octopus-like monster just to make things a little easier for her. I smacked one of her yellow eyes with my flashlight a few times, though, and that changed her mind. She sent all her minions to chase us away. By the time we got back outside, it was already 11:30 at night. We had something we were supposed to do at 12:00, but we decided to go back into the cave and take care of the witch. Whether or not we did, I don’t know. I woke up before we reached her again.