Shoot-'em-Ups & Fish

When Raiden IV was released for the X-Box 360 in Japan last year, I was very quick to send an email out to UFO Interactive demanding them to release the game here because they were able to obtain the licence for Raiden III that was released for the PlayStation 2. I never got an email back, as expected of course. I mean, my email was passionate and direct but I doubt that it was seen by anyone else except for the laughing co-worker of the unlucky customer service representative who opened it. When Raiden IV was announced for a release earlier this week, I of course sent another email congratulating their decision and further demanding them to bring more Japanese shoot-'em-ups to North America so that their company's name can be synonymous to that genre just like the name Atlus is synonymous to artsy, hardcore role playing games. I wasn't expecting much of course until I got a response email from them:

Dear X,

Thank you for your kind words and support! We really appreciate loyal fans, like yourself, for continuing to keep the shooter genre alive. We hope to bring even better shooters and other premium titles over to the North American market and hope that you will continue to support us in the years to come. Cheers!

Thanks,

UFO Interactive Customer Support

Granted, it may be written by that same unlucky customer service representative who received my first email - with the collaboration of his co-worker - and not from somebody higher up the chain of command but I have worked as a member of management in the customer service industry before and this pleasant email is definitely a positive sign for the company. I took a quick visit to the site this morning and it looks like the Raiden IV announcement is finally visible there... What's this? They are bringing Way of the Samurai 3 to the X-Box 360???

Cor blimey!

Oh my, these guys are good. They may release a lot of utter rubbish but they do seem to be heading towards a path of redemption... Japanese shoot-'em-ups: that should really be your true calling, UFO Interactive! It's all yours for the taking!

Now for something totally random. The last several days have been a real bummer for me so even the strangest stuff can inspire me to write at the moment just to get my mind off things.

Now they are really getting desperate.

I really don't have anything against the Monterey Bay Aquarium. I have been there twice and I thought that it was such a magical place. I have been subscribing to their email newsletter for a while now and every so often, they would talk about food in it. I often found the whole food conversation a bit uncomfortable because I think there is a fine line there that is easily crossed if these guys are not careful enough when threading upon the subject matter. They normally would offer non-animal alternatives to stuff like sushi and the likes. This time around though, the line has been crossed. I mean, what is this whole deal about "sustainable seafood"? I found it utterly offensive because it's very... fishist! The whole concept is this: You want to eat fish? That's fine, eat them until you are ready to burst but make sure you select the type of fish that is abundant in the ocean and not those that are facing extinction.

So, it's okay to eat fish now just because they are being over-bred to death to satisfy consumer demands? It's okay to eat one species of fish over the other? I do understand the call for awareness but this is very hypocritical. I thought the whole argument is to NOT eat fish because animals deserve to live their natural life to the fullest? Also a bit disturbing is to have the talented Alton Brown talking about how to prepare a tasty meal out of some dead fish from a fish sanctuary. I know what I will not be doing at noon on June 5th.