[Octopus Crime]

You’re not watching TRON or MATIRX. This is no Sci-Fi!

Well if you’re a big Transformers Toys fan, you must know that Japanese toy maker Takara did produce a couple of line of toys where Optimus Prime and Megatron are Nissans, Jazz is a Mazda, and so on. Those lines were called Binaltech and Alternity.

And I “recreated” them in a Japanese arcade racing game that I regularly play in the local arcade here. It cost money and a lot of time. For example $1 (US dollars) only gives you 2 games. And it takes hundreds of games to earn tuning parts and body kits for each car in the game. Game data is saved in a Japanese game server via the internet. I can then retrieve my cars via a Data Card that I just have to tap on the internet-enabled arcade machines every time I want to play using my saved cars.

Changing car settings and body kits are done via a touchscreen machine in the arcade.

Because I am also busy with work and couldn’t play every day, it took me at least a couple of years to complete “recreating” all these Takara Transformers cars in the game! But finally!