Tokyopia Members

Justin Keeling
CONCEPT & FOUNDER
Nationality: British
Currently resides: Los Angeles
Occupation: Editorial Director, G4 Television

5 favourite games: NiGHTS, Super Mario 64, Super Shinobi, ICO, Castlevania: Symphony of the Night

4 favourite developers: Masaya Matsuura, Shigeru Miyamoto, Yuji Naka, Tetsuya Mizuguchi

3 pet game hates: linear story telling in games, poor license cash-ins, poor art

2 all-time favourite systems: Megadrive, N64

1 industry idol: Hiroshi Yamauchi

Favourite film: The Truman Show
Favourite album: Mezzanine, Massive Attack
Favourite magazine: Vanity Fair
Favourite book: The Amber Spyglass

Mini Bio:

Justin speaks embarrassing Japanese, and has, for reasons no one can quite understand, spent eight years writing for specialist and non-specialist media including BBC Television, Ziff-Davis publishing, Edge magazine, Next-Generation, The London Times, IGN, the Future Publishing Network, and now G4 Television.

Justin thanks God for his narrow escape from an investment banking career, and now lives mostly in Los Angeles.

Advice to live by: Fortune favours the brave.

John Ricciardi
FOUNDER
Nationality: American
Resides: Tokyo
Occupation: Journalist, Translation Editor

5 favorite developers: Nintendo, Sega, Capcom, Namco, Square

4 favorite composers: Hirokazu Tanaka, Kouichi Sugiyama, Hitoshi Sakimoto, Yasunori Mitsuda

3 favorite franchises: Mario, Zelda, Dragon Quest

2 all-time favorite systems: Famicom, Super Famicom

1 industry idol: Hiroshi Yamauchi

Favorite film: LOTR: The Fellowship of the Ring
Favorite album: The Low End Theory, A Tribe Called Quest
Favorite magazine: EGM, baby! (cough)
Favorite book: The Great Gatsby, Anything by Haruki Murakami
Favorite tv show: The Sopranos

Game of the Year 2002: Animal Crossing
Game of the Year 2001: Ico

Mini Bio:

John's too lazy to write out a full-fledged bio, so here's the short and sweet of it: An avid gamer since 1980, John ("Ricciardi" to his friends and loved ones) has been writing about games for the better part of the last decade. He's best known for his work in EGM (where he currently resides as International Editor), but he's also been spotted in several other gaming mags, web sites and strategy guides over the years. A lifelong fan of Japanese games, he moved to Japan in late 2000 to be closer to his then-girlfriend and to revel in the sights and sounds of the greatest city on Earth. He finds writing about himself in the third-person strangely alluring, but promises not to make a habit of it in his contributions to the site.

Advice to live by: "Pikmin are very small. But they have wonder power."

Andrew Vestal
FOUNDER
Nationality: American
Resides: Kiryu
Occupation: English teacher

5 favorite games: ICO, Jet Set Radio, A Mind Forever Voyaging, Panzer Dragoon Saga, Vagrant Story

4 favorite developers: Yoshinori Kitase, Tetsuya Mizuguchi, R&D1, Smilebit

3 pet game hates: unclear game design, uneven quality between different parts of a game, empty displays of technology

2 all-time favorite systems: NES, PSone

1 industry idol: Fumito Ueda

Favorite film: Fight Club
Favorite album: Talking Heads, Fear of Music
Favorite magazine: FRUITS
Favorite book: House of Leaves

Mini Bio:

Andrew Vestal is probably best known for a pair of webpages; during his time online, he has founded both Square Net (nee The UnOfficial Squaresoft Home Page) and the Gaming Intelligence Agency. He has also contributed freelance reviews, previews, and features for a number of "professional" websites and magazines. A graduate of Stanford University, he majored in procrastination yet somehow received an M.A. in Creative Writing. Recently, his days have been spent teaching English to adorable Japanese high school students.

A graphics whore who still plays text adventures; a fan of narrative repelled by
Xenogears; an innovation freak who adores Skies of Arcadia; his mind is a mess of contradictions, or maybe just a mess. He looks forward to seeing the day that games will change the world - that is, more than they already have.

Jake Kazdal 'Jkoo XL'
FOUNDER/DESIGN

Nationality: American
Resides: Tokyo, Japan
Occupation: Staff game artist, Sega`s UGA Studio

6 favourite games: Zelda series, Halo, SSX, GTA3, Wipeout Series, Jak and
Daxter

Most looking forward to: Fable, B.C. any other game featuring big dynamic
worlds with lots of physics, advanced AI and great play control

4 favourite developers: Zelda team, Halo team, Jak and Daxter team, Wipeout
3 team

3 pet game hates: games with convoluted gameplay, games with unresponsive
gameplay, games that are 30 hours long that should have been a tight
balanced 10 hours long instead

2 all-time favourite systems: Super Famicom, NES/N64 (tie)

1 industry idol: Eiji Aonuma, director of the Zelda series as well as
Yoshi`s Island

Favourite film: Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring
Favourite album: Future Sound of London: Isness
Favourite magazine: Edge
Favourite book: Hitchikers Guide to the Galaxy Quintology
Favorite color: Blue
Favorite Animator: Koji Morimoto
Favorite vacation spot in Japan: Shimoda

Mini Bio:

A classically trained animator whos passion for games somehow made him the
luckiest otaku out there when Tetsuya Mizuguchi offered him a job at the
soon-to-be-founded Sega CS#4, soon to be known as United Game Artists.
After 4 1/2 years with Mizuguchi-san at UGA in Tokyo, with solid
contributions to Space Channel 5 and Rez, its time to start thinking about
the next step, where to go from here?

Advice to live by: I`ll just be playing Halo, again, on Legendary, with a
good mate. NO other game lives and breathes like this one, a new experience
every time, and a bold first step into the future of games.

Eric Yap
SITE ENGINEER & WEBMASTER
Nationality: Tokyopian
Location: Tokyo
Occupation: Enterprise Systems Engineer, Goldman Sachs (Japan) Ltd.

5 favourite games: Doom II, Streets of Rage II, Gunstar Heroes, Panzer Dragoon Azel/Saga, Halo

4 favourite developers: Bungie, Team Andromeda, Blizzard, Treasure

3 pet game hates: Unpolished/unfinished releases, linear RPGs that last hundreds of hours because of random encounters, lack of co-op multiplay

2 all-time favourite systems: Modded Xbox, Megadrive

1 industry idol: Gregg Tavares

Favourite film: Bladerunner
Favourite album: Antigua Blue, Kilauea
Favourite magazine: Fortune
Favourite book: Kingdom Come (Graphic Novel)

Shou Suzuki
CONTRIBUTOR
Nationality: Japanese
Resides: Kyoto
Occupation: Student

5 favorite games: King of Fighters series, Seiken Densetsu series, Rockman series, Majora's Mask, Dragon Quest series

4 favorite developers: Namco, Nintendo, Enix, Capcom

3 pet game hates: Lack of polish; complicated mechanics as a smokescreen for real depth; interesting, realistic water scenes that make me want to go to the bathroom.

2 all-time favorite systems: Super Famicom, Game Boy Advance

1 industry idol: Everybody who works at Namco!

Favorite film: Sen to Chihiro no Kamikakushi
Favorite album: Kind of Blue
Favorite magazine: Morning
Favorite book: I Am a Cat

Mini Bio: There is a mischievious fox wandering around Kyoto. They say he has a very bushy tale and inquistive eyes. He's pretty shy, but people have seen him playing with a sword or his videogames or lounging away the days in the temples. He's gazing at you with a curious look in his eye.

Advice to live by: "Rainy days are sometimes better than sunny ones."

James Bagshawe
CONTRIBUTOR
Resides: London
Occupation: TV Developer / Producer

5 favourite games: Shining Force, Advance Wars, D&D Shadow Over Mystara (little known Capcom classic), Doom, Marble Madness

4 favourite developers: Pick any four Japanese names no-one else knows

3 pet game hates: Random Encounters (the bane of most RPGs), Storyline Overdoses, Patches

2 all-time favourite systems: Megadrive, Sinclair Spectrum

1 industry idol: Justin Keeling

Favourite film: Dangerous Liaisons
Favourite album: Too embarrassing to list
Favourite magazine: Viz
Favourite book: Gideon's Bible

Mini Bio:

A long-time dabbler in the games industry, James is more of an armchair specialist. Rather than sit down and learn how to code games (too much like hard work), easier career paths were chosen that have included online work, entrepreneurial adventure, PR for Dreamcast (his advice went unheeded), and television.

Still to come, he hopes, screenwriting and comedy work. Currently developing shows for Sir David Frost.

Ravi Hiranand
CONTRIBUTOR
Nationality: British
Resides: Hong Kong
Occupation: CNN Asia

5 favourite games: Mario series, GoldenEye, Zelda series, Winning Eleven series, SimCity 2000

4 favourite developers: Nintendo, Konami, Sega, Sports Interactive

3 pet game hates: Sloppy controls, poor physics (not unrealistic, poor -- floaty jumps, etc), gritty realism for the sake of gritty realism

2 all-time favourite systems: SNES, N64

1 industry idol: Shigeru Miyamoto

Favorite film: Being John Malkovich
Favorite album: The Joshua Tree, U2
Favorite magazine: World Soccer
Favorite book: Hitch-Hikers Guide to the Galaxy

Mini Bio:

Being born and bred in Hong Kong, Ravi grew up playing everything that was popular in Japan. So Nintendo kicked off the video game revolution for him, Metroid was a niche Famicom Disk System game, Super Mario Bros. 2 was unusual only by its extreme difficulty, and he's never touched an Atari console. Ever.

Despite starting out not too long ago in the highly objective and unbiased world of N64 fansites (ahem), Ravi does consider himself a lover of all systems -- with a special place in his heart reserved for Nintendo, of course. After such decidedly inauspicious beginnings he went on a crusade to pad his resume (and bury his painful past) with as many game publications as possible. He can currently claim to have written for EGM, OPM, GMR, IGN.com, GameSpot and Gamers.com, among others.

When he's not at work at his latest gig with CNN.com Asia, you can find Ravi either in the watering holes of his home, Hong Kong, or in his university union bar in London, where he studies for half the year. Apparently.

Famous last words: "Some people believe football is a matter of life and death, I'm very disappointed with that attitude. I can assure you it is much, much more important than that."

Daniel Jevons
CONTRIBUTOR
Nationality: British
Resides: Santa Monica, CA
Occupation: Executive Producer, Conspiracy Entertainment

5 favourite games: Ghouls'n'Ghosts, NiGHTS: Into Dreams, Street Fighter 2 series, The Legend of Zelda series, Super Mario Bros series

4 favourite developers: Nintendo, Sega, Capcom, id

3 pet game hates: invisible barriers, unsatisfying endings, games with more cut-scenes
than gameplay!

2 all-time favourite systems: Megadrive, DC

1 industry idol: Shigs!

Favourite film: Today it's Rushmore
Favourite album: Today it's Tenacious D
Favourite magazine: The Onion
Favourite book: Print is dead.

Advice to live by: "Praise and blame of the populace do not touch
the Atma, the reality; they can touch only the outer physical frame."

Yuzo Koshiro
CONTRIBUTOR
Location: Tokyo
Occupation: Producer/composer, Ancient/SEGA

Koji Aizawa
CONTRIBUTOR
Nationality: Japanese
Resides: Tokyo
Occupation: Editor in chief, Famitsu Xbox & Famitsu Dreamcast.

GMan
TOKYOPIA WEBMASTER
Nationality: American mutt (Hawaiian, Tahitian, Chinese, Portuguese, English, Irish and Dutch)
Resides: Tokyo
Occupation: Game Programmer, Designer and Dreamer (19 years and counting)

5 favourite games: Zelda: A Link to the Past, Zelda: Ocarina of Time, Boulderdash (Atari 800), Super Metroid (SNES), Doom (PC)

4 favourite developers: Miyamoto, United Gaming Artists, Nana On Sha, Artdink

3 pet game hates: music that doesn't fit (Wipeout 1, Spot goes to Hollywood, Linkle Liver), more movie than game (FFX, MGS1&2), lame ass stories (FF, MGS1&2)

2 all-time favourite systems: Super Nintendo Entertainment System. N64

3 industry idols: Yumiko Miyabe, Evan Wells, Mark Cerny

Favourite film: Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon
Favourite album: Overdose: Pizzicato 5
Favourite magazine: Boing Boing
Favourite book: Ender's Game

Mini Bio:

Way back when, before time began, in 8th grade in the late 70s, GMan's friend Greg showed him a 30 line program written in BASIC he had written and that asked some stupid questions about Star Trek and printout even less interesting answers but that was it. GMan saw the potential. From that day on GMan's new hobby was programming. Starting on Atari 800, Apple ][, Commodore 64, GMan and is buddies would hack their favorite games to put in really stupid graphics like changing the main character from the game "Rescue at Rigel" into a toilet or changing one of the enemies in Star Raiders to look like their high school math teacher. GMan likes to lecture, "back in my day we didn't have no stinkin hard drives, we didn't have no stinkin floppy drives, we had to read our programs out of magazines, hand type them in, debug our typos and then save them to cassette tapes and pray to the cassette tape god that the next day they would still load so we didn't have to type them in again! But by golly that's how we learned what made those programs tick. You young whippersnappers have it easy with your 100gig hard discs and your broadband internet and your GeForce4 cards." ;-p

Now GMan is working in Tokyo on some top secret game stuff wondering why oh why did he ever get interested in learning Japanese. He finds escape playing the latest games between eating tons of oden, bento dinners, sushi, drinking a gallon of tea everyday, updating his personal page (greggman.com) and starring at all the T&A around Tokyo.

Advice to live by: "Live with Passion!"

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