Awana

Surprise – Yakuza 6: The Song of Life

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Came home from the Awana Awards Ceremony at church, last night, and collapsed on the couch. I’m not sure what it is about Wednesday nights, maybe its the going from work directly to church, but I find it exhausting. The worst part is that I’m super tired and wired up after playing with the kids. Enough whining though.

Once things settled down, and I put Wyatt to bed, I collapsed on the couch once more. Firing up the PS4, I aimlessly searched for a game to play. Not sure about you, but I often sit down with the intent to play something and can’t make up my mind. I then end up watching videos on YouTube or some show on Netflix. But last night I noticed a demo I had downloaded awhile back, Yakuza 6: The Song of Life.

The game demo begins with a cold shower of story told through cutscenes (more like a story flood). Eventually, Yakuza 6 led me through a quick fight tutorial followed by another dousing of cutscenes (I’ll be good, I promise!). The whole game, so far, amounting to a crash course in all things yakuza told through superb Japanese voice acting. I was surprised that I had somehow missed this action-adventure series; delighted at finding a new genre at the video game buffet.

From what I played last night, Yakuza 6 follows protagonist Kazuma Kiryu as he attempts to find out what happened to a woman named Haruka. The game features an open world that mixes exploration, conversations, and full blown street brawls into a tasty dish.

I played for over an hour in a tired daze. Drinking in the sights, sounds, and detailed world (complete with vending machines) of Kamurocho.

Yakuza 6: The Song of Life is not what I expected. I had expected to play the game for a few moments and then delete it due to mature content. But instead, I found a thoughtful adventure game mixing story with fighting and cinematic flare.

I’m still not done with the Yakuza 6 demo, but I will be back. Ready to kick some butt and find out what happened to Haruka.

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Don’t Pull That!

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For those of you who do not know, I am a games director, at church, for a Bible verse memorization program (Awana) we have. Over two 30 minute sessions, I get to play all sorts of crazy games with the kids.

My Goal: Tire the kids out while having fun.

Last night, our schedule was a bit different. The kids are singing during the worship service on Sunday. Which means they needed time to practice:

  • Song cues
  • Hand motions
  • And becoming acclimated to standing on stage

Due to the practice time, game time was going to be reduced for the evening. The kids were scheduled to head out to the outdoor playground after worship practice. My wife, who runs the Awana program at church, told me I had the night off.

I ended up driving out to church anyways. Figured I could help corral kids and be there just in case it rained (we had a 40% chance) to run game time.

All was going well, I arrived early and ate dinner with Tabitha. We were sitting there talking when the fire alarm suddenly went off. A prerecorded voice told us that there was an emergency and that we needed to evacuate the building.

Turns out, a little kid pulled the fire alarm that is conveniently located on the indoor kids playground; the fire alarm that is right at kid height. With strobe lights going off in tandem with the alarm, I found myself Googling how to shut off a pull alarm. Turns out you need a special key.

In the midst of all of this, my pastor, who was supposed to be teaching, was having to deal with the alarm company. I ended up taking over for him in talking to the alarm company so that he could return to teaching. The gentleman on the phone guided me to a closet, where the fire alarm’s central panel was located. There I found two wires that were not connected to the battery that powers the fire alarm system. The alarm company told me that in the process of the system trying to reboot, that it tried to reboot/use power from the battery, somehow unplugging the wires. Plugging the wires back into the battery, I restored the system, and thus saved Jurassic Park.

Did I mention that the volunteer fire department sent a member over to check on things? Apparently he lives across the street. He was telling dispatch that he didn’t see any smoke coming from the church and that there were lots of cars in the parking lot. I’m thankful that he came over to check things out… and cancel the fire trucks that were about to be dispatched.

Once the alarm was shut off, I walked into the Worship Center to listen to the kids sing. On the way over, I noted that it was now raining outside. Great.

We ended up having a shortened game time. Lots of running around and screaming inside our kids worship area. It was crazy but helped the kids burn off energy as the barometer fell.

I’m thankful that none of this happened on a Sunday morning. While the lighting effects from the strobes might have been cool, the overall alarm would have killed the worship vibe.