NERD ALERT
Unless you’re an uber-dork like myself, you probably aren’t familiar with the world of videogame importing. Nintendo, Sony, and Sega have never enjoyed Americans playing Japanese games - oftentimes, the Japanese versions of videogames have bits and pieces deem inappropriate for American audiences, but the more common reason why people import videogames is because, quite simply, the title isn’t available in the states.
In the early days, lockouts were physical limitations on the hardware itself; different sized cartridges between the Nintendo, and it’s Japanese counterpart the Famicom, acted as a natural lockout. This quickly ended when some nerd smashed open a Nintendo game to discover it simply incubated a smaller Famicom cartridge. This led to people ripping open old copies of the American Metroid to insert Japanese titles that never came here, such as Super Mario Bros. 2
(Note: The game Americans know as Super Mario Bros. 2 was called Doki Doki Panic in Japan. The original game was deemed “too difficult” for American audiences, so Mario skins were grafted on the characters on the Arabian-themed Doki Doki Panic. Bullshit.)
When CD-based gaming came into light, regional lockouts were encoded like DVD players in order to keep players from importing. However, these could be circumvented with a modchip - a bypass mechanism which needed to be sautered to the system’s motherboard. This was a warranty-voiding process that was complicated, but chop-shop style import stores would charge you 60-80 bucks for the process, plus the chip. This had some additional side benefits - with a modchip, you could play burned, pirated videogames. Nintendo kept locking out players with internal cartridge size mechanisms, which were easy to surpass. (However, all of Nintendo’s portable systems could play Japanese games without any modification.)
Ironically, the only big-ticket game I imported was a Japanese copy of Panzer Dragoon Saga - which was available in the United States for the Sega Saturn, but drastically underproduced. Modchipping was also the only way I could play review copies of videogames sent to me by publishers, back when I wrote for a videogame Web site during the dot-com boom at the ripe old age of 15. Needless to say, the Web site died.
To my knowledge, nobody has “cracked” the next generation of videogame systems to figure out how to violate their region lockouts and piracy protection. But a few days ago, I discovered a rather surprising move made by Nintendo.
Back when the Nintendo 64 was dying a slow death, a Japanese game company called Treasure released a game called Sin and Punishment for the system. It was a last hurrah, and Japanese-based critics praised the game as one of the best - if not the best - for the system. The game had sharp-as-hell graphics for its time, as well as Treasure’s trademark - a control scheme so fucking natural it felt absolutely neurological. Moving your character is accomplished with the face buttons rather than the D-pad or the analog stick. Yeah. Wrap your head around that one.
But it worked. And it was glorious. And American gamers were stuck with two choices: cry, or import the thing for $100+. And seeing as I didn’t have a Nintendo 64, I let the idea die.
Last Sunday, I fired up my Wii. I clicked on the Virtual Console to see what games were added.
Sin and Punishment. 1200 points. Seven years later. Cue fist-pump.
I couldn’t believe it. Nintendo also included the aforementioned original Super Mario Bros. 2 (although it was released in the US as Super Mario: The Lost Levels as part of a package for the Super Nintendo), sending import fans into a frenzy.
I soaked up Sin and Punishment for a few hours and I’m still not finished. If you’ve got a Wii, buy this game. It is the best shooter on rails of all-time - no questions asked. And there’s nothing better than blasting the hell out of hordes of aliens while figuring out how to avoid getting smashed by a gigantic tidal wave of blood.
Hmm. Maybe that’s why this game wasn’t localized the first time around.


