On the PlayStation games front, there doesn't seem to be that much that's new and exciting over there. Sure, I could have got some games a week before their release in the UK, but the only ones that really looked exciting I wouldn't touch with a barge pole. It would have been lovely to come back with a fresh copy of DewPrism, an absolutely gorgeous-looking RPG that's just come out, but the words "RPG" and "Japanese" are calculated to strike fear into the heart of even the most ardent gamesplayer. Japanese isn't an easy language to learn, and trying to read it is even harder with its three alphabets, one of which has thousands of characters.

A trip to the land of the Rising Sun is well worthwhile for the dedicated gamer, and there's plenty to see and do that's games-related. I haven't got the space to cover the Sega JoyPolis's that seem to exist in most major cities, nor some of the groovy Beatmania clones that have appeared, but don't bother going to the Sony building in Tokyo until after PlayStation2 is launched in Japan. I went, hoping for a glimpse of its blackness, only to be disappointed by a selection of standard PlayStations playing current releases. You couldn't even see their robot dog in action as Aibo was stationary behind glass.

Actually, one of the best games, and certainly the most realistic, was to be found in Toyota's metallic blue headquarters in Ikebukuro in Tokyo. If you have a valid international driving licence you can have a go on their simulator. You have to wear 3D glasses but you'll be sitting in a real car mounted on six hydraulic rams for the ultimate in car simulations. Even the PlayStation2 is going to have a hard job competing with that...