Sega & Midway Similarities: The Death Of Gaming Giants

I read a good article on SEGAbits detailing five reasons for Sega's recent woes and they are as follows:

1. Poor marketing
2. Poor scheduling
3. Terrible games from '05 to '08
4. Terrible Marvel games
5. Too many new IP's, not enough old ones

Right now we are all bummed out about Sega.  But I cannot get too upset anymore.  This is to be expected for Sega.  I'm hoping this is a cathartic stage in that they'll turn around, albeit they'll have nothing to show for the next couple of years besides Football Manager and a few more Dreamcast ports.  But you never know cause just when I think they couldn't be any dumber, they either totally redeem themselves or reach unprecedented levels of dumb-ness.  It's a game of Chutes & Ladders and I can't guess where they'll be in 5-10 years.

And now for your feature presentation...

I did some research on Midway (and Atari and Williams) Games a few months ago.  I should've brought it up sooner but now is a good time.  You see, Sega and Midway had a lot of common.  See this:

*  Both were old-school distributors of arcade/amusement hardware, including slot machines, jukeboxes, and eventually bona-fide arcade cabinets.

* Both had their own "League of Legends."  Midway: Ed Boon, John Tobias, Eugene Jarvis, and Mark Turmell.  Sega: Yu Suzuki, Yuji Naka, Toshihiro Nagoshi, Tetsuya Mitzuguchi.

* Both were prolific at arcade games.  Both had their own lines of fighting, shooting, and (lots of) racing games.  Mortal Kombat<->Virtua Fighter.  Maximum Force & Area 51<->Virtua Cop.  San Francisco Rush, Cruis'n Everything, Super Sprint, Spy Hunter, Hydro Thunder, STUN Runner<->Virtua Racing, Daytona, OutRun, look on the right side of the screen.

* Both were known for pushing the envelope in terms of edginess.  While Sega had Sonic, Streets of Rage, Toejam and Earl, and all that "Sega does what Nintendon't" bullcrap, Midway had Mortal Kombat, Rampage, Smash TV, NBA Jam, and NFL Blitz.

* In the turn of the millennium, both  got hit hard by the decline in arcades.  In '99, Midway stopped manufacturing pinball machines and in '01, stopped manufacturing arcade games altogether.  Sega also suffered the same fate but at a much slower pace (i.e. AM2 released OutRun 2 and Ghost Squad in '04, Sega still continues to make arcade hardware--Ringedge & Ringwide--though it's awfully underutilized).

* Both were "bailed out" by private investors following the arcade heyday.  In '03, American media magnate Sumner Redstone bought a majority of Midway's stocks.  In that same year, Sammy Corporation bought out Sega.

* Both their "League of Legends" bailed out to create new studios.  John Tobias left to create Studio Gigante.  Eugene Jarvis left to create Raw Thrills.  Yu Suzuki left to create YS Net.  Yuji Naka left to create Prope.  Tetsuya Mitzuguchi left to create Q Entertainment.

* Both lost a s***-ton of money & prestige during that period.  Sega obviously lost billions for years after the Dreamcast debacle.  Midway lost $115 million in '03 as they began shutting down studios, including Midway Games West and Midway Adelaide, that same year.

* Both published a ton of mediocre games since then.  In Midway's case, this included BlackSite: Area51, Vin Diesel's Wheelman and Psi-Ops.  In Sega's case, the Marvel games are a great example.

However, unlike Sega, Midway actually did go bankrupt.  In '07 and '08, there was a revolving door of higher-ups getting their asses kicked out the door.  In '09, Midway defaulted on its $240 million debt and crumbled into a million pieces only to be devoured by Warner Bros. for a measly $49 million.  At that point, Midway's stock were worth less than a dollar.  Rumor has it that whatever remaining Midway execs were devouring caviar and wine while "Rome" burned.

If there's any good news to be had post-Midway, it's that their franchises aren't completely dead.  High-quality Mortal Kombat games are still being produced by Warner Bros.  NBA Jam and NFL Blitz got remakes from Electronic Arts.  Hydro Thunder got a remake for Xbox Live.  And, love it or hate it, the Cruis'n games made a comeback in the form of multiple Fast & Furious games for arcades (including a terrible Wii port).

The good news is that Sega's "death" has been a much slower process, mostly because Sega still has Japan's support while Midway only had America to rely on.  I only hope that Sega learns from Midway in that they aren't eating the caviar while their company continues to die.  I think the changes  they've made says "Well, we know we suck but at least we're going to do something about it," which demonstrates more maturity than Midway ever did IMO.

Also, I was thinking about Sega and what we would do if they actually did perish from this earth.  Would it be THAT terrible?  All those IP's don't just disintegrate into thin air--they are still in existence.  Midway's prime IP's still get love today.  Who's not to say Sega's old IP's couldn't get the same recognition?  Maybe someone else will give Sonic their dues.  Maybe someone else will actually bring back Daytona.  Maybe Yu Suzuki will be able to make Shenmue 3 no longer bounded by the shackles of Sega-Sammy.

To be disappointed with Sega's death would mean to be disappointed that they missed the opportunity to return to "glory."  Yet clearly as of their condition today and the trends in game design it's very unlikely this'll occur even if they remain alive for a long time.  Everyone says that today's Sega is only a hollow shell of their former selves and will continue to be mediocre regardless of what happens.  I hope I'm proven wrong and that Sega and the fans stay resolute.  It's always great to remain optimistic but, as you've heard plenty of times, it's necessary to prepare for the worst.

"No society is guaranteed perpetual existence." - Mark Levin

Still we have faith that Sega will live and by God, even past the grave they will.

OutRun Accused Of Plagiarism???? TX-1 The Game...

I was browsing thru random racing game vids the other day and I came across this old game I've never heard before.  It's called "TX-1" which doesn't make any sense.  It was developed by Tatsumi (who's that?) and published by Atari in 1983.

...

Game seems innocuous at first.  Reminds me of Pole Position but with super wide-screen vision (16:5 ratio???).  You're driving this red F1 which looks like it was drawn in Windows Paint.  But then:

You come to a fork in the road.  Take left or right and travel to foreign worlds...

Oh, this fork is leading me into a tunnel...

And now I am in a completely different part of the world!

Now I am in yet another part of the world as you can see.

Now I am someplace else and I have ANOTHER set of crossroads!  Wait, crossroads--that reminds me of...

Outrun

OUTRUN IS A RIPOFF!!!! TX-1 CAME OUT IN '83, OUTRUN IN '86!!! WE'VE BEEN MISLED!!! THE SEGA LEGACY IS RUINED, LIFE IS OVER, DELETE THIS BLOG IMMEDIATELY!!!!!

SEGA NEVER STEALS ANYONE'S IDEAS...RIGHT???  HEY GUYS, I'M ON THE ROOF!!!

HOW COULD YU DO THIS!!!!!!!!!

--wait, OutRun deploys the 1-2-3-4-5 diamond, TX-1 uses the 1-2-4-8 elimination bracket, so it's not 100% the same thing.  Sega can snatch, grab, run like hell with whatever they want since they're Sega and they need every edge they can get nowadays.  Plus TX-1 looks like crap and OutRun doesn't.  So don't reach for that big red button yet.

Remember kids, don't drink & drive...

...and while you're at it, don't smoke crack.

Dayum, too much drugs, now I'm seeing s***.

Old Racing Game: RoadBlasters!!

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhh--that has to be in the top 10 best 15-second loops I've ever heard.

RoadBlasters is a 1987 Atari arcade game, a cousin to the infamous Super Sprint.  Frankly, there's enough parallax-scroller-racer games from this time as it is (OutRun, Chase HQ, Pole Position, Rad Racer) so the gameplay isn't terribly exciting.  But it adds car combat and other funky s*** to make it worth mentioning.

Like a Bau5.

DAYUM, that wheelie on launch is awesome.  So you drive what appears to be a twisted rendition of a red DeLorean time machine from point A to B.  But there's all this crap in the way trying to kill you!  No worries, every time you blow up, you lose a little gas.  Be careful cause the gas is your timer--when it runs out, it's game over (no kidding, right???).  Your gas carries over to the next stage.  You can pick up little green & red balls on the track to get extra fuel.  So basically, don't screw around or you'll lose.

So here are the enemies that want to kill you.  Shoot them with your guns to defeat them.  The yellow Lambos are weaksauce and die in one hit.  Then there's the purple limos that take multiple hits to kill--nice to see the evil corporate CEOs are actually out to kill you rather than play golf and drink exotic vodka.  Then there's your traditional oil slick, turret shooter, all that crap.

What the hell is this???  Motor bikes???  Ripped right out of Super Hang-On???  So you get to kill the poor bikers, that's cruel.  Of course, that was every racing dev's strategy in the arcade era--"Rip off Sega's ideas."

Occasionally, this weird-ass ship will drop a special weapon such as a machine gun or a "time bomb" that causes enemies to freeze in place for a few seconds.

You can play the game like a normal racer or you can shoot up enemies to get points.  Kill stuff to get super multipliers and thus even more points.  Cause of the emphasis on car combat and slightly unorthodox car handling (this car can turn on a dime just like that), it's hard to label this as a racing game.  More like an action racing game.  Who cares, you call it whatever you want.

Another screenshot, this game looks surprisingly colorful and clean for a post-apocalyptic car combat game.  I like that.  I like happy, colorful games.

Surprise--this is really a rally game....like Sega Rally.  If you enter the secret service menu, you can enable passenger commands like "Easy Right Maybe" in a crap digitalized voice.

Believe it or not, this game has 50 levels.  Just like Rad Racer and R.C. Pro-Am, when you beat a level, you move onto the next one.  There's a "level select" in which you can leap ahead to the 4th or 11th stages but that's it.

Man this cabinet was the s***, now you have to play this game.  The thing that stands out to me is the coin slot on the complete opposite side of the screen/steering wheel/motherboard...I don't know why.

When it comes to the best versions, the arcade and Genesis versions are the best.  But there's also worse versions.  Like the NES version (haha, NES sucks) which bears resemblance to Sega's Turbo arcade game:



And then there's the ZX Spectrum version.  Holy cow, I don't think you can get any lower in terms of ANY GAME'S ports than the ZX Spectrum:

Anyway, there's not much else to say.  If you beat Level 50 on the Arcade version, send in your score to Atari Games HQ and you win a free T-shirt.  Atari Games is dead so no more t-shirts have been made.  I have no idea what any of these t-shirts look like or if any of them even exist at all.  This promo offer also existed for S.T.U.N. Runner, another Atari race-to-the-finish-while-shooting-all-sorts-of-crap arcade game.  Print your own damn t-shirts.  Review Score for Genesis/Arcade: 7.0 just for the music.  Peace out.

Turns out there a ton of old 90's games tunes on YouTube (all copyright infringement!) but some are cool like this one which is still ingrained in my memory:



Also be sure to check out R.C. Pro-Am, California Speed, Initial D, Rad Racer, and Super Sprint/Super-Off Road/Indy Heat. 

The Next Generation Of Gamers

First, I would like to commend the Japanese women's soccer team (sucks that the US lost but at least it was classy) and Christian Lopez, the guy who gave back Derek Jeter's 3000th hit HR for free (even though he has college loans and taxes to pay).  Sports are an inspirational time...for some of us anyway.

But otherwise, this has been the most boring day ever.  There's a stunning lack of news on anything gaming-related.  I mean, I really am at a loss of words to speak about.  I watched part of Talladega Nights with Ricky Bobby and that's it.  It's a funny movie though (if you disagree, just shut it).

Yesterday's another story.  I went to the Northshore Square Mall again just to check out what's up.  Seeing as it's a Saturday, there's the usual crowd there.  There are plans to rework the mall but they won't begin until I'm way gone to Florida.  After I took a stroll and ate an Auntie Anne's pretzel, I sat on a bench by the fountain staring at the palm trees.

But I came up with something to talk about as I sat there and watched the kids throw spare change in the fountain.  And that is the things that I like are becoming more antiquated.

I'm 23 years old.  I think it's weird to think that the games I grew up with such as Goldeneye, Daytona USA, arcade games, regular old Gameboy, PC games that took multiple floppy disks, etc. are almost things that belong in a museum.  Games that made well with limited graphics and with split-screen multiplayer.  New franchises all throughout the 90's and the early 00's.  The hype for realistic graphics was greater than ever.

Now, I just don't know.  Kids play games like Call of Duty, Halo, Left 4 Dead, Burnout, Need for Speed, World of Warcraft and that's life to them (not saying these games are bad...well, most of them anyway).  The Facebook/Twitter/iPhone generation.  It's kind of strange, almost obnoxious, to see the kids grow up, never having played a Nintendo 64 (EDIT: Or a Dreamcast) or used a dial-up connection.  Like some of the magic was lost in transition.  Back then, you made it through with less.  Graphics weren't as good, but the devs made it happen anyway.  Like watching old action flicks without all the unimaginative CGI crap.  Nowadays, you just blow a big budget on some fancy hardware and 500+ man studio and half the damn planet buys it and everything is "good."

On the other hand, you can say you're older than I (preferrably over 30 years) and say you grew up with Atari, Game & Watch, text-based adventures, etc.  True, but more the reason to be annoyed by this current generation of games.

They say that the average age of a gamer, as of 2011, is 35 (which I admit is ridiculous).  If by gamers you mean the 70-year-old retirees who casually play Wii Bowling in their free time (which offset the angry 15-year-olds on Xbox Live), then I guess that flies with you talking heads.  Take a look at this GameFAQs poll on March 9, 2011.  Apparently, 14-30 year olds make up 90% of the GameFAQs voters.  That's your "hardcore" gaming base there--the ones most knowledgeable over decades of games.  Casuals don't "count" since they don't know as much as us diehards.

Speaking of which, how many kids know who Ralph Baer is?  You know, the "old guy" who essentially put video games on the map in the 70's?  Next time you meet a kid who thinks they know s*** about games, ask them that question.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that for the next generation's sake, us "veterans" of video games have to salvage what was once magnificent or dignified of our generation so we can tell others who will tell others and so forth.  Then maybe we'll get more "young people" on our side.  Besides, one of the points of history is so that people know what worked and what didn't (like the Atari market "crash").  I'm not saying that we should just throw out all technology and revert back to the NES era.  But maybe we can salvage a future of M-rated grey-scale FPSes, "everybody wins" hold-your-hand story modes, and other crap gimmicks like jumping in front of a TV to accomplish menial tasks...the kind of stuff kids are used to these days.

See Cracked.com's Top 5 Crucial Lessons I Learned From Watching Kids Play Games...which is basically play games that let you automatically "win," skip story/cutscenes/grinding, and blow up everything.  Well, they're kids--wait until they grow up and crave interactive movies in the form of games.  Games that involve blowing stuff up no doubt.  So apparently: convoluted story + big explosions = orgasm.

Thankfully, by looking at the older GameFAQs age polls (like this one from 1999), you see that the ages were much younger (13-24 made up 80%) so many gamers from the 80's-90's are still hanging around, ready to educate the young kids.  And we're getting ports/remakes/emulators of old games so you can't say these kids DON'T have access to old games...

Then again, this whole idea of the next generation being worse than this one isn't new.  Just trying to infuse some retro goodness in this generation, that's all.  The good stuff that is, not the dreck like all those games the Angry Video Game Nerd makes a mockery of.  Hey, we can use this new technology to our advantage (like, uh...this).  But even with this technology, things that were great (like video games) can turn to crap--like the Ozymandias poem:

And on the pedestal these words appear --
"My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!"
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.'

And as long as nostalgic gamers are around, at least the game industry retains a shred of credibility.  Otherwise, we are doomed.

BELIEVE.....

Every Version Of OutRun Imaginable...

Back in the 80's, the original OutRun was a big f'n deal.  So big that the game got ports for just about every console you can imagine...even consoles I never even knew existed.  For some oddball reason, each version of the game looks & handles differently purely because many of these weren't programmed by Sega themselves.  Here's YouTubes of every single version of OutRun right here with my immediate rating out of 5.  Please note if you're sentimental towards one version that I rated poorly, well tough break...

Amiga (2/5, mega crap right out the gate)


Amstrad CPC (2/5, the music makes me laugh)


Arcade (5/5, duh)


Commodore 64 (2/5, the VW Beetle dodging simulator!!  EDIT: Wait, no branching paths...-minus-1 point there)


Sega Genesis (4/5, still looks weird compared to arcade version but still very good)


Sega GameGear (3/5, lol, mini OutRun, oh yea!!  but only 10 stages tho)


iPhone (actually named Final Freeway, it's an obvious ripoff) (3/5, looks unique, tilt the phone to steer but it's not really OutRun so minus 1 point)


MSX (1/5, holy cow)


PC (NOT emulator) (4/5, not bad)


Playstation 2 (part of Sega Classics Collection) (4/5, the car looks weird but at least it's smooth driving)


Sega Master System (3/5, too quirky for me)


Sega Saturn (part of Sega Ages) (5/5, basically identical to arcade version)


Atari ST (3/5, basically the Amiga version but with snazzier music and a smaller screen)


TurboGrafx-16 (4/5, delightfully surprised by this one)
NOTE: Old video got deleted, this is the only one left.  Not like people are rushing to upload OutRun on the TurboGrafx so gimme a break.  I recall it being very similar to the PC version so nothing truly groundbreaking.



Sinclair ZX Spectrum (-1,000,000/5, ANOTHER mangled version of Splash Wave, worst port ever)

I think that's every version--if there's one or two I missed, let me know so I can add 'em.  And we haven't even touched on Turbo OutRun, OutRun Europa, OutRun 2019, OutRunners...geez.  Basically, OutRun games up the ass.  If only we could've pooled all the energy put into these ports into OutRun 3, that would be great.  I also complain about how overrated today's graphics are, but with those old graphics, no amount of gameplay can save it...

Oh, and don't think Daytona USA got off the hook. I may get to that sometime...I'm saving that for later.

Cracked.com Cracks Open The Game Industry (And I Reply)

Cracked is a good website if you want to read engrossing articles about nothing.  A lot of it is ridiculous but some of it I actually agree with wholeheartedly.  This is a remarkable article I alluded to before but now I'm going to be lazy and leech off of it for one of my post.  I scrapped my original write-up to this article so I'm doing it again here.

The 6 Most Ominous Trends in Video Games by David Wong.  TLDR:

6. Technology is going backwards.  First you had Pong on the Atari which was revolutionary.  Then you had Wii Bowling which was a nice improvement.  Now motion control games haven't improved as you wave your hands in front of the TV like an idiot (especially Kinect).  The Wii U and PS Vita are basically iPhones/iPads which are nothing new either.

5. "Big Brother" online servers are ruining gaming.  Can't run some games without hooking up to a server, including single-player ones (see Starcraft II).  Security measures are horrible.  Also hackers and poor maintenance are proving this point even further since when Sony's server went down, everything went to hell.

4. Many video games promote endless playability by grinding for items (see any MMORPG).  Even worse, you have to pay for perpetual online subscriptions, cheat codes, additional single-player addons, basically things you never had to pay for except in the last 5 years.

3. Creative bankruptcy.  Almost all new games are sequels.  Most obvious are FPSes like Call of Duty: MW3, Battlefield 3, and Crysis 2 which are strikingly similar in nature.

2. No real vision for the future.  First it was make games look realistic, which we've done already.  Now it's make a bunch of $1 apps, crap motion control games, and other awkward gimmicks (Nintendo 3DS).

1. We don't even know what a game is anymore.  First it was "get a high score," now it's split into many different "art" forms--largely interactive movies with limited replay value, mini-games that involve decorating a landscape for s***s and giggles, etc.

And if what I wrote was still TLDR, then let me TLDR that for you...Today's Video Games SUCK.

------------

Well, let me reply to these and throw in my three cents right now.

6. I can understand the hate-on that everyone has for motion controls.  I don't like the Kinect either--I've already made that clear before.  Now these motion controls are starting to seep into my beloved racing genre.  But the majority of the industry seems to be clear of motion controls for the time of being.  I'm playing Rock Band &  Call of Duty without the Kinect so this is a completely exaggerated point, right???

If you haven't known already, Microsoft has spent over $500 MILLION on Kinect advertising (Fun Fact: at $150 a piece, MS has to sell 3.33 mil Kinects to break even on the $500 mil benchmark alone).  You can tell MS is trying to ram this thing up our ass.  As a matter of fact, I hear the new Forza & Halo games are going to incorporate the Kinect somehow.  And as for the Wii U?  Well, everyone already pissed themselves over that already...remember, this is NINTENDO we're talking about, everything they produce is GOLD.  Disregarding more motion control crap, I can't imagine playing with that big-ass iPad controller which hardly looks comfortable.  So in other words, we're closer to this motion control "utopia" than we think.

5. Big online servers, heh.  Remember back in the PS2/Xbox/GameCube days when you didn't need an online server for permission to play a game?  Eh, those were the days.

While I am not familiar with DRMs and that madness, I've already talked about online servers being the life force for games and how they're rigged to blow.  I already talked about OutRun Online Arcade, which'll be removed from XBL at the end of this year and you can't play it again.  I also talked about MMORPG's.  I also talked about Halo Wars and Call of Duty!  Basically, once the server disowns the game, you really can't play it anymore.  I could go on but I'm not gonna repeat myself even further.  I really do like this quote for the Cracked article, sums it up perfectly:

Imagine if every time you drove your car, you had to first check in with the car manufacturer to confirm that it's you behind the wheel. Let's say that this relies on an Internet connection, and if the connection is down, you can't drive.

4. Eh, I don't have a problem with DLC if it means getting tons more content than normal (Rock Band songs in particular), but I see how things like cheat codes and already-on-disc content are really getting in the way.  Elements of the game completed before release but were held back for monetary gain.  Basically anything they can charge money for, they'll do it.  Hey, I like capitalism and think they have the right to charge whatever they want but there's only so much that I'm willing to pay.  That's why I'm such a scrooge when it comes to gaming--I only maybe play a few games and that's it--screw the rest and their media hype...

3. I don't have that big of a problem with sequels as long as they add something new or refine gameplay that we've come to love, but I do have a problem with all these damn gritty FPSes and fantasy adventure/MMORPG's.  I've already talked about game violence and how its prevalence is driving me nuts.  I'd much prefer a new Daytona game which, even though it's a sequel, is much more refreshing than anything else that these devs have put out nowadays.  Anyway, don't have much to say about this though this quote SUMS UP MY THOUGHTS PERFECTLY: 

This here is why all of the innovation in games seems to be about going backward, simplifying instead of pushing the experience further. They are trying to lower the barrier of entry for gaming as a hobby, because they don't know where else to go with it. So I guess what I'm saying is that one thing is becoming clear ... 

2. Basically a repeat of #6.  When game companies who think technology sells & gameplay be damned push faster and faster, then they reach the end and then we do get tons of random crap.  Then at this point, dollar apps become the norm and it's all about watering down games in order to make everyone feel "involved."  The only really good thing I see about dollar apps is that now anyone can be a game designer--you don't have to be part of some 500-man game studio with a $50 mil budget (read what I said).  Ridonkulous...

1. I really hate these games that are trying to be like movies more than games.  Need for Speed: The Run and all these FPSes.  I'm anything but a movie buff so this really pisses me off.  But I still think this point is being a bit harsh since there's some good movie-based games that actually have some variation, like Shenmue and LA Noire.  But yeah, I do long for the days where ACTUAL GAMING TALENT was a necessity rather than the ability to click a few buttons and then you're now a certified "Gamer"...

Conclusion:  The above quote in #3 really sums things up perfectly.  Back in the 20th Century, gaming was sort of a "reclusive" activity--like only nerds and miscreants would play games.  But it was cool because we got a lot of classics that still make us smile...Super Mario, Goldeneye, Zelda (yeah I admit), Sonic, DAYTONA USA, everything by Sega in its glory days, and so forth...

Nowadays, everyone loves games.  Gaming studios are getting bigger and pushing better graphics and new gimmicks.  Well, I believe that if things become too popular (in this case, gaming) then they are crushed under their own weight.  Now that gamers have become "accepted" into society, everyone wants to join in. Everyone wants all this crap like movie games with state-of-the-art graphics, motion control skill-less games, etc. so what you get are well...a lot of soul-less products pushed merely to sell tens of millions of copies and everyone eats this junk up like we're pigs at the trough.

I've already mentioned this before so I'll do it again.  As an aspiring game developer, I almost think I have to play politician and not offend everybody...like I'm supposed to say "Oh yeah, MMORPGs and mindless racing games like Split/Second are okay."  If I get in as a programmer, then I'm basically a hired mercenary--tell me to make something, I'll do it and I get paid.  If I go around trashing something, then that's going to cost me a job.  Simply put, I gotta make money first and foremost.  How many game devs do you see pushing blogs about how much this sucks or that sucks.  Not many--the fan can rant cause he has nothing to lose...

I almost think I was born too late.  Ugh, sorry if this article was too pessimistic.  I'll get to Sega Racing Stuff LATER.

Top-Down Racers: Super Sprint, Super Off-Road, Indy Heat

Alright, I remember fooling around on MAME years ago and playing these games.  Now these racing games are different than your usual arcade racers.  You gather around the standard arcade cabinet which has three steering wheels and pedals.  Yes, you can play three players at once.  Racing is done from an aerial view, kind of like Super RC Pro-Am but you can see the whole track at once.  Whip that steering wheel all around--it can rotate infinitely!  You get to keep playing until you lose to the AI.

I was fascinated with these games when I first saw them.  I mean, this was WAY BACK, before I even knew about Daytona USA.  This was back during my Cruis'n USA days.

There was a Super Off-Road cabinet at an old skating rink nearby.  I assume it's gone now.  My mom would chastise me for playing it because we went there to skate, not play games.  Mothers don't understand anything.

Also, I remember playing Super Sprint in an arcade a long time ago at this huge "amusement park" with carnival rides, go-karts, putt-putt, bumper boats, and a train ride.  It was called "Fun Time USA" and it was in Biloxi or Gulfport, Mississippi.  It wasn't a five-star establishment, but whatever.  The place was obviously killed in Hurricane Katrina.

But anyway, here's five games.  This is me playing on a computer.  Again, this is on a MAME emulator (I think ver. 0.62, I was behind at the time) and you can probably download these games too if you so feel like it (not giving out links but here's a good start).  Because these are recorded on an emulator, the game speed may be a bit off from the actual game.  I don't expect you to sit through the whole thing since each video is quite long, but I just want you to check it out:



Super Sprint (1986) : By Atari Games (Midway).  You can drive the red, yellow, or blue car.  Now I really like these Micro Machines-esque Indy cars.  You pick up wrenches on the track (2 per race) which allow you to buy upgrades (default: 2wrenches = 1 upgrade).  When you crash and burn, a helicopter drops you back on track.  Lol, Burnout!  I always found this game intriguing...

This game saw a home port which was nowhere near as good as the arcade version.  This one's for the NES.  I always thought the graphics of the arcade Super Sprint were damn good back in 1986...

Believe it or not, there was a prequel for this game called Sprint, back in 1976.  Oh man, you can only imagine what it looked like...





Championship Sprint (1986): Also by Atari.  It's identical to Super Sprint but with only two players instead of three (red & blue cars).  The tracks are different and you can also choose to upgrade the chopper speed (which sucks), ha.

Recently, this game got a Playstation Network port so go ahead and download it if you want.





Ivan "Ironman" Stewart's Super Off-Road (1989): This and Indy Heat are made by Leland Corporation, not Atari.  Whether any ex-Atari employees were involved with this game, I'm not sure.  Drive on dirt and catch big air!

There's some differences from Super Sprint:  1. You can't explode.  2. You have a turbo button adjacent to the steering wheel which will give you a boost of speed.  3. Instead of picking up wrenches for upgrades, you win races to earn cash.  Cash is spent in between races on upgrades and stuff.  This includes turbos--run out of turbos and you obviously can't turbo no more...

Fun fact: If you put in extra credits, you get more money to upgrade your truck with.  Doesn't really change the fact that the AI can always keep up with you :)

The women make this game a little rugged if you know what I mean...however, you can change the dipswitches to go from bikinis to dresses.  I didn't know that at the time of this recording, I swear.

Like Super Sprint, this game got home ports (many more in fact).  Like this one for the SNES.  Later, Midway would hijack the namesake and make their own Cruis'n-esque game called Off-Road Challenge.  What happened to Leland by then--I don't know.  They fell off the map around 1993.





Ivan "Ironman" Stewart's Super Off-Road Track Pak (1989): Basically, the same thing as the original Super Off-Road but with different tracks and the ability to select a dune buggy instead of a truck.  Oh man, I loved that dune buggy.





Danny Sullivan's Indy Heat (1991): This is a spiritual sequel to Super Off-Road, also by Leland.  The gameplay is the same but instead of trucks, you get Indy cars.  Not bad, not bad...kind of like the original Super Sprint, but radically different.  You buy items, use turbo boosts, and run tracks in a specific order (unlike the random selection of previous games).  I find the tracks incredibly detailed--take a real life track and condense it into a cartoonized image, very clever.

This game has one unique feature not in Super Off-Road...the mandatory pit stop feature.  At least once a race, you have to pit or else your car will run out of gas and you'll putter along.  Also, you can crash and catch on fire which is the same as running out of gas--pit or else.  You can use turbos while wrecked which can bail you out in a pinch.  A funny feature--you can ram into someone while pitting and force them to leave early with less fuel.  You see a cartoony figure of a flattened man when this happened (see 2:26 in Part 1 below).

This game also has stripped-down ports for the NES and the Amiga.  Surprisingly, the NES version was capable of up to four players which was kind of cool.

In this video, sometimes the music glitches up and goes away occasionally.  Not sure why it does that.  Also I put in extra quarters before the race and buff my car to the max...who cares, this is to speed things up a little.

Part 1 Tracks: Phoenix, Vancouver, Indianapolis, Long Beach, Detroit, Pocono, Cleveland



Part 2 Tracks: Meadowlands, Toronto, Michigan, Lexington, Elkhart Lake (Road America), Monterey (Laguna Seca), Denver, Indianapolis (12 laps instead of 8)



SQUEALSQUEALPOWSQUEALPOWPOWSQUEALBLUEPITSQUEALPOWPSSHERKQUEALSQUEALPOWPOWPOWSQUEALPOWSQUEALPOWSQUEALPOWPOWSQUEALANDTHEWINNERISDANNYSULLIVANSTEAMHANGYOURHEADINSHAME

There's one more top-down game worth mentioning that's made by the creators of Super Sprint.  It's called Badlands.  It's three players driving around in minivans shooting guns at each other in a dreary backdrop.  I don't find it appealing in the slightest, but I guess it's worth taking a look at if you're interested.

Conclusion: These are unique little games but with one flaw...the AI is so damn cheap, it ruins the game.  You can't go four, maybe five or six races, until the AI goes into God Mode and you can't win.  Period.  No really, in Indy Heat, look at Michigan (2:00 Part 2).  Danny does not pit ONCE and you can see him going into "Juice Mode" around the 5th lap.  So screw it.

...speaking of which, you notice how EVERY game that offers you a free race for coming in first always has rubber band AI?  Yes, I'm looking at you Cruis'n/FnF games.  Makes the game feel gimmicky and cheap.  I mean, take Daytona USA.  No free races, but if you win, you know you did something right, not exploit the system.  Anyway, just a casual observation.

NOTE: These games still aren't as good as Sega racers, sorry. 

 It's ok, Ivan's still cool with it!

If you like informative posts like this, check out my writeups of California Speed and Midway Corporation (in general).

Racing Contributors Informative List -- Why Sega Is Number One

1/14/11: Moved this article to its own page in the green taskbar on the right; click here to read it.  Very intriguing.

California Speed -- Garbage With REDEEMING QUALITIES

Well, everyone knows about Midway (they're long gone now).  The Cruis'n series was Midway's bread-and-butter racing series.  At first, there was Cruis'n USA.  Then they expanded their sights larger and made Cruis'n World.  Then they decided to "up the ante" with Cruis'n Exotica which covered more intriguing locations not covered in the prequel.

However, let's focus on Atari Games.  In 1996, they were consumed by Midway.  Atari Games was renamed to Midway Games West to avoid confusion with regular old Midway.  Atari was responsible for some old school games like Paperboy, Marble Madness, S.T.U.N. Runner, Super Sprint, Hard Drivin', Gauntlet, Area 51, and so forth.  Read more here.

But Atari isn't the main focus of this article.  It's about California Speed.  You see, while Midway was cooking up Cruis'n games, Atari was cooking up Rush games (SF Rush, Rush 2, Rush 2049).  Now IMO, I think the Rush series is far superior to the Cruis'n series.  However, Atari, seeing what their Midway brethren had done, also felt the need to get their hands dirty and make their own Cruis'n style game and they called it California Speed.

Supplemental Material: San Francisco Rush N64, Cruis'n World N64.

Why not California?  The largest state in size and population in the continental US.  Highest and lowest altitudes in the continental US (Mt. Whitney and Death Valley respectively).  It has the 7th-10th largest GDP in the world.  Its population also consists of 7.3% illegal immigrants, voted heavily Democrat in the last 20 years, and in San Francisco, you can't buy Happy Meals with toys anymore.  What else do you need to know...

So while Midway was going BIG, Atari was going SMALL.  The state of California packs more action in it than most of the world combined.  And for the most part, they're right.  Along with big cities and noticeable landmarks, California Speed contains plenty of crazy courses and environments in it, such as supercomputers, roller coasters, shopping malls, and so forth.  Midway only started to up the ante with Cruis'n Exotica and by then the "crap racer" genre has already overstayed its welcome...

In retrospect: Cruis'n World was released 1996 (arcade) and 1998 (N64) while California Speed was released in 1998 (arcade) and 1999 (N64).  I'm not even going to talk about the arcade version since it sucks IMO (mostly because of the music).  This one's entirely about the N64.

However, despite the "praise" I give to California Speed, lest you forget this is still a mediocre racing game only exceeding the Cruis'n series in certain aspects.  The handling and graphics in California Speed is awfully similar to that of San Francisco Rush--like Atari just took the source code, ripped it to pieces, and tried to make an awful Cruis'n clone.  I think that the Cruis'n games have sharper visuals and you'll notice Rush's blotchy visuals and sparse detail in selection locations will come into play.

Which one has the better sense of speed is debatable.  California Speed cars top 180 mph while Cruis'n World cars average 150 mph although the latter allow higher speeds due to upgrades.  You make up your own minds there.  Either way, I think both games' sense of speed is rather dry so neither is too spectacular IMO.  I know that California Speed has the longer courses of the two, clocking in at over 2:30 while Cruis'n World's last around a mediocre 1:45 per run.

In California Speed, your car is much more glued to the road, you can't explode, you can't do stunts, and you can't even flip into the air.  At least in Cruis'n games, you have to avoid contact with other stuff and turn on a dime.  In California Speed, there is relatively less interaction with the game as you generally cruise forward dodging occasional traffic.  In one old review (IGN's if I recall), they described the game as a "one-finger game"--that you only need one finger to succeed and that is hold the gas and that's it.  You can bounce off everything and you can't fail.  On the other hand, the AI cars are way too stingy and will ride your ass the whole way unless you don't touch anything, so that's weird.

But regardless, let's get to the game footage, which I find fascinating for some reason.  The car selection is rather bland, but it has some funny as hell cars, like a golf cart or a forklift.  Also, the music in the N64 game just kicks ass--I can't explain why, but some of it is damn good driving music.  So here we go:

Los Angeles:

Drive down interstate, through an aqueduct, then through Beverly Hills.  Pretty standard stuff but the music is AWESOME.  I also love how the guy destroys a tree at 2:17 and doesn't lose any speed whatsoever.

Santa Cruz:

This track starts of normally then it's blandness continues for a while until you start driving on a roller coaster.  Holy crap.

Monterey:

Drive along a beach (the water doesn't slow you down at all WTF), then through an aquarium (Scud Race Underwater Tunnel!!) and then along a golf course.  This game knows no bounds.

San Francisco:

A fairly decent replica of San Fran with the hills and the row houses.  BTW, you don't just drive on the Golden Gate Bridge, you drive UP the sides.  You can see some elements from the old Rush games here, such as the sneaky subway tunnel.

Yosemite:

BOY, this stage has a TON of elevation changes.  Otherwise, just your normal outdoor stage.  Flopping through the river and trees and whatnot.  Not a big fan of the New Age Techno, but it does sound like Rush 2 music to me.

Central Valley:

Well gee golly, if this isn't the greatest banjo pluckin' I've ever heard.  The music changes to some sexy disco beat in the mall.  DAMN, this is the world's longest mall--must be 5 mi / 8 km long.  You could actually "hit" sprite people in the arcade version, but not here.

San Diego:

JUMP THE BORDER WOOHOO!  You drive on aircraft carriers and stuff.  Yo, look at this dude in the golf cart at 1:50 LOLOLOLOL

Mojave Desert:

You drive through a desert, a military base, then into a large UFO.  It's stupid but I love this damn song for some reason.

Mt. Shasta:

Wow, the volcano level.  You'll see that a lot of out the wilderness areas in this game are relatively similar (just trees and crap) but then you enter that volcano which looks like Red Mountain from Sonic Adventure.

Silicon Valley:

This is the big supercomputer level.  This one's pretty cool.

That's about it in terms of tracks.  There's also Highway 1, and some other crap bonus courses like Fuji Speedway (although that's in JAPAN), San Andreas fault, and a small replica of California.  There's also Laguna Seca and Sears Point, but I think those are only available in the arcade version.  You do your own research.  Overall, the game sucks and has nothing on Sega who was busy kicking ass with Daytona USA at this point in history (1998-1999), but it shows that some other developers out there "have it" when it comes to making crazy racing games.  So adios, amigos.