Happy Easter Driving Updates

Alright, so...we're back.  Happy Easter and have a great day.

Let's cut to the chase--there's a couple of reasons why I've been posting less.  The main thing I've been at work for a month already.  It's a 9-hour workday (includes the 1-hour lunch) in a office with a bunch of nerds floating about.  I'm adding new features to the game but just last week, I've had to play the role of that guy who needs to find the needle in a haystack--basically, solve an easy chicken-shit problem that takes days worth of trial and error to crack and every passing hour puts your job security even more in jeopardy.  I'm kinda bummed out about work now but I'm hanging in there.  Only a matter of time before I get the experience to work at Sumo Digital, I pray to God...

And even worse is that there's really nothing going on Sega-wise...  We got The 90's Arcade Racer plugging along without me.  I'm still bitter about that.  Then there's Sega All-Stars Racing which is getting a patch to fix all the bugs and the difficulty issues but that doesn't change the fact the game has devolved into talking about two things--glitches (they're still at 'em) and tier lists.  The mystery DLC character hasn't been revealed yet and still, if that's the only extra character we'll ever get, that's a bit of a letdown IMO.  Then there's the Supermodel emulator which has basically stalled (Bart's getting a Doctorate, give him a break).  And, well...it's up to me to pull things outta my ass now.

There was also a rainstorm in Orlando which was a 30-minute hurricane that descended upon my house...really strange cause there was a very tiny red blip over where I was.  Huh, okay so it's worth posting about.

But anyway, it's really the little things now that get me by these days.  Like driving to the airport to pick up a friend while accelerating around the terminal blasting AC/DC and Metallica.  God forbid I drive 10 MPH over the speed limit but it was good fun to pretend to be a NASCAR driver.  Then there was this--on a simple trip up the road to a Checkers drive-thru, I drove through a verdant wavy part of International Drive by the convention center, near the Dave & Buster's I visited twice already.  And what I experienced was rather wonderful...

I wish I saw more happy things like this in my racing games.  More trees, more colors, more fancy architecture, more blinking signs (like those in Scud Race and Daytona 2 that flash "3 LAPS TO GO"...why don't they have those anymore???).  And how funny is it that I'm near the place that inspired the Sega-AM2 crew to make Daytona 2 as colorful as it is.  Check out the Saturn Magazine Interview with Makoto Osaki and how he mentions going to Daytona International Speedway and then Disney World & Universal Studios (on this page).  I'm so close to where this magic happened and yet I feel like all these game designers are trying to beat me down.  It's like...people don't even try to make their racing games feel good anymore--it's basically "let's make it as gritty realistic as we can and drown out all the fun."  Boo, hiss, go away bad game designers...

On the other hand, Eutechnyx may not be as bad as we thought...

But one more thing, I was on my way to work one day when I found this fun-tastic van next to me.  Tell that Aggressive Appliances of Orlando didn't take AGES to get that good, did it...???

Want to talk about the NASCAR stuff going on (like Joey Logano who "killed" Denny Hamlin) and other garbage later.  Like THIS:

NASCAR The Game 2011 Is Screwed Up, Rofl

Ok, no more April Fool's jokes.  I tried to make it believable but I highly doubt anyone fell for it anyway.  And that would be cruel if it were real.  I don't want anyone to be rushed to the emergency room.

But alrighty then, about NASCAR 2011.  Well, let's see how Eutechnyx did.  Well, this is a long-ass video from Giant Bomb.  Jeff Gerstmann and Ryan Davis (who kissed Split/Second's ass so they lose credibility for that alone) try it out.  I know this is a long ass video so you can just skip around if you want. WARNING: Profanity

NOTE: About this video, just wait for the video to load a bit before you skip around. Don't drag the dot to a dark grey spot or the whole streaming process screws up.



For the record, if you go to 29 minutes, you see Pocono Speedway which is the inspiration behind Daytona USA's tri-oval Beginner course, amazing!!  Of course, Pocono goes in reverse (sharpest turn is Turn 1, not 3).

EA Sports: It's Not In The Game...HAHA, I read this from some YouTube commenter.

...but yeah, so there's nothing from the game that's dramatically different from previous NASCAR games.  Just cars cruisin' in circles in that usual stoic manner.  I would've liked if they injected a few Sega "adrenaline" aspects into the game, but clearly they were going for realism so flying at 180 MPH isn't the most exciting experience there is (check out Days of Thunder if you want to go 270 MPH in a stock car)

There's a few nice things.  The cars leave windtunnel lines to display drafting zones which is a nice touch.  The HUD and damage models look better than previous stock car iterations.  You can also customize your car's design as well, but to what extent I don't know.  Would like to get the Hornet or the Phantom in here you know but I doubt it will be possible.

But this game, as of now, has two backbreaking glitches.  WARNING TO ALL PEOPLE PLANNING ON PLAYING THIS GAME: IT WILL KILL YOUR STEERING WHEEL PERIPHERALS!  No really, let me reiterate, if you plug in any kind of steering wheel and use it, apparently the force feedback will fry the wheel within a short period of time.  This is being talked about on the official forums!!!  EDIT: Another link.  Wow, a game destroying a peripheral...now that is sick.  You may be able to avert this mutiny by disabling force feedback, but I wouldn't know for sure.

Hey, assuming I lost a steering wheel to this game, do you think they would give me a replacement?  Or am I screwed?

The second problem will not cause damage to your hardware, but in theory it could make you raged enough to do the damage yourself.  Online play is so glitched up right now.  I mean, look at this.  Tell me this isn't tragic.  WARNING: SOME PROFANITY  (These warnings are getting really old BTW.  Only posting them so GameFAQs won't label my blog link as NSFW.).  Oh yeah, THIS IS NOT MY VOICE.



Wow, now all the yellow flags and the peeled-apart cars.  Hard to keep a straight face on this.

But wait!  There is help on the way.  Check out a patch fix list coming soon.  A laundry list I might add.  Good strategy guys-- release a buggy game now, patch it later.  It's the new "in-thing" in game design--all the cool devs do it.  Well, at least I commend Eutechnyx for trying to fix the game.  Standing ovation for Eutechnyx for putting the NASCAR license to good use!!  Bravo!! *teary eyes*

Unfortunately, there aren't any official reviews of the game out yet.  If it's glitch-free, it can probably get 8.5 or better but now it's gonna piss a lot of people off.  EDIT: Wham--6.0 on GameSpot.  Some people have already talked about selling the game. The reviews will come soon anyway so I can post 'em later.  I might buy this game it turns out to be actually good so I'm holding back a bit.  Take it back to the garage for some fine-tuning.  Okay, I am done for now.

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.

OutRun Online Arcade Removal A "Legit" News Story Now

http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/30919/End_Of_Ferrari_Deal_Pulls_Segas_OutRun_Online_Arcade_From_XBLA_PSN.php


http://kotaku.com/5662675/an-outrun-game-is-about-to-be-terminated

It's really kind of funny now how my friend isamu noticed this about two weeks ago, yet now it's official news.  Then again, it's not like people cared about this game until one person leaked this, then they jump on the bandwagon.  So we're sad that ORA is only available for Xbox 360, but it gets worse.  The Xbox 360 version will be removed at the end of 2011 because of an expiry on the Ferrari license.

And do you want to know WHY this is happening?  This Eutechnyx developer is making another game called Ferrari: The Race Experience which is killing OutRun 2.  Isn't that great?  So basically, this Eutechnyx company, responsible for such gems as 007 Racing and Big Mutha Truckers, gobbles up the NASCAR (and thus the Daytona) and Ferrari licenses, thus screwing Sega twice.  Geez man, this pisses me off.  No new Daytona game, no new OutRun game.  EDIT: Ok, so the Daytona license is overpriced but not exclusive but come on, two games mirroring Sega classics back-to-back...it's just weird how this company breaks out all of a sudden with this kind of stuff.  I find it somewhat intimidating...

Of course you could still release these, but you have to use these crappy generic logos which would really be a burden on the games IMO...  Like if I see a Daytona/OutRun game with these phony baloney generic cars like in Split/Second, it would irritate me very much.  If they can make the cars look exactly identical to the originals, then maybe not so much, but still, it may be copyright infringement if you copy the original designs anyway.

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Now about this news story.  The main reason why this is reported is because it's another instance of digitally-downloaded content being removed forever.  Like Paperboy, Root Beer Tapper, and other Midway games.  I've already touched on that before--this isn't new.  But it does make you think, all these GREAT arcade games and downloadable content (like Rock Band songs) you can download from servers, it's such a wonderful convenience!  Until it gets removed from the server forever and then it becomes a relic of the past.  You can't just run to the store and buy a hard copy of these games.  We saw this back when the original Xbox's plug was pulled, and now I'm worried about stuff like Perfect Dark.

There's no guarantee that Microsoft will get rid of this stuff any time soon, I mean, unless they want half the gaming community to riot.  As a matter of fact, if I were a game developer who watched my product disappear into thin air, I would be PISSED.  Let me repeat that, PISSED.  Games like Limbo, Braid, and Castle Crashers are in harm's way too.

This is just evident of how the game industry works.  Release a game, then kill it about five years later, only to be replaced by the next cool thing.  I don't like it, I don't like it at all.

Now you might say, "So what, these new games will be better than the old ones!"  Really?  There's no guarantee!  Let me give you a good example--Tony Hawk's Pro Skater.  The old ones were great (2, 3, 4, Underground), but after that, the series went to crap.  So there is no guarantee that the new ones are good.  Or even worse, what if there is NO sequels to be heard of?  Some games off the top of my head are Advance Wars, Star Fox, Monster Rancher, DAYTONA USA, I could go on.  Now these aren't digitally-downloaded games--you own hard copies of these (thank God), but if they were downloaded, then that's another story.

I think I'm blowing this way out of proportion, but who knows.  Five years down the road, this could be a damn big deal.  I think the way to at least alleviate this somewhat is to make all content free and available to transfer from console to console, but Microsoft's stupid policy of prohibiting games not purchased by the original account just gets in the way.  So that's great, you can still have the game on the hard drive, but you can't play it.  You can't "prove" that you were the original owner because the servers are down forever.  I hope MS does something about this, but I don't think so.

...........

But now, back to OutRun 2.  It kind of pisses me off that the fact that we won't have OutRun 2 is secondary to the DLC issue.  So no OutRun 2, now some people are running to its defense, shedding tears.  Which is good, but where were these people back when the game was released?  These are the same people that IMO either A. didn't play the game at all or B. played the demo, but went back to playing Burnout afterwards.  Like take a look at this comment from Luke Plunkett of Kotaku:

So it's an Xbox 360 exclusive! Well, not really. The Xbox 360's exclusivity is temporary, with that version scheduled to be removed from Xbox Live Arcade in December 2011. After which, the game will just be...gone.

Which is a damn shame, as I loved it. Blue skies, fast cars, big drifts...it's a fantastic racer. Or should I say, was a fantastic racer.

I don't know.  It's flattering so I do have to give the guy credit.  But come on people, I'm not buying all of it.  Besides, this game's still available on the PS2/Xbox (with more content I might add) so are you going to go out and buy that too?  At least this news will increase ORA sales a little which is good to see this game get some exposure again. 

Anyway, that's about it.  Of course, you should go buy ORA if you haven't already.  It's just 800 MSP ($10) so if you don't get it, you're an idiot.  Plus not to mention that the PS2/Xbox OR2 games are about $5 in bargain bins at GameSpot so that's a great deal too.  Goodbye.

NASCAR: The Game CONFIRMED! Bad Daytona Days

Remember how I talked a week ago about Activision picking up the NASCAR license for a supposed "new" racing game?  Well, that's not entirely true, but it's pretty much as clear as day now.

http://espn.go.com/espn/thelife/videogames/blog/_/name/thegamer/id/5630221/nascar-revs-video-game-return-eutechnyx?readmore=fullstory



Check out this excerpt:

Then just last week the rumor mill heated up once again about a possible deal between NASCAR and Activision. From what everyone was saying, the deal was already signed and NASCAR and Activision were ready to drop the big news any day. But as it turns out the rumors were only half true.

In reality, NASCAR has signed on to an exclusive new multi-year, multi-game deal, but they chose video game developer Eutechnyx -- creators of "Big Mutha Truckers" and "Ferrari Challenge" -- to sign the deal with, not a publisher like EA or Activision.  Activision is involved, but they are acting as the distributor for Eutechnyx's game, entitled "NASCAR The Game 2011."

This is a key distinction, enabling NASCAR to be more hands-on with the game's development thanks to partnering with a company that specializes in creating racing games, rather than signing blindly with Activision for the sole sake of dollar signs and letting the publisher decide who develops the franchise.

So basically, NASCAR License = gone for several years.  No chance of a "Daytona USA" comeback.  At least Activision isn't gobbling it up, that was just a rumor.  Apparently Eutechnyx can handle this all by itself.

JUST TO CLEAR SOMETHING UP: Having the NASCAR license and the Daytona license are two different things.  It's just inferred now that if Eutechnyx has the NASCAR license then they'll have the Daytona International Speedway license too which means presuming the DIS license is exclusive, then Sega can't use the Daytona name.  So NASCAR leads to DIS leads to Daytona USA...you get what I mean by NASCAR license.

SOMETHING ELSE: Even if the Daytona license isn't exclusive (and I hear it isn't from others), then it would probably be too expensive for Sega to afford...so either way, Sega's in a pickle.

But the strange thing is that there's already gonna be a NASCAR game in the form of GRAN TURISMO 5...the question is will GT5's NASCAR be superior to NASCAR THE ("Official") GAME??  So why are they making the same game TWICE?  EDIT: Cause GT5 only has 12 cars on the track at once, that's why.

Further instincts might say you know what, this company apparently has the guts to try something "new" with NASCAR considering their wonderful lineup of past racing games since they can't "out-sim" GT5, but it's looking pretty bleak if you read later in the interview.  This is Ed Martin, Executive VP of Eutechnyx in the US of A:

...There are tens of millions of NASCAR fans and plenty of them have video game systems. So how come NASCAR video games haven't penetrated that market as far as an NHL game or a baseball game? We really believe that's because the games haven't been approachable.

There have been times where there were "over-the-top" games like "NASCAR Rumble" and even "NASCAR Kart," but there is a real disconnect there because those games don't represent the real sport. You can't go off too far off the path. At the same time, you can't get too sim-y. We want you to jump right in and have fun. The thing about Eutechnyx, this is our 24th year, and we've done nothing but racing games for 24 years. This is a company with a rich history of creating great driving games. If you turn off all the assists in our NASCAR game, this is a very real -- as close as you can come to a simulation on a console -- but at the same time, with the assists turned on, this is a very fun, approachable game for the common NASCAR fan.

Of course though, when it comes to NASCAR and Daytona USA 1/2, they aren't even close (obviously in terms of physics/driving), but also because Daytona USA never outright references NASCAR or uses actual cars, tracks, etc.  Therefore, Daytona USA fans are never really NASCAR fans or vice versa so basically Daytona USA = a piece of meat to these people as far as I'm concerned.  Also, Daytona USA is made in Japan and as we all know, the Japanese will butcher anything American and we can't have that.

I think though that Daytona USA 1/2 would have great "approachability" to the general public.  Fun and unique, it had great audio, sense of speed, intensity, etc.  If not, then what OTHER stock car games could you make that people would buy?  The old NASCAR sims were unimpressive or unpopular, EA was just phoning it in apparently, "NASCAR is boring lololol," and these weirdo Mario-Kart-like games didn't stick either.  Really, riddle me this--what do actual NASCAR fans think of NASCAR '09 or all these sims?  Weren't they already satisfied or is this gonna be the "glorious return to NASCAR" that everyone will love?   I don't know, I don't see NASCAR games being pushed any further outside of anomalies like Daytona USA.

So the guy's gonna return to the sim genre but make it a little more fun...doesn't sound new.  Just trying to drum up a bit of support against GT5.  My main concern is this--how will this game be that much different than, say, NASCAR by EA or NASCAR Thunder for the PC?  Or is there all this hype because there wasn't a NASCAR game in more than one year?

Apparently, everyone's new mission statement is "Don't do what Sega has done," and just make a NASCAR game devoid of any Daytona USA aspects which I guess is what's going to happen.  But really, if you want my advice...TAKE THIS PAGE FROM SEGA'S PLAYBOOK...make the game intense.  Add great audio, music, control, sense of speed, you don't even have to put drifting/powersliding in it, just channel out all the ADHD-filth from Burnout/Split-Second and make it a PURE RACING GAME!

But it doesn't really bother me that much what these guys do.  Obviously, they're gonna go for more NASCAR authenticity than GT5.  If they did try to go the Daytona USA route just a little, they would probably muck it up and I wouldn't like it.  Do whatever you want, doesn't bother me.  I'm rambling incoherently now.  I just want to get all my ideas out there now so I'm gonna stop.

In the meantime, expect the NASCAR The Game website clock to countdown in the future (Oct. 4) and we can learn more about it then (as if there were any other surprises...I'm not holding my breath).

http://www.nascarthegame.com/

UPDATE: According to the site above, NASCAR 2011 will be a pure racing sim.  No surprise there.

NASCAR License Goes To Activision

http://kotaku.com/5648264/report-nascar-coming-back-under-activision

Why, if we have to make the Daytona USA game without the "Daytona" name then we'll do it.  But it doesn't help when Sega misses out again, especially since EA was sitting on the name for years.  Not like I'm that surprised by the news.

ADDED THIS: According to the article, the license is being used by Eutechnyx, this racing dev that was responsible for such classics as 007 Racing (remember this?), Big Mutha Truckers, Pimp My Ride, some Hot Wheels game, and Street Racing Synicate.  We can all sleep well at night knowing that the Daytona name is in good hands.

http://www.gamefaqs.com/features/company/12789.html

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Oh yeah BTW, this is my long-time friend isamu's emulation cabinet...he plays Daytona USA on the PC Model2 Nebula Emulator.  So check it out.  It's quite an expensive cabinet (over $4000).