GameInformer Curbs Their Disappointment

Hello kids, I'm not fully motivated to type right now but once again, two GameInformer magazines are tossed on the table and I couldn't resist the urge to rip 'em again.  I have both the Dec. 2011 and Jan. 2012 issues.

But first, let me talk about the game covers.  The December issue has a Rainbow Six: Patriots cover, but that's not all.  Glued to the front cover is another "cover"that you can peel off.  This second cover happens to be an ad for the Spike Video Game Awards.  That stupid ass trophy of a monkey wearing a crown holding what appears to be a bong might as well be substituted for dog excrement.  Way to go GameInformer, just when I thought you couldn't stoop any lower.

What am I doing here???

Then there's the January cover showcasing this upcoming South Park game, complete with tons of photos and interviews with Trey and Matt.  Now, I'm completely indifferent to the show, but damn--since when did South Park become "down" with the gamers?  Ever since the World of Warcraft episode?  The Guitar Hero episode?  The Nintendo Wii episode?  Just like Spike TV or Mountain Dew--now gamers think they're hip cause they start advertising to them?  Sorry, I'm not buying.

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Now, it's review time!  First up is Need for Speed: The Run.  We all know The Run sucks.  So here's the GI review and it sucks even worse.  To spare you the pain, I'll quote parts of it:

Although The Run contains all of these constituent parts, it fails to execute or combine them in a way that is engaging. After I finished the game, I had raced across America, escaped the mob, and cheated death numerous times, but was left with relatively few postcards to remember the experience by.

My main problem with the game is that its cross-country trek simply contains too few highlights. The out-of-the-car moments can be counted on one hand, and when they finally do occur, the fact that they are little more than quick-time events dampens them as a novel gameplay experience in an otherwise foreign genre.

The racing itself isn’t boring, but it’s not novel enough in and of itself to make the game great – especially since it’s not being bolstered by the on-foot segments.

As much as the on-foot vignettes are a lost opportunity for The Run, I also feel like it drops the ball on the story as a whole.

Need for Speed: The Run is by no stretch a bad game; it just fails to capitalize on its chances. San Francisco to New York is a long haul, and it’s even longer when not enough happens in between.

Replay: Moderate

So let's play a game.  It's called "Guess the review score?"  Guess what it is:

A 7.75.  Personally, for me, reading this review without looking at the number, you'd think this would be somewhere in the 7 or less review.  Maybe even a 6.5.  It's almost as if Mr. Kato (the same dumbass extraordinaire who bashed OutRun 2) played the game, wrote down plenty of flaws, but at the last minute when it was time to write the final score, he chickened out a by a point or so.  Why would he do that?

Name recognition.  To him and many other mainstream gamer types, the Need for Speed brand is this glorious, fetishized object that they'll always respect, no matter how many crap releases Electronic Arts pushes every year.  So when they get to NFS: The Run, they play it and think "It's not very good" BUT they cannot will themselves to write down a score in the 6-ish range so they cut the deal and say "this game has problems BUT it's still a 7.75!"  Yeah sure, when the GameRankings average is 6.9, I buy it.

This is just like their previous review for Burnout: Crash.  Now we know this game sucks too but here's another quote from the GameInformer review: 

Despite these slight tweaks to the rules, the modes don’t feel all that different. After the initial hour or so, I started to feel the repetition setting in. You play the same intersection three times in a row, move on to the next one, play that three times, and so on. It really starts to feel like a grind as you try to plow through all the levels.

Replay: Moderate

They gave Burnout: Crash a 7.5.  See what I mean?  When they hear the name "Burnout," they piss their pants.  And when they find out a Burnout game just isn't very good, they weasel their way out of it with a short, non-helpful review with a few critiques to show they "care," slap a decent score on it, and they're on their merry way.  It's pathetic.

Oh, but reviews get even better!  GameInformer reviews Sonic Generations and gives it a 6.75 with a few choice quotes, here's some:

The result is a timeline that starts out strong and slowly deteriorates, serving as an apt history lesson for the struggling series.

 Unfortunately, the good times fade when Sonic begins cruising through 2D versions of levels from post-Dreamcast Sonic games. Traversing the burning ruins of Crisis City from the awful 2006 Sonic the Hedgehog reboot is an exercise in frustration packed with unfair drop-offs and annoying gales.

Sonic Unleashed and Sonic Heroes didn’t thrill me, and revisiting reworked versions only serves to remind me of how uninspired they are. Legacy issues, like wonky platforming and poorly communicated pitfalls, plague these later levels.

I felt smothered by Sonic Team’s insistence on shoehorning recent Sonic games, no matter how awful, into the 20-year timeline.

Concept: A whimsical trip down memory lane that ends in the gutter

 Replay: Moderately Low

I don't get it.  The only real critique behind the game is that it reminds them of bad Sonic games,  the controls "suck" again, and there's a few pits that you can fall in (news flash: a red warning sign appears in places you can fall to your death).  You moron, this is a COMPLETELY DIFFERENT GAME.  If ONLY the mere sight of levels/characters from a mediocre Sonic game makes you sick, then you're a complete wimp.  Stop reviewing Sonic games.

Also, I don't get how Sonic Generations gets a "low" replay value when all I hear out of games like Burnout: Crash and NFS: The Run with their "medium" replay value is the repetitive grinding as usual.  Sonic has plenty of side missions and things to unlock--does Burnout and Need for Speed have the same as well?

Seriously, Sonic Generations faired much better than NFS: The Run ever did (a 7.8 average on GameRankings), so what's the deal with this review?

See what I mean?  When it comes to NFS or Burnout, those are special icons they cannot part with.  Sonic, however, is expendable.  It's for loser Sega fans, nerds, little kids, furries, and people with autism.  The "cool" gamers don't care about Sonic so they're not afraid to rip the game although they couldn't come up with much to say about the game anyway other than the usual talking points..."uh, Sonic's dead to us so this game automatically fails."

I did say this before and I'll say it again--GameInformer is a magazine sold by retailer GameStop so what the hell do you think GI is going to say?  That these games suck?  No, they're going to soften them up and convince readers to run to GameStop to buy all these wonderful games.  It's no use to them to rate a game poorly (except Sonic since that'll sell no matter what since we're all "tools").  Either that or Electronic Arts & Criterion are paying off GameInformer not to rate their games so harshly which is likely the case too.

Other GameInformer reviews include: Modern Warfare 3 (9.0), Battlefield 3 (9.25), Skyrim (9.5), and Zelda: Skyward Sword (a perfect 10).  So their reviews fall in line with everyone else's.  What's the point of reading this magazine again?

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Oh, and one more kick in the ass for the road, on Page 50 of the Dec. 2011 issue, they run through a list of games of this generation you "shouldn't miss" from each genre.  Here's the racing games that you must definitely check out:

"RACING: You love the smell of burning tires and the press of wind against your skin, but nothing compares to the feeling of knowing that, at any moment, you could lose control."

Forza Motorsport series
Gran Turismo 5
Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit
Burnout series
Mario Kart series

I shed a tear at the guy's description but realized he's full of crap.  Really sad how this list has dwindled down to just this.  Forza is the only one that has any sense of credibility left.  Gran Turismo 5 is a heap of a mess.  NFS: Hot Pursuit is the only "good" NFS of this generation but even then, I think it's overrated and needed the assistance of both EA and Criterion to make it decent.  Burnout is Burnout and Mario Kart has Nintendo's blessing behind it.  It's the same-old same-old that you've heard for years and it makes me sick.  A shame that no other races have risen to challenge it.  OutRun 2, maybe, but no one cares about that anymore.  And Sonic didn't even get mentioned in the Platformer section, go figure.  Sega FTW!

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I can keep nitpicking about GameInformer but it is futile and petty.  GI still puts out some decent editorials although I obviously don't put a lot of faith in these guys.  But it's not just about GI, it's about the gaming media in general which tends to follow the same thought processes.  Now you know why as a Sega racing fan I can get so irate.

Daytona USA Reviews--Kill Me Now

It's worth mentioning I revised the Kyle Busch article to include the Ron Hornaday mutiny that occurred last Friday.

Ok, so Daytona USA has been out for two weeks and most of the "professional" reviews are in.  And most of them fall within the 8-9 range which is good.  You can see the list of reviews here.

Now there's really nothing amazing about any of the average reviews.  I can't go through them all.  They say stuff like, "It's Sega's classic arcade racer with funky tunes but it's nonetheless old."  Okay, I see what you mean.

But first, I would like to commend the website Gamestyle for giving this Daytona port a 10 out of 10, the only reviewer to do so thus far.

Wasn't a fan of Daytona in the arcade? Then don't expect any different here. That is the 1% dealt with. For everyone else, this port brings home the magic of the arcade version in the best way possible. Rose tinted memories are transferred to reality, both in terms of how the game looks and how it plays.

Well said.  How nice of you to bring up the 1% of people who don't like Daytona.  I would say that number is larger than that but let's deal with the heathens, shall we???  Descend into the abyss, if I don't come back in 15 minutes...just wait longer!

From a review site called HonestGamers which gave the Daytona port a 5 out of 10...

This is the best Daytona USA ever released for play at home.

BOOM, there you go, review's over.  If it's better than the Saturn, PC, or Dreamcast versions, then how come this isn't higher than a 5?  Let's continue...

And herein lies the trouble with Daytona USA. It’s always been extremely limited. A few cars, a handful of tracks, the choice between automatic and manual transmission, and four vantages points from which to survey the action. That's essentially it. Being able to take on mirrored versions of tracks or tacklekaraoke mode – well, those are just fleeting distractions. The sobering truth is that there's not much here, and there never was.

What a load of ass.  Let me say two things: one--this is an Xbox Live Arcade Title.  THESE KIND OF GAMES ARE MEANT TO BE SMALL!!!  HENCE THE TERM, "ARCADE"!!!  Two: come say this game is "lacking" to me.  Or my friends on GameFAQs.  Or the guys from Singapore/Japan/wherever who play the crap out of this game.  Cause it certainly ain't "lacking" to us.

What made this game a phenomenon in the nineties – besides the fact that in ’93 these graphics were considered slick and ahead of their time – was the ability for us arcade-going gamers to sit with seven drunk friends in aligned cockpit cabinets, hammering the pedals, locking the wheel into turns, jamming the shifter down to screech into straight-aways, all while we hoped that hot girls looked on.

This just seems strange to me.  This paragraph could apply to just about any lousy 90's arcade racer, like Ridge Racer or Cruis'n World (YES, I SAID IT).  Daytona was different because it was deep man...  They don't make arcade racers with that kind of handling and quirkiness anymore.  So for you to take that for granted is kind of sad.  BTW, ever considered buying a racing wheel for your 360/PS3 and inviting over the boys, girls, and booze for the "authentic" Daytona experience?

Daytona USA was an experience. And it’s the sort of experience that can never be brought home. Sure, we can search online for seven like-minded old school players to have a go, but that doesn’t come close. What might have come close, would be local multiplayer, so that at least you could invite friends over and split-screen race to your hearts’ content. Guess what? Local multiplayer is not available. Oops.

Like I said before, the game's scope wasn't meant to include local multiplayer.  Not to mention that Daytona is that heavy of a game that you wouldn't want to share the screen with another player.  Do you even have ONE friend you know in real life that plays Daytona USA?

It’s a shame, because there is a demographic of players who want simpler, easier to pick-up-and-play titles in the face of the growing complexity and luster of the today’s top racing games, but Daytona USA swings the pendulum too far the other way, and gives us extreme barebones action, which manifests a definite fun factor, but one that cannot be sustained. Especially not when you’re playing all by your lonesome. And remotely racing with whichever few strangers you can find on the Net is less consolation than you might think. At least the kitschy main theme can still elicit a laugh or two: Daytonnnnaaaaaa! Let’s go away!!

I tell you what--I'd rather pay ten bucks to play Daytona online with seven other people at home, even if it's just for ONE HOUR.  But no, we can play "forever." Try finding working 8-player Daytona setups in a real arcade, including friends.  Sega did the best job that they could to port this.  To say this game is absolutely gimped is disgusting.  Oh, it's also nice you tacked on an additional .5 overall to the score just for the "kitschy" theme alone.

I'm done with that guy's review--it was mediocre and it pissed us all off.  I've never heard of this website before nor will I ever hear from it again.

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I know this is paining ya, but there's MORE!!!  The Official Xbox Magazine scores this game a 4.5 out of 10...

Once upon a time, texture-mapped polygons, bare-bones drifting, and gradual loss of tire grip were enough to earn a cheering crowd, but those days have passed. Daytona USA might lazily scratch a nostalgic itch, but there’s little else to entice modern audiences.

Arcade mode’s three bright tracks offer differing course lengths, lap counts, and turn severities. You’ll slipstream behind opponents to improve acceleration and top speed, coax your car to just the right drift angle as you squeal around tight turns, and try not to slide into walls when your tires turn to mush. Now you can even rewind time Forza-style from the pause menu. If your car didn’t control with all the grace of a buttered concrete block, those features might be worth exploring.

Online multiplayer rekindles fond memories of linked arcade machines, and 30 brief challenges break up the solo routine. But clunky handling and crayon visuals are a harsh reminder of why we rarely visit with the ghosts of videogame racing’s past. Daytona USA was once a pace-setting leader; now it’s a museum-ready relic.

+ Rewind feature lets you correct mistakes; serviceable multiplayer; retro arcade simplicity.

– Jittery handling; just three tracks; irritating soundtrack only true fanatics will love.

– Smoothed textures and a steady framerate can’t mask its age.

? Why doesn’t it include local split-screen multiplayer?

And that's it.  I'm dead f***ing serious.  That's the whole review.  And it's going up in this piece of trash magazine.  "Official Xbox Magazine," my ass.  This review addressed NOTHING other than that the "handling sucks" and that "it has a rewind mode."  Nothing else.

The handling.  MY GOD, THE HANDLING.  Learn to play the G-D game, you nebbish.

Barebones drifting??  Give me ONE game in recent history that has a SEMI-DECENT drifting system.  No, there isn't one because it's all this "Formula-D" crap or "boost to gain nitrous" or some load of ass like that.  So, no dice.

Tires melting???  What the hell game mode are you playing???  If you play the regular arcade/time-trial modes, there's no tire wear whatsoever.  The fact that he harped on it more than once is just downright idiotic.  A better line would be "The Survival mode sucked," but no, the handling eternally sucks, the game is unplayable, etc.  Wtf.

Crayon visuals?  I'd rather be staring at Daytona USA than the dreary, generic landscapes of Split/Second or GRID.  I mean that times a thousand.

Soundtrack???  You kiddin' me?  You mention the words "Daytona USA" to any arcade connoisseur and the first words you get back are "Roooolllinnnnnnnggg  Sssttarrrttt!!!!"  People hate the Daytona soundtrack?  Where are these people?

"Rarely visit the ghosts of videogame racing's past?"  "A museum relic?"  Alright, bro.  F*** it, let's throw all old racing games in the trash!  All aboard the Need for Speed/Burnout train!  First of all, why is that, of all old games, RACING GAMES must be ignored but other genres don't???  We still play Mario, we still play Zelda, we still play Contra, we still play Street Fighter, we still play Doom, we still play Final Fantasy, but we CAN'T play Daytona USA.  Just burn all bridges to the past and replace them with a shiatload of production value, useless cinematics, and a trail of DLC.  What a putz, a pustule, a schmuck.

This reviewer is the talking ass.

Let me just conclude saying this.  What good does this review do?  We're talking about a ten-dollar XBLA title that'll probably be brushed under the rug within a month.  So you played the game for five minutes and didn't like it?  Why does it MATTER that this review's in the magazine or not?  I learned NOTHING about the game at all other than one (stupid) man's opinion of the thing.  Besides, you can always download the demo and try the game for yourself.  Who cares what this guy thinks when you have the demo???

Official Xbox Magazine...does anyone really care about this trash?  Like do you wake up in the morning, read gaming news on GameSpot, Kotaku, Reddit, Joystiq, etc. and see tons of wonderful media about OXM?  No, and that's because it's garbage so it needs to go away.  Not to the museum but to the dumpster behind the museum.  Then thrown in the incinerator.  Good riddance.

Oh, and I expect that there will be one intrepid reader out of a thousand who will say this.  "Eric, why do you trash games like Split/Second and Need for Speed when you've only played them for five minutes???  Isn't that hypocritical???"  Five things:

1. I play these games for more than five minutes.  As much as it pains me too, it's my solemn duty to do so.  I've plunked numerous quarters into Fast & Furious and I had a stroke.  So, never again, I said.

2. I write better reviews with MORE INFORMATION than these guys do.  Like if a game sucks, I don't say "the tires are made of butter," and then call it a day.

3. I'd like to think I have more clout on traditional racing game reviews than some guy who's only been reviewing games at OXM for just two weeks (seriously, here's the guy's profile).

4. I'm not getting paid to do reviews.  The other guy is.  So I do these reviews purely for my own respect and integrity.  Lord knows that this guy was probably shuffling through game after game to make a buck off of a few paragraphs he types down on the fly.

5. I'M NOT PUBLISHING THESE REVIEWS AS FACT IN A "RESPECTED" PERIODICAL THAT THOUSANDS OF GAMERS WILL UNWITTINGLY CONSUME AND REGURGITATE!!!

The irony of this whole situation is while OXM scored the game a 4.5, the UK version of OXM scored it a 9.0.  Its review is actually more informative and gave a nod to Daytona USA 2.  Thus proving that American gaming is dead as we know it.  Seriously, the United Kingdom is friends of Sega...we know this very much now.

An arcade classic and a reverential conversion mean that the definitive version of Daytona is finally available on XBLA. We can't wait to see which of Sega's spectacular arcade back catalogue will be next to receive the same attention. You know, Daytona USA 2 never got a proper home conversion either...

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Oh, and one more kick-in-the-ass for the road.  So, a few months ago, my mom unwittingly got another subscription of GameInformer the last time she went to GameStop.  Oh, God, no.  But I still read it anyway just to gain surveillance on the "enemy."  My mom brought a few of these magazines down to Florida when she visited so I scanned through them as usual.

They reviewed a game.  What game you ask?  Burnout: Crash.  Gave it a 7.5 out of 10.  I s*** you not.  EDIT: Forgot to post the link to the review so here it is.  I couldn't even get through this whole review before it came up with the blanket statement--"uh, it's good, just go buy it."  Love this line at the end:

Kinect
Crash also includes Kinect functionality for Xbox 360 owners, but I wouldn’t recommend this sloppy option. Hopping and stepping around replace the simple analog stick and button controls with disastrous results.

Wait, so using the Kinect with this game is BAD?  What about the commercial with David Hasselhoff and all the posers??  I thought the Kinect was super-awesome-fun??   Well, that's ONE thing Criterion did right.  See Sonic Free Riders...no standard 360 control, no dice.

And you remember way, WAY back when I brought up the GameInformer reviews on Burnout 3 and OutRun 2?  OutRun 2 got a 6.5 score.  Burnout: Crash got a 7.5.  That means that Burnout: Crash is A WHOLE POINT BETTER than OutRun 2.  Doesn't that make you want to kick a baby?

Oh, and God Forbid if GameInformer were to actually review Daytona USA.  They said that OutRun 2 was "an old man on Viagra" so what does that make Daytona USA???  A mummified corpse from the seventh century??  Forget about it!!

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EDIT: And there's another bad Daytona USA review I missed!!  This one is from a site called Thunderbolt Games.  Gave it a 5 out of 10.  It said "omg not enough cars & tracks to unlock" and "wtf no local multiplayer" but I already dealt with that.  Lousy short-ass review.  NO MENTION OF HOW "GOOD" THE CONTROLS ARE.  They also said this:

The Xbox Live play was decent, though it took me quite a few tries to find races to join. And it may seem a little nitpicky, but I hate it when racing games don’t give me an option to restart the current race from the pause menu. Overall,Daytona USA is a lazy port that could have offered players more.

Um, you CAN restart the race while in pause menu.  Press Y to restart, right next to the rewind button, another feature you forgot to mention.  Another garbage review, guy didn't even bother playing it for more than 5 minutes.  PISS OFF!!

Get out, you enemies of Sega.

BOYCOTT GAMEINFORMER MAGAZINE, SCREW BURNOUT

EDITED ONE TIME.

Hello everybody (again).  I own this old stack of GameInformer magazines some friend gave me back in '02-'05.  I remember reading the old OutRun 2 review that brought my piss to a boil.  And it'll do the same to you.  I'm bringing it back into the limelight for the world to see.

This is from Issue #140, December '04:

SCORE: 6.5

A DEPRESSING MID-LIFE CRISIS

The one thing that this game can't outrun is the past.  When we last left our hero in the arcades way back in 1986, he was cruising down the highway with arm candy in the passenger seat and the sun was in his hair.  Now it's 2004 and there is very little that's different.  In some ways, that's a good thing.

Good!  I'd like racing games to be about driving from point A to B because I enjoy living in a fantasy world, not strapping rockets to my car and destroying on-coming traffic and killing innocent people!

OutRun 2 is a fast-paced game that confuses no one.  Put your hands on the steering wheel and mash the gas.  But instead of feeling exhilaring, this title is like an old man cruising around in a convertible with some bimbo in the front seat.  And while OutRun 2 has some moments (when the Viagra takes hold) where it's "still got it," the game is pretty much past its prime.

Viagra, huh?  Don't you feel clever coming up with that?

OutRun 2 is based off the arcade cabinet with the same name, and it keeps the branching paths of the first.  Making your way through each of the five different endings of the game won't take you long, and this basic structure, while a nice homage to the original OutRun, isn't enough to prop the title up to greatness or even "pretty goodness."

First of all, it's a straight arcade port.  You can't expect a port to have a hundred tracks now, do you?  And what the hell's wrong with the original concept of branching paths, huh?  It's actually quite clever, don't you agree?  And not even "pretty goodness"--what does that mean, the graphics suck?

Instead, the core of this title is its speed.  It's not as rip-roaring as Burnout 3, but OutRun 2 contains some excellent camera work that helps amplify your sense of speed.  For instance, it'll pan back when you're going down a hill to give the feeling that you're really bombing the sucker at a devilish pace.

Yes, the speed is important to the game, thank God someone besides me noticed.

You'll also enjoy drifting through corners, a technique that is absolutely necessary in later stages of the tracks.

Love the great emphasis on the technical portion of the driving.  Makes you think this is like a Cruis'n game--just go through the motions, the game's easy, no challenge whatsoever!  Ask the professional arcade dudes what they think of it, like some of our mates like F40 or rjay...

Outside of the main arcade mode, the game asks you to perform 101 various feats for the approval of the demanding honey in the passenger seat.  Far from adding depth, this gets old because you're racing the same sections of track that you just beat in the main game.

I do admit that the Heart Attack modes are an acquired taste, but to dismiss them altogether would be an insult to the serious OR2 players.

There's even room for the original OutRun, but by this time, you've already lost interest and are ready to move on to a more demanding and engaging title altogether.  In all honesty, you don't want to play the original, as it'll only remind you how little was done with this sequel, even though it has the advantage of having 18 years to come up with at least one original idea--which it doesn't.--KATO

Let me say this--THIS GUY IS A DUMBASS EXTRAORDINAIRE!  How little was changed?  Are you serious?  The gameplay is SIGNIFICANTLY different than the original OutRun!  No more Hi-Low gear, actual manual transmission, licensed Ferraris, different diverse courses in 3-D, actually resembles a standard 3D racing game, et. al.

And another thing.  Why is it that every single racing game needs to reinvent the wheel, huh?  Why is it that with EVERY racing game you can change nothing at all--put whatever crap you want in it, Need for Speed, Burnout, Fast and the Furious, whatever, but because this OutRun 2 we're talking about, it HAS to adhere to its past and come up with new ideas or it's a bust?  Huh, why change up the theme (as opposed to gameplay)?  It is NICE to drive around in a Ferrari and feel like you're traveling somewhere!

Do tell Mr. Kato...what ideas would you have recommended for this game?  How about putting some chainsaws on the hood and running over innocent pedestrians while flying 400 MPH into the air...does that sound fun to you?

Concept: The only racing game where you get hen-pecked into doing well

Obviously this is an insult to us all.  It's a skill-less game, apparently.  Go play a Midway racing game, you toolbag.  Just drool at the screen...oh...FREE RACE IF I COME IN FIRST!!??  And you never come in first cause of the rubber-band AI.  But I drove so good back there too!!

Graphics: Delivers a good sensation of speed and is solid looking

How flattering.

Sound: Even with seven selectable songs (including those from the original game), your ears will shrivel themselves rather than withstand the abuse

Really, the sound is bad?  You fail to even mention it in the review!  Tell me what's better...Need for Speed with it's annoying rap soundtrack?  Burnout with all it's Ramones and punk/alternative crap?  And the sound...how's that bad too?  Once again, saying something is just bad does the reader NO GOOD, go into detail...

Playability: Drifting using the triggers feels super smooth and is absolutely essential to winning

Once again, let's quickly summarize the gameplay in one sentence without even BOTHERING to go into the depth of the game!  Let's just say it's only good for the nostalgia factor and that's it!  Not even worth playing for fun or for a challenge!

Entertainment: The arcade premise is what makes it fun, but it also holds this title back

Okay, so arcade racing games are crap now!  Not that good!  What about Burnout?  I didn't know Burnout was a sim racer considering how high you talk it up!  Get out of here!!

Replay Value: Moderate

To be fair, this was the first OutRun 2 home port so it only had the original 15 courses, but for OutRun 2006, that's another story.

Second Opinion 6.5: It's been an outrageously long time since this franchise made an appearance on home consoles.

So what if this is an "old franchise," it might as well be a completely new game for all I care!  In all honesty, I've played OR2 before OR1 so it's not like I was craving this nostalgia rush...I wanted a damn good racing game, that's what I wanted!!

Long enough, in fact, that OutRun 2 benefits from the nostalgia factor that all of us feel toward the experience, I swear, those ready-set-go beeps instigate a Pavlovian response deep within my soul to bash the pedal to the floor in the name of love.

Oh sweet, so deep down inside you actually DO like arcade racers, but really, what other games make you feel this way, huh?  Once again, relying entirely on nostalgia.  THIS IS A DIFFERENT GAME FOR GOD'S SAKES!

There are other arcade-styled racers out there that trump this game in graphics, soundtrack and physics; and for those reasons, this is a title living on nostalgia factor alone.

In other words, "Burnout is better."

I still really dig the flashback--but only for a few minutes.--LISA

Go back to playing Burnout or Motorstorm or whatever crap, you dumb broad!  Good riddance.

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Oh, and how did you know this magazine reviewed Burnout 3?  This one's from Issue #138, October '04 (two months before):

Yes, I already grilled Burnout many times before, like last week even!  I'm not in the mood to waterboard myself by reading through this whole damn thing, so I'll just pick out excerpts to show you how damn stupid this is: 

SCORE: 9.25 

Deep down inside, even the most humble of personalities have pondered the question "What would happen if I slammed the pedal to the medal and launched my car into that fuel tanker?"


 

Hmm...how about YOU AND OTHER INNOCENT PEOPLE DIE.  RED CONCRETE, BLAZING FIRE, AMBULANCE SIRENS, MASSIVE TRAUMA, PEOPLE IN COMAS HANGING ON TO LIFE, FUNERALS, AND GRIEVING FAMILIES.  Really, what the hell is this crap?  Isn't it a bit sick that we're glorifying such realistic wrecks in such a way?  At least it's comical in Outrun.  In Burnout, it's about as "gruesome" as it gets.

You know how these lawyers and politicians are going after FPS games for violent crimes?  What about Burnout and aggressive driving?  I'm not saying I wish Burnout got sued, but really, it's like everyone turns a blind eye on this stuff.

I also like how Mrs. Lisa above references the "Pavlovian response deep within my soul to bash the pedal to the floor in the name of love" as if she wanted to smash the Ferrari to bits above, but because "nostalgia" wouldn't let her do it (it's OutRun, not Burnout), she hated it.

As it turns out, Burnout 3 is a celebration of these reckless driving dreams.  It rewards players for swerving through oncoming traffic, applauds knocking opponents off of cliffs, and ultimately begs the question, "Just how much damage can one vehicle inflict upon a crowded highway or busy street?"

Great idea, Criterion!  Let's make a game that REWARDS players for losing!  The game's too hard to play?  Don't actually encourage people to race technically, just smash into stuff!

.....adxfgj,hffglij;oklkjhtgtrryhjjhgtgser.......... *shoots self*

You know what, that's it, I honestly can't go through any more quotes in this review.  I was so tempted at this point to post a picture of someone vomiting, but that's too disgusting--I won't let you guys see that.  I can't stand Burnout and I can't stand GameInformer.  DON'T BUY THIS MAGAZINE!!

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Hey, check it out, UK Resistance has already put up a piece mocking game reviewers and their inability to convey a good image of the game by taking piss-poor game screenshots.  Read it here.

Let me reiterate what I meant.  This isn't so much an attack on Burnout as it is the media.  Okay, so Burnout is crap, but at least it has decent production value although it completely misses the point with all these crashes.  But with the way these guys like those in GameInformer and whatnot who trash or completely ignore anything Sega puts out but loves everything else, I am going to snap.

I'm actually amazed that Sega AM2 and Sumo Digital have managed to produce more OutRun 2 games after this initial release in '04 because GameInformer's review wasn't that far off from the mainstream.  Game didn't sell too well at any point in history so screw it, it's all about Burnout nowadays...  We'll have to fight this battle without these guys.  THEY'RE DRONES, JUST IGNORE THEM...just let them sit in their underwear at home in their mom's basement...drinking their Mountain Dew...playing God of War and World of Warcraft and filling their breaks with Burnout....with the spittle on their chin while they're saying, "eehehe..Burnout..ehehe..look at this wreck...ooo epic-ness...heheh..."

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And now I end with one more thing.  This is from the book Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury, written some time in the 1950's.  I read this book in school which I'm certain many of you have as well.  It takes place in a dystopian future where books are banned and burned (no worries...we'll have Wikipedia and blogs until those are taken away too in the name of "net neutrality").  People are idiots who overdose on pills and watch multiple big-screen TVs at once.  Sounds awfully familiar.

In the first chapter, Guy Montag (the "fireman" protagonist) meets this innocent girl named Clarisse who says this about "school":

"It's a lot of funnels and a lot of water poured down the spout and out the bottom, and them telling us it's wine when it's not.  They run us so ragged by the end of the day we can't do anything but go to bed or head for a Fun Park to bully people around, break windowpanes in the Window Smasher place or wreck cars in the Car Wrecker place with the big steel ball.  Or go out in the cars and race on the streets, playing 'chicken' and 'knock hubcaps.'  I guess I'm everything they say I am, all right.  I haven't any friends.  That's supposed to prove I'm abnormal.  But everyone I know is either shouting or dancing around like wild or beating up one another.  Do you notice how people hurt each other nowadays?"

Just something to think about.  Good night.  After posting this entry...WOW, I feel good.