Inquiring About The Public's Opinion Of SEGA...

As I sit here mulling over the bowl of cereal I don't have because my family forgot to buy some, I got to thinking about our dear friend SEGA once again.  You see, brand recognition and popularity is what helps keep companies in business.  So this leads me to ask this vital question...

Do you think Sega is "cool" anymore?

Where does Sega go on the Cool Wall?

Top Gear, telling you how it is since 2002.

Now.  Some of you will say, "Well of course Sega is cool!  They made some kickass games!  Who cares what people think of Sega?"  You're sorta right.  Us Sega hipsters got this little circlejerk going on and screw what anyone else thinks!  But it is IMPORTANT what other people think of Sega.  Sega cannot survive alone cause of a couple of fanboys on the Internet, they need a portion of the Average Joe gamer demographic to run out and invest in their stuff too.

See, that's what I mean about being "cool."  The term "cool" as in "genuinely interested in their products."  Being cool is important--it's how crap pop music, TV, movies, and video games manage to be relevant despite lacking any original content or substance at all.  Being "cool" is neither a good or bad thing--it's like handing off the baton or being "King of the Hill."  You gotta reach out and grab it somehow.  Sega was cool back in the 90's!  Sonic the Hedgehog!  Game consoles!  Arcades!  Kickass!  People loved that stuff.  But nowadays, everyone has written off Sega as a decayed corpse as they flock around the Western developers--FPS, RTS, adventure, MMO's with "realistic/grungy/shockingly depressing" hi-res graphics.  In other words, the complete antithesis of Sega! :(

This whole "cool" topic came about reading this compelling article about Nintendo and violent games' places in the marketplace.  Basically how the concept of "family entertainment" that Nintendo has relied on for so long has eroded over the last decade.  Think about it....what are the most popular games these days?  Call of Duty, Grand Theft Auto, Halo, Gears of War.  Games with copious profanity, violence, and (some) sexual content.  They sell Halo and GoW toys in kids/family stores though MS/Epic shrug at the thought of directly advertising violence to kids.  Case in point, these games have claimed the "cool" mantle.  Realistic, gritty games are in vogue, clean happy games are out.

How did this happen?  You can name many reasons.  Kids look up to teens/young adults for what is cool--adults play violent games, so do kids.  The concept of a "family" has diminished--we spend less time face-to-face and have high numbers of single parent households therefore.  We've conditioned ourselves to violence and the "Jackass generation" that we hardly flinch at the idea at our of kids disrespecting each other.  I'm not a sociologist so I won't pursue the issue longer but look at this point mentioned in the article--55-60% of parents do not check nor do they even care about ESRB/PEGI ratings.  This is ridiculous.

But don't get me wrong...I'm not blaming violent games for society's problems, nor am I saying you can't enjoy these games yourself.  But these kind of games are adverse to Sega's M.O., plus don't you get tired of people realistically shooting, stabbing, blowing each other up?  Why is it that whenever anyone unveils a non-violent, colorful game, it's a cringe-inducing kids title, a shameful freemium game, or both?  Also would you let this kid play Call of Duty?  There's thousands of kids like this every day.  Boy, violence is good for them!

EDIT: This YouTube video makes another good point about game popularity--YouTube Let's Plays.  Nintendo has been vigilant in the past about taking down any YouTube gameplay videos.  Other companies, notsomuch.  I'm not a Let's Play watcher but I can see what they're getting at here--YouTube clips are basically free advertising and Nintendo better accept that soon.

And what does Nintendo, Sega's last ally in the war against gray skies, do about it?  SUCK AT EVERYTHING!  The Wii was a success cause they advertised it to that core young-adult demographic and did a great job with the motion control stuff.  Now the Wii U gives us some awkward gaming pad and is advertising itself to...little kids?  I swear, I saw a Toys R Us commercial last Christmas with little kids harping on a Wii U sales deal.  Is THIS the game console that the mainstream demographic (18-35 year olds) going to buy?  Especially with its outdated graphics and same old games from last generation?  I'm not a graphics junkie but at least Sega's new releases were top-notch technology (i.e. Scud Race/Daytona 2 being years ahead of the N64/Playstation).  Seriously, the 3DS is the only thing keeping Nintendo alive.  I still don't know how Pokemon remains relevant as ever these days, especially since all I hear from Pokemon nostalgists is bitching about how perfect Pokemon Red/Blue/Yellow was (news flash--there were "bad" Pokemon in that game too) but shit, if it makes Nintendo money, then great.

Nintendo is a company I want...no, NEED to succeed in order to establish "balance" against Sony and Microsoft.  Now they are throwing their arms up and open for acquisitions or mergers?  RED FLAG!!  The fact Sega has hooked its anchor to Nintendo's sinking ship (in the form of Sonic games exclusive for the Wii U) is suicidal.

You want a kids console?  Buy a V-Tech.

Now, time for a pop quiz!  Get out a sheet of paper and writing utensil.  Write down up to five things that you think Sega has done that was "cool" at any time in its history.  You have thirty seconds, now....GO!

...

Time's up!  Compare your list to mine.  If you're like me, you've probably written down a list of things like this:

1. Sonic the Hedgehog!
2. Expertise in home consoles!
3. Expertise in arcades!
4. A backlog of vibrant blue-sky games that made fun the primary focus!
5. A brash, edgy marketing campaign!

Now, let's run through this list and compare them to the Sega of today.  Home consoles?  Sorry, Sega put the kaibosh on that in 2001 so let's cross that out.  Arcades?  Those are dead in the West and the only stuff we see are mediocre and never live up to the 90's so cross that out too.  Blue-sky games?  HA, please spare me, Sega does the bare minimum to keep their legacy from eating dust by releasing sparse, straight ports of their games to cash in on nostalgia from the fanboys so let's cross that one out.  Brash?  Edgy?  Name for me ONE bold thing that Sega has said or done.  No "Sega does what Nintendon't" or Sega screams.  Almost all of Sega's official advertising is done through their online blog site as they cut and run like a scared puppy.  So cross that one out as well.  So what does our list look like now?

1. Sonic the Hedgehog!
2. Expertise in home consoles!
3. Expertise in arcades!
4. A backlog of vibrant blue-sky games that made fun the primary focus!
5. A brash, edgy marketing campaign!

Yes, it's true, love it or hate it, Sonic IS Sega.  Sonic is the only thing that Sega has going for it...the only thing Sega hasn't given up on in the last 22 years, even dragging the franchise through the horse shit that was the post-SA2 era.  Seriously, just listen to the first forty seconds of this Giant Bomb video and you'll see what I mean.  "Sonic" = "Sega"  I'll probably talk about this in a Part 2 next time cause I'm tired and have gone on for too long, good night all.

CLICK HERE TO VIEW PART TWO.

Group Think In Video Games?

Hello everybody, I've been busy with school lately (as usual).  I've been tired but my Super Sprint game is coming along nicely and the only time I have to "think" about blogging is before I go to bed so here goes.

I've been thinking about this for a while.  It's about video games.  I notice that when it comes to gaming (particularly multiplayer), a few games get the most attention of all.  And I can think of a few....oh, Call of Duty?  Halo?  Battlefield?  World of Warcraft?  Starcraft?  Etc.

That's not to say these games are bad but let's think about this for a second.  People nowadays are madly social.   It's why we have Facebook, Xbox Live, and all these rave clubs where people get drunk and rub up on girls/guys they want to date.  So you're some cool dude and a couple of your friends are playing games.  A few are playing Call of Duty.  So which game are you going to play?  Something else and get thrown out of the loop?  No, you're going to play Call of Duty, even if you don't like it as much.  And this also applies to single-player experiences too....don't play Zelda or Skyrim?  Eh...there's no help for you.

What seems to be happening is that a lot of people want to play the same exact games.  Sure, there are some games that are actually good, but the idea that SO MANY PEOPLE love the hell out of the same games?  There's something going on here.  Like it's easier to hop into a game hugely supported by some community than one that doesn't.  So there's not much "trailblazing" going on, is there?

As they say, "the rich video games get richer."  OMG THE TOP 1% OF GAMES OWN 99% OF THE PLAYERS!!!  Well, I'm not going to turn this into an "Occupy Activision/Electronic Arts/Microsoft/Sony" tirade cause frankly, I'm sick and tired of this "meme" (it's the 'cool' thing to talk about, just admit it...sticking it to The Man) and I'm not going to let a few rich folks put me down from making video games, sorry.

And back on video games, I'm not a "social" guy.  Which is perhaps why I'm not into Facebook, MMO's, or anything really popular.  It's why I sit here on this stupid blog and post about games that few people are aware about.  And that's okay cause I'm doing what I love.

But about the popularity thing.  I remember about a year or two ago, Perfect Dark (the N64 version) came out for Xbox Live.  And at the time, it was a HUGE deal, kind of like Daytona USA today.  If you don't own the game already, then you're just an idiot...go buy it now.  For those of you who've already played it, you can freeze the crosshair in the middle of the screen thanks to a patch (the moving crosshair turned off a lot of people...I agree).  Got all the achievements and still love the game today.  Read my previous Perfect Dark experiences here.  Granted, the game isn't perfect and there's a few things I'd change, but there's one glaring problem...

After about a month or two of playing, I noticed that the number of XBL players began to dwindle.  It was to the point where I had to wait a minute or two in the lobby just to play a 1 vs. 1 against some randoms (not to brag but most of whom I handily beat).  On the other hand, you had Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2/Black Ops which had over 100,000 players.  If I liked both games equally, which one do you think I'd prefer?  CoD, because it's much easier to jump into games against randoms, friends, you name it.

I'm still disappointed by this.  Perfect Dark literally was manna from heaven but no one's buying.  Instead they asked for meat.  Well, they got meat...though we all don't know how long until they tire of it.  Yes, this is a story from the Bible, in case you didn't know already.

I just wonder how long until Daytona USA succumbs to the same fate.  Now we have Forza 4 out which IMO isn't bad though I haven't bought it yet (Christmas present, maybe?).  But that game has a much more robust community.  So what's one to do--ostracize one's self from society playing a crusty old game or to join the crowd?  Hell, I remember playing the very recent Sega & Sonic All-Stars Racing game (my comments here) but the number of players dropped to zero so...off to Forza 3 I went!!!

Speaking of which, I just checked out Major Nelson's XBL charts and in the week of Oct. 24, Daytona USA was the second most purchased XBLA game.  Within in a month, it's drofpped off the Top 25.  Although for some strange reason, Crazy Taxi, OutRun, and Sega Rally were back on radar for that week as well.  EDIT: Turns out Sega racers are on sale for a limited time (except Daytona, of course) so go buy them all now.  No signs of Perfect Dark or anything else I really like.  It's also disappointing that Daytona USA has a 3.8 of 5 rating on Xbox Live, I mean, what's up with the inconsistency here???

The way I see things, all things go through cycles.  What was cool yesterday really isn't cool today.  So if the goal in life is to enjoy popular things and then dispose of them, what's the point?  Why can you like something for being great?  I still draw strange looks from people who don't "get" my obsession with racing games and the Sega Racing posters I have up in my cubicle.  I don't know man.  I know the games I talk about aren't bad and yes, many people like them for that reason, but how many people like them for the fanbase???

All I have to say is this.  Don't abandon popular games altogether, but give some other games a shot if you haven't already.  Like give OutRun Online Arcade a try.  It's only 400 MSP and it goes off the marketplace at the end of the year.  Just worth it...who knows, you may become addicted to it as well.

Oh, and one more thing.  I was thinking about game design, as usual.  The question as a game designer is how much content should one put in one's game?  Think about this.  If you release a Call of Duty game with 50 guns and 30 MP maps, it would probably sell the same as a Call of Duty game with 25 guns and 15 maps.  So why go back and improve the game?  Improving the game requires time and money, two things game studios usually don't want to give up.  In the end, the cost outweighs the extra sales.  It's why they stopped releasing extra content for Black Ops...so people will buy MW3, then the next CoD, and then whatever's is in style at the time.

And it's not just an "evil Call of Duty" thing.  I mean, if I were part of the dev team working on Perfect Dark, I'd love to go back to the game and polish a few things in a month's time for little or no time.  It's not like this was some grandiose release game that needed a hype machine to get by--some sites like Gamasutra popped the news and then the game was release.  No "marketing campaigns" to work around.  But that didn't happen  Why?  Because it has no impact on game sales.

I wonder if this is something that's holding back Sega.  They say, "Well, we put out Daytona USA, OutRun, and Sega Rally ports, so no more racing games..."???  And how about other racing games like Forza or Need for Speed?  What's the point of trying to compete with those when those are the only two racers you really need?  Need for Speed, HA!  Like if you go to a restaurant and you wanted a Barq's Root Beer and all they had was Coke, you accept defeat and take the Coke.  Come on, go the extra distance.  Money is temporary, but glory is forever.  So go for the glory of great games, not great profits.  Make the great racing games.  Sega, make Shenmue 3 NOW.  That's just my two nickels' worth.

EDIT: This is me:

There's A Warthog In My Forza

EDITED ONCE

Hey guys, did you know PAX happened this weekend?  Yes?  No?  What did they do there...talk about games, yada yada yada...  The less said, the better.

Now folks, this is kind of funny.  Forza 4, which is coming out in October, will not have Porsches (boo, get used to RUFs, boys and ladies).  According to Jalopnik, it's Porsche's fault cause Porsche hates video games (although it would be easy to blame Electronic Arts since they're somehow at fault for anything Activision isn't involved with).  But at least RUFs are damn close to Porsches so it's not a total loss....

Ok, so maybe EA is to blame since they like to give the scroogie to everyone else (see the Origin spyware controvery--they're not angels in my eyes).  But why EA doesn't snatch up more big auto makers like Ferrari, Audi, Lamborghini, whatever is beyond me.  I guess cause there's only so much "hate" they can bring upon themselves before they give up...don't want to topple Activision now, do we?  Let them be the punching bag, not us, they say.

WWWRRRRRYYYYYYYYY?????????

But don't fear people!  Forza 4 will have the Warthog from Halo.  I don't know whether or not to be excited or appalled by this (considering Micro$oft has been trying to infuse Halo into practically everything these days).

But oh, don't get your hopes up.  You can't drive the Warthog.  You can only observe it in Forza's Autovista mode, which incorporates the Kinect and allows you to observe it from the perspective of a car show attendee. EDIT: Apparently, in an attempt to divert our attention from the fact that you can't drive the Warthog, they get Jeremy Clarkson of Top Gear to talk about it. Gee, thanks Jeremy, that's great. I love just staring at cars in video games, right?

Is it just me but isn't this typical of the game industry nowadays?  Hey guys, I got a shiny new gadget!  You can walk around in a car show and look at the cars!  It's like you're actually there!  THE FUTURE IS NOW!!!  But does it contribute to gameplay?  In other words, can you drive it?  No.  You can only stare at it.  Kind of like a hot babe you want to go out on a date with but you can't come within 12 feet of her...

I heard from somewhere that the main reason you can't drive it is because it's too slow?  Really?  Did that stop Polyphony Digital from putting the Model T and the Daimler Motor Carriage (top speed: 12 mph) in GT4?



Or maybe it's because of the machine gun on top...but just take it off.  Driving the Warthog in Halo is crap ,really.  It doesn't pan out like a usual racing game.  It's like "driving for noobs"--right joystick aims the camera, hold up and the Warthog immediately steers wherever the camera is facing.  This is opposed to steering with the joystick in traditional racing games (you don't need to stare directly in the way you want to go).  It's also the same way the RC-XD handles in Black Ops and I'm annoyed by that too.

Don't matter...I don't need no stinkin Warthog in my Forza game anyway.  We want Sega cars FIRST AND FOREMOST...  Second would be monster trucks.  And funny cars, 18-wheelers, and school buses loaded with NOS (man, f*** the Veyron and Datsun).  I mean, really now--no Porsches, Warthog isn't driveable--this is what Turn10 needs to do to save this travesty to the series and avoid hitting rock bottom like GT5...

*flips over*

I know this vid's crap but it's the best actual Monster Jam commercial I could find.

FUN FOR ALL AGES!! BRING THE KIDS!!

MLG And Evo Stuff (Professional Gaming)

EDITED twice, moved the NASCAR part to its own post

Oh man.  Get ready for more gaming conventions.  So yesterday, I was watching a Major League Gaming (in Anaheim) stream on some website.  They were playing Halo: Reach, CoD: Black Ops, and Starcraft 2.  Who won?  Well, I don't know.  Also, at the same time, there was this Evo tournament thing (in Las Vegas).  They were playing Marvel vs. Capcom 3 (with no Megaman) and Street Fighter 4.  Thank God there was no Smash Bros. or I would have snapped.  BTW, there was some dude from Saudi Arabia who came in 2nd place in SF4 and that's boss.


OMG Koreans playing Starcraft, we're not worthy!!!


I have no idea what's going on here.

So I watched and I guess it was kind of cool.  No I didn't absolutely abhor it like pretty much everything else.  Well, everyone playing CoD ran around with the Famas Red Dot (very rarely an AK74 or G11)/Lightweight/Sleight of Hand which was kind of stupid but they were playing under special rules.  There were about 80,000 people watching both streams plus those watching on Spike/G4 and in the actual convention center.

Man, I tell you I get a little jealous of those guys.  Nothing like struggling to keep a 1.0 KDR on Black Ops (not me, some other people), then seeing these guys put on a show.  That's a real morale boost there.  Don't worry kids--just play enough Halo/CoD and someday, you'll make $30,000 a year playing video games!  Yeah, good luck.  Remember, changing your XBL Gamerpic to a MLG logo will increase your skills by 1000%.

But in the end, you still gotta go back to real life--working hard, taking care of business, keeping the world going around.  I don't even remember who won.  Also MLG/Evo will never air on ESPN while professional poker will.  Hell, even 1st and 10 gets aired over video games so QQ moar nerds.

I have to watch Skip Bayless over MLG.

Another thing I noticed was the advertisements.  Now Dr. Pepper is synonymous with gamers--when did this happen?  What happened to Mountain Dew--no one likes that anymore?  Dr. Pepper has a contest that will hook someone up with some gaming room with a l33t beast PC and sofa.  Great, I liked Dr. Pepper when no one cared now everyone likes it and makes me look like a bandwagoner.  Also, what's up with this NOS energy drink?  I don't drink energy drinks cause those are for World of Warcraft nerds who pull all-nighters with their "epic 30-man raids."  The only NOS I want is in my car, not in me.



-----------

Speaking of competitive gaming, there's also CPL: Cyberathlete Professional League.  Oh man, now that's old school.  They're still around although they may be merged with MLG or some crap like that.

Let's go back to Counter-Strike.  Not Source but 1.6.  The Greatest Game Ever Played.

Real men play CS.  I'd play more but my comp sucks, wait until I get a new one...


Now this is a LAN party.


HEATON, HAVE MY BABIES.

About A (Red-Head) Boy

This is a story that happened a week ago.  One of my mom's friends was going to Las Vegas and our family agreed to have her son stay over for three days.  This kid is 10 years old and I've maybe seen him a few brief times before.  All we know is that this is the Brady Bunch and this kid is Cousin Oliver.  So I didn't mind having him over just as long as he didn't raid my room and touch all my stuff.  To keep his identity safe, I'll refer to him as "Dude."

I'm annoying and nobody likes me!  Now make me a sandwich!

But first, about my family--my three brothers to be exact.  I'm the oldest at 23.  My two middle brothers are going to school, doing work, and hanging out with (girl)friends so they are almost always out of the picture nowadays, seemingly content for me to "babysit" Dude because they find him somewhat creepy.  My youngest brother is 13.  Believe it or not, he has autism.  I'll call him "Guy."  Basically, he acts socially different compared to kids his age.  He plays video games like I do and I usually get along with him as long as he's not throwing a fit or screwing with my Xbox 360.  So basically, I'm not used to interacting with a "normal" child like Dude.

With Dude over, at first I'm assuming he will play with Guy, but Guy usually sticks his head in Playstation 3 games and doesn't like to be bothered.  At this point in time, I wasn't really expecting to hang out with Dude, but he wanted to play the Xbox 360 in my room which I let him do with slight reluctance.  Guy comes in to play with him and I go eat a sandwich.  But then Guy jumps back on the PS3 and Dude is all alone.  So basically, the only person Dude has to hang out with is me.  A 23 year old hanging out with a 10 year old.  Yeah, this is the recipe for a Disney channel show or an indie movie I see.  Dude also brought over his stuffed Beagle dog toy which is basically his "security blanket."

But first, an aside.  For some reason, I feel like I've never grown up.  Well, subtle things anyway.  Like we've went to a restaurant recently and my 16 year old brother orders a parmesean caesar salad with crab legs and chives (I made this up) while I order chicken fingers.  I also have toys lying around my room.  I think that Dude saw into my soul and sort of got along with me right away, seeing I'm not this big bad man like most people my age are.

So what do we do?  He wants to play a video game--one with guns but no cursing.  So we play Call of Duty: Black Ops!  We go online split screen.  He just plain sucks with his 0.1 KDR, but he was stoked to play the game as late as possible.  Later, we try to play one of those Halo campaign missions, but we get stuck one one of those flying missions.  I keep getting spawned in mid-air and he keeps dying.  We go back to Black Ops afterwards cause Halo sucks.

He claims he's never spent the night over at someone's house and stayed up late (3 am) before.  I used to do it all the time, I said.  He talked about sporadic things like how Vanilla Ice ripped off Queen's Under Pressure and how LSU Football head coach Les Miles should be fired.  Like I said, this is completely new to me cause I've never hung out with kids before.  He did bring up this point while we were talking; just substitute Donkey Kong with Daytona USA:



Ok, this really didn't happen.  Sorry...somehow I was just reminded of Billy Madison.

Now I'm not pursuing this kid, but he seemed to look up to me.  I'm at home, just hanging out, doing what I normally do with my time.  Sometimes Dude would be out swimming in the pool, hanging out with Guy, or throwing the football around outside.  I was sitting down alone eating Tyson chicken fries at dinnertime when he started to ask questions about me like where I am in school (I have a college degree!!) and do I have a girlfriend (not now cause girls are trouble).  But then he asks this question (I'm paraphrasing):

DUDE: Hey, do you have any friends?


ME: Eh, not really.


DUDE: Why not?


ME: I don't know...I'm not very outgoing and I like a lot of stuff that's not popular so I don't have a lot in common.  Not many people like me.


DUDE: Well, that's stupid because you're supposed to like people for their character, not for their hobbies or their skills.


ME: Why, that's very good advice.


DUDE: You have a friend; do you know who your friend is?


ME: Who?


DUDE: I'm your friend.


*CUE "AWWWWWW" FROM AUDIENCE"*

I'm going to tell you the truth.  Trying to maintain these friendships and figuring out what (and how) to say things is as tricky as walking the tightrope 50 stories high.  But why?  How much value can you put in a 10 year old kid?  Well, it's nice to see another human being who will actually talk to me; that's new...

Of course, by this point in time, you think I'm leaning towards some Michael Jackson-esque man-boy "relationship," but spare me the grief cause that's not where I'm heading.

Oh yeah, one more funny thing.  He sees my collection of Xalax Lego Racers in my room and says, "Hey I have a few of these.  Next time I come over, I'll give them to you cause I don't want them anymore."  If that is true, then that's just insane.

Anyway, Dude plays two-player Tony Hawk for the PS3 with Guy and then they go to sleep.  Dude leaves at 8 am next morning.  Before he left, I said goodbye and this conversation ensued:



And there goes my "friend."  Ehh, whatever.  I usually rail on kids for being obnoxious and "stupid" (obviously not to their faces...I'm not that big of a jerk) but sometimes they can surprise you.  And kids don't have to put up with crap like politics, news, paying bills, losing weight (eh, most of them), etc. so their ideas seem more "pure" than us adults' ideas.  I know it's just a kid, but it's nice to know I made a friend which made me feel a little better about myself.

But speaking of kids, in all honesty, I love the scene at the end of Step Brothers with the kids.  Seriously, we need more kids to get beat up in movies since they get away with everything while the adults get pissed on.  Rofl.

Lots Of Weird Stuff Going On (GFAQs, Servers, Forza)

This happened about two weeks ago.  I received an invite to a private GameFAQs board called "LifeFAQs."  Now considering the fiasco over the video proposal contest (which I'm not even going to link to--click on the tags to the right) and the realization that private boards are not accessible unless the admin specifically types your name in, I was convinced that they're just a waste of time.

So you may think this guy invited me because he saw my entry.  Well, no, that's not it.  The guy got this list of all the GameFAQs accounts older than eight years old and I happened to be on it.  The board is actually rather big now, like another LUE (Life, Universe, Everything) board where people discuss their favorite flavor poptarts and their grief over breaking up with girlfriends.

Putting aside all pettiness, I'm not a fan of big boards at all.  I used to post at a "big board" but it took a huge-ass amount of energy just to remain semi-relevant because there's hundreds of posts to reply too.  I'd much prefer a small board where you can maintain close friendships with a few people than to be the "cool guy" that everyone likes.

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

And this is a news story that I've picked up on too.  It kind of relates the the OutRun Online Arcade server removal issue I talked about earlier.  Well, if you've been following Halo Wars, then you've probably heard in November that Microsoft is pulling the plug on the stat-tracking server on Dec. 15, much to the fanbase's chagrin.  However, because enough Halo fans complained about it, Microsoft has decided to keep the server up.

Going offline...
...just kidding, we're not going anywhere (yet).

Wow, isn't that great.  A game lives or dies by the servers.  Servers go down, game bricks.  And this is what you get when you rely on official servers instead of dedicated ones (EDIT: I think anyway, not sure if there's any remedy to server games RIP).  And throw in downloaded games too.  Oh, what about my Microsoft Achievement Points?  Well, if that were to go away, then I would have to come onto this blog and disagree with their decision in a not-so-polite manner.

And of course, this follows Electronic Arts' claim that they will only make games that adhere to online mode.  See here.  Can be loosely interpreted at a poke at Japanese games which have always been lackluster in the online component...

Oh, let me throw in that I've also been playing Call of Duty: Black Ops.  Yes, I'm a toolbag.  Yes, it's kind of fun.  So I'm already Level 26 and I think the Galil is a dead sexy gun (for a gun of course).  And I also made this crude Sega logo as my pic...it's not that grand because the game doesn't have every letter of the alphabet so I had to use a 5 and a 6 for the S and the G and then tweak it from there.  Will post pics later.

But I also look at Call of Duty and the house of cards it's built on...everything is on a server.  Not a dedicated server, I might add!  Just public servers.  See Starcraft 2, Modern Warfare 2, etc.  Server goes down, everything flushed down the toilet.  And you can also say this about World of Warcraft or Halo or any other game that people log hours upon days upon weeks into.

You could say that down the road about five years from now when the servers are gone that "no one will care about the game anyway," which is a seemingly legit argument, but why make all these disposable games in the first place?  About as disposable as cameras and toilet paper!  I'm getting really redundant here, just read the old OutRun post I linked to up there.  If this is the future of gaming, then I'm sure as hell gonna hang on to my Daytona games as the ship slowly sinks.  I don't want to be a sellout who buys all these brand new games that I will dispose of in the next three months.  That's just pathetic, I can't take it.

BTW, I'm backing up my Blogspot too.  Just in case the server is hit by a hurricane, a volcano, or a nuke.  I put too much thought into this site to let it slip through my hands like sand on a beach.

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One more story.  Forza 3, in an attempt to sway me back to their game, has released ten community-selected classics cars in a future DLC pack.  This includes the DeLorean.  Congrats Turn10 for deceiving me into believing your game was "dead," now go fix your PI ratings and maybe I'll reconsider.

88 MPH

Daytona 2 Posts Of Grief -- The Pain And The Yearning

rjay told me "Look at these old links," so I did.  I am SO SORRY I stayed up late again, but it's worth it.  These are from Google Groups.  I'm sorry I couldn't sift through the whole thing but trying to sum up this big lump of posts is hard enough already.  Not only am I going to post the link to the post, but also the year it was posted.  You don't have to read everything cause a lot of it is what you'd expect...:


The day we dreaded has come (1999)
Long drawn out post, loves the scenery porn, it's a classic, bring the game to Dreamcast.  Don't understand what he means by dreading this day.  Also, this Brian Fox guy is a Debbie Downer who wants all racing games to be bland with no eye candy whatsoever.


RAVE RACER, SCUD RACE, DAYTONA USA 2 (2001)
Bring these games to a console.


Daytona -- When, Sega, When? (2000)
Bring Daytona 2 to Dreamcast.  Everyone loves Daytona.  Also talks about "Daytona 500" which would later become Daytona for the Dreamcast (I presume).  Love the last comment about Daytona 2:

I believe this is one of Sega's surprises that they are keeping quiet on because they know how much demand there is for a Dreamcast version. Expect to hear nothing on it until Sega wants to let the cat out of the bag. 

We're still waiting.


Sega's Scud Racer and Daytona USA 2 (2003)
Give us Xbox ports.  How about this:

OMFG, what I would give for a completely accurate port of Daytona 2 + Power Edition on XBox with Live support. I'd give my eye teeth!

Eye teeth?


Daytona USA 2 (2000)
Why is Sega not working on this Dreamcast port?


Daytona 2!  WARNING: I may get deep on this one!! (1999)
Wow, this is one huge-ass lump of text.  The enter button is your friend.  Now this Julian Smith guy..we kind of think alike.  Like it's just strange to see another human being that salivates as much as I do over a Daytona 2 game.

These two racing games are in my opinion the ABSOLUTE GREATEST racing games on this or any other planet!!

Oh look, Mark Kim, the dude that wrote those Daytona 1 and 2/Scud Race/Crazy Taxi guides on GameFAQs.  I have no idea where he is now.  He also gave NASCAR Arcade a higher rating than Daytona (via GameFAQs reviews) so he's useless.  I even sent him an email years back and told him about the Marubaku videos, but he didn't reply.


SEGA-Daytona is awesome-Now Listen-Make Daytona 2! (2001)
Just more of the same.  Oh look, it's our good friend isamu.  Wow, he was way into this before I even knew about it.

The fact that Scud Race and Daytona 2 weren't released when the Dreamcast came out *LITERALLY* drove me to tears. Yes I wept like an uncontrollable baby.

I won't lie--I cried over Daytona USA 2 too.  Come on man, we're all entitled to cry over ONE thing that's not a family member, pet, or disaster.

WARNING Sega: If you're reading this, you have a severely mentally obsessed and crazed fan out here that will do *ANYTHING* to own these two games. So I advise you to proceed with your Dreamcast plans with caution!! That's it I'm threw.

Caution is good.  And yes, we're all mentally obsessed with this crap.  It's our curse, our burden.  We wander the world and people shun us.  It's not easy.  This is going to you Halo and Final Fantasy fans who will always be happy cause your devs will throw you a bone every few months.  On the other hand, us Sega dudes will rip the tooth out BY THE ROOT just for a lick of SOMETHING.


'Sega Racing Classic'? Is this at last Daytona USA 3 ??? (2009)this link is down DAMMIT

Remember that Sega Racing Classic is the Daytona USA remake for arcades?  And there's nothing new about it except the removal of the Daytona trademark and the enhanced screen resolution.  Just heartbreaking to read everyone's heightened anticipated which fell crashing to the ground.  I felt the same way at the time.
 

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Aaaaannnddd....that's it.  I honestly can't post anymore topics.  Oh hell, for all of you guys, I posted way back my own rant about Daytona USA 2.  There, read it and enjoy it.  I still feel the same about it.

Now, let me say why I added the dates.  You know how back then, back in 1999-2003 or whatever, people really wanted Daytona 2?  Scud Race?  Well, guess what...

I never thought I'd be saying this, but it's the year 2010.  Scratch that, almost 2011.  Let me rephrase that, it's the Year Two Thousand Eleven in the year of Our Lord.  Which means as of now, Daytona 1 is 16 years old, Scud Race is 14, and Daytona 2 is 12.  And people have been waiting for a decade.

Do you think as time passes that the odds of a re-release of some sort go down?  Well, when you have Sega in dire straits and Nagoshi working on these generic FPS/adventure games, I don't know.  I just don't know.  Peace out dudes.  Until then, we must keep the faith alive.  Cause that's all we can do.

Happy Birthday Super Mario Twins (Also Sonic & Halo)

I still don't know the results of the GameFAQs board contest, but I'm cool about it.  Guess I'll find out tomorrow or the day after.  Go ahead guys, take your merry time...

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Supposedly, on Sept 13, 1985, that's the 25th Anniversary of Super Mario Bros.  Technically, Mario was in Donkey Kong (1981) and Mario Bros (1983) but those don't count I guess.  It's all about the original release of Super Mario Bros. in Japan.

I guess I might as well say stuff about Mario.  Contrary to what a few pinheads think of me, I'm not an anti-Nintendo fanboy...to say you hate Mario is willingly ignorant.  Besides Pac-Man, the guy was a legend back then and he is now.  I mean, Mario games are (usually) good clean fun which is good in my book especially considering all the violent video games.  If there were no Mario, there would be no Sonic.  And I find it irritating that Zelda is considered Nintendo's best franchise, but whatever, that's just GameFAQs' adventure/RPG bias coming in.

My favorite Mario games were on the NES and the N64.  Those two and Gameboy Advance are the only Nintendo consoles I really cared about.  I loved old Super Mario Bros and Super Mario 64 is just awesome.  Also, Mario Party 2, oh man that's just so much fun, I love it. I also really liked Ocarina of Time.  I never played much SNES and I didn't really care that much about the GameCube and the Wii.

8-Bit Captain Price Icon in Modern Warfare 2.  Easily the best thing in the game.

I was never too keen on Super Mario World or Super Mario Sunshine--those felt irregular to me.  Like Mario needs a cape or a talking pack of water?  Oh geez.  Super Mario RPG was the only SNES I played the heck out of.  Great story and atmosphere, but you give Peach the Lazy Shell armor and buff Geno and that's it--game is too damn easy.  There's some mods you can download off the internet that make the game harder and raise the max level to 50, but I beat that one too and it wasn't that hard once you leveled up a lot.

Anyway, about Nintendo.  I give Nintendo some crap mostly because they're the New York Yankees of the video game world.  They just go out there being great and all, got their own consoles, they make billions of dollars, no stopping them.  And yeah, Nintendo makes good products.  But it just seems like Nintendo is way too easy to be a fan of.  I don't know, I'm making too many analogies about sports team so I better stop.  I like the N64 but after that, I kind of lost interest.

And another thing about Mario, well Mario's not going anywhere.  That's cool and all, but it just sucks that Sega's bread-and-butter series, Sonic the Hedgehog is just sucking so bad right now.  I mean, I read articles occasionally that say the Sonic series needs to go away.  Like this one.  I mean, what the hell are we supposed to do?  Getting rid of Sonic would kill Sega like a heart attack.  And Sonic was on the side of the mountain in Daytona USA, so I'd like to think Sonic's death would hurt the Sega stakeholders quite a bit, even if you don't like Sonic at all.

No, Sonic can never die.  Just kind of pisses me off that Nintendo is this unstoppable force but Sega can't deliver a coherent game for its flagship series.  This is not hate for Nintendo, they can do what they want, but you'd figure that Sega could try to play up to the competition.  Come on Sega, please DO SOMETHING, before Sonic goes away shamed and embarassed, with no honor.  And you know in Japan, they really care about honor.  I mean, you don't have to go back to 2-D or kill off all the secondary characters, JUST MAKE SONIC GAMES THAT DON'T HAVE CRAP CONTROLS, LOADING TIMES, GLITCHES, AND HOLD-YOUR-HAND-THE-WHOLE-WAY GAMEPLAY!!!  GEE WHIZ!!!

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And the NY Jets suck, good job with your terrific offense gaining like 100 yards the whole game.  I was really cheering for them, but I doubt they're gonna make a dent in the playoffs at this rate.  It's sad.

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And I'm gonna say something about Halo: Reach, which is getting that luxurious midnight release with all the nerds waiting outside Best Buy, GameStop, whatever.  Do I care?  Not in the slightest.  First of all, didn't they say that Halo 3 would be the last in the series?  NO, guess not, just make Halo Wars, ODST, Reach, now Halo Racing, Tournament Fighter, Puzzle Game, Debate Team, etc!  So you get to play as more Master Chiefs (Spartans, I know) and stuff...ok.  Once again, I've got to give the "this game really doesn't suck that bad" disclaimer, but it's getting on my nerves.  Little ten-year-olds whose parents buy them M-rated games are pissing their pants over this.  In all honesty, the Elites are cooler than Master Chief--oh yes, I went there.  And Sgt. Johnson is a badass, cooler than Master Chief.  Also, The Chief needs a suit of armor, The Sarge does not.

LET ME REPEAT THIS IF YOU DIDN'T HEAR IT:  Sgt. Johnson = best character in Halo.  There you go.

I mean, I thought the original Halo was ok, pistols were godly, but really, like I said, I'd rather play Goldeneye, Perfect Dark, Counter-Strike, hell even Half-Life, Left 4 Dead, etc.  IN MY OPINION GUYS.  I think it just has to do with the oversaturated, dark, gritty, futuristic FPS genre.  I already touched on that subject before.  Let the stoning begin!  I'll just whip out my baseball bat and hit those stones back at you cause I'm badass like that.  Anyway, let me repeat again that Halo's not bad, don't "frag" me guys rofl

The Gloves Are Coming Off (Games Are Too Violent And They Suck)

You know, yesterday, I was feeling mellow, alright, school wasn't too bad, but today, I'm really pissed off.  Parking at college is horrific--I literally had to park in the lone corner of the campus because the rest of the spots were taken.  Had to walk fifteen minutes to and from class in the swelling heat.  That's gonna screw me out of a good grade in my first class because we have surprise quizzes that I can't take if I'm late.  What a piece of crap.

But I would like to take the rest of the entry to say this to the Video Game Industry:  All your games suck.  Here's why.  I collected a bunch of articles from that garbage Kotaku site and here we go, time for the breakdown:

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http://kotaku.com/5618338/motorstorm-apocalypse-makes-a-3d-believer-of-me

I'm pretty sure that everyone knows about the original Motorstorm for the PS3.  It's a rally game where you drive 4-wheelers, rally cars, bikes, big rigs, whatever.  Someone at Sony had a serious mud fetish cause within seconds of the race, your car goes from squeaky clean to absolutely muddy.  Disregarding this, it was an okay game.  But this time around, they decide to rehash the same game, this time taking in the apocalypic badlands of an abandoned city.

Let's put the whole 3D junk out of the way.  WHY DOES THIS GAME HAVE TO TAKE PLACE IN A WASTELAND???  Why does every game nowadays to seem "good" have to take place in some sort of dark, grimy, depressing, macabre-like setting!?!?  Okay, we have FPSes like Gears of War, action like God of War and Devil May Cry, indie games like Limbo, whatever, keep it to yourself.  But now, it's leaking over to racing games as if racing games nowadays haven't been bastardized enough.  WHY DOES THIS NEED TO HAPPEN!?!?  WHATEVER HAPPENED TO GOOD CLEAN FUN!!!??? WHY DOES EVERY GAME NEED TO BE AN EXERCISE OF MY DEPRESSING SIDE!!??!?!

Let me point to UK Resistance's "Blue Sky in Games" campaign cause they're absolutely right.  It's okay to play an emotional little game here and there set in some dreary backdrop, but whatever happened to stuff like "Let the good times roll!"???  I mean, at the end of the day, you can give me this gloom-and-doom BS about how we're all gonna die, but do you think God gave us the emotion of joy never intended for us to use it?

http://www.ukresistance.co.uk/2005/11/blue-sky-in-games-campaign-launched.html

I don't know about you, but I could just stop there and leave frustrated.  But the mutiny continues.  Check this out:

http://kotaku.com/5621563/are-video-games-just-soap

Are video games soap?  Basically, by soap, they're products that you use and are done with.  They don't have any significance in the long run.  My ideas deviate from the article quite a bit.  Look at it this way, you got all these FPSes and action games every which way.  They keep spitting them out and they're all nearly the same.  You got these gritty FPSes with all this blood, you got all these "kill everything on the screen" games, you got car racing with explosions and gorgeous "car violence," I mean, it never ends!  Whatever happened to making games that last for a lifetime!?  There aren't many games out there that don't copy the same-old formula.  Make a game like Halo, like Call of Duty, add lots of guns, etc.

EDIT: I mean, look at Daytona USA, look at OutRun, these are games we never forget about!  They engage me!  After going through a million FPSes and other junk, there's only maybe three I still care about--Goldeneye, Perfect Dark, and Counter-Strike 1.6 (GoldSource).  What ever happened to the substance?  A lot of these games look to sell a bunch of copies, not to leave a lasting impact--that's not to say they all do, but there's not many.

http://kotaku.com/5576332/who-cheers-for-war

This article claims that as video game graphics become more realistic, they become more brutal and mind-numbing than ever before.  Because games like Halo and Call of Duty are so popular, devs are hauling ass more than usual to make dirty, grimy FPSes and spit 'em out on the market.  To be fair, none of these games are THAT bad but these aren't the kind of games I want to go through like Fig Newtons in the sleeve (see previous article).  It's disturbing because if you take a look at the lineup of the most popular games nowdays, at E3, at Stupid Generic Gamecon that comes out, most of them are M-rated.  It's just "kill, kill, kill."  That's not to say all FPSes are dreary and depressing.  I mean, I like FPSes, but games like Perfect Dark are a farcry from the muck that we have now.  I just can't wrap my brain around this crap anymore.  I mean, 2000 was about when FPSes were at their best, then they just went downhill since, especially due to the fact that they're now undisputably the most popular game genre.

EDIT: That is not to say that every game that comes out is bad.  I mean I still like FPSes, but COME ON, turn down the violence and come up with something new.  If you're going to make an FPS, at least make it somewhat colorful--Team Fortress 2 and TimeSplitters come to mind.  Or at least use someone other than the n-teenth "grizzled space marine," or "elite military operative."  Seriously, let me reiterate this--if I see another Master Chief clone, I am going to snap.  Gotta give props to Valve cause they use scientists and regular joe dudes in their games, much more entertaining.  I love those little Garry's Mod videos--Valve always has funny characters.  I talk about Valve a little bit here (they dodge the bullet just a little).

http://kotaku.com/5600550/lay-down-your-guns

One more article and I'm not really going to comment on this one much cause I can't take it anymore and I'm sounding repetitive.  One of the main reasons I like FPSes is because of the tactical and excitement aspect.  Contrary to these people who spit out this behavoristic worldview that all human beings are out to rip each other's heads off and suck their blood (and have rough sex with all the women too), I'd like to think that gore doesn't make the game necessarily better.  I like FPSes for the tactical aspect, kind of like how in Pac-Man you eat the dots and in Mario/Sonic, you get to the end of the level.  It's challenging.  Competing against other people can be fun.

But somehow, in the end, it has to be about violence.  Hey, if I want to get excited about something, I'd rather play a good racing game.  And GTA, I play that mostly to drive around, because TBQH, the shooting action in all those games stink.  Give me CS instead--I'd rather kill terrorists instead of innocent AI civilians walking down the street.  At least the T's in CS are a little more settling IMO, plus it's less violent and borders on hilarity (funny death sounds).

So what can we do about it?  Well, the only game company that seems to be making "friendly" games is Nintendo.  But they're only making them on the Nintendo consoles, which means that the Xbox 360 and PS3 are just this wasteland of games.  Remember the movie "Escape from New York" where Manhattan gets turned into a maximum security prison full of gangsters and Kurt Russell has to go in and save the President?  Well I feel like that we 360/PS3 users are in that prison.  We're just in this mire and we're trying to get out.  So Nintendo is practically useless at this point, screw 'em.

And this brings me to Sega...  When I look at the Dreamcast's lineup of games, they were friendly, they were happy, they made me feel GOOD.  That's why I wholly advocate them and wish that Sega had kept up their quirky goodness because I feel that if things don't change in the next few years, consider Sega dead and all these crap games will rule the world.  I'm dead serious.  Sega needs to step it up here, I'm serious.  Cause I can't take it anymore.  Just gonna end it here since I'm out of things to say.