More Sega All-Stars 2 Info (Thank You Sumo Digital Employees)

First of all, I should mention that I've gone all-out with my deviantART account, posting some lousy old pics of mine as well as favoriting a bunch of Sega/NASCAR ones.  So go favorite some pics if you haven't already...get behind the Sega community and give 'em your support.

But in other news, SegaBITS was able to get an interview with two Sumo Digital employees--Steve (DarthS0L) and Gareth (ex-Bizarre Creations guy).  How they were able to get an interview while I wasn't, I'll never know...but we learned a lot about Sonic All-Stars Racing 2.  This whole conversation was in podcast format so I decided to take really quick notes just in case you don't have the time to listen:

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* "What are you playing?"  Diablo 3, watching Judge Dredd, reading Sonic comics, etc.

* Needed to get proper physics for all three vehicle types.  Not just a "platformer"--a block sliding across the ground.  Rode the line between simulation and arcade physics.  Track design was held off until the boat/plane physics were down.

* During play-testing, no one really mentioned the car handling which means they were so engrossed by it...they had no problems with it apparently.

* People asked for drifting in planes so they went back and added it later.  Got a lot of inspiration from SkyDrift on Xbox Live Arcade.

* Is the Flagman in the OutRun track?  Does he dance?  Probably not.  Surprisingly, people seem to care more about things like the dancing Flagman than they do the ability to race boats/planes.

* There will be a new flagman in this game (not the fat red-shirt guy from OR2) but we don't know who yet.

* You can unlock "stickers" to put on your license.  They're like badges you unlock and can show off & stuff.

* Is it possible they'll reveal the final roster before the game is released (Nov 20)?  Maybe, maybe not.

* How about Segata Sanshiro, can he be in the game?  Would be difficult since we're talking about a real-life person here (albeit a fictional one).

* New All-Stars moves for old characters.  They need to work on all three surfaces now.

* There will be flight-only and boat-only stages.

* Massive tracks--the Panzer Dragoon one is a great example.  At some point, the track changes and you're going to new places (driving on the temple roof) and some of the dev team was amazed because they didn't learn about these things being added to the game until now.

* Campaign Mode is similar to Mario Galaxy.  Use any character you want on any mission.  The campaign can be played up to four-player split-screen.

* New co-op gameplay mode: Traffic Attack.  Drive through traffic and use weapons to clear the way for your team.  Been doing racing games for over 10 years and the idea of a co-op racer was too good to be true.

* Campaign should be 10-15 hours, maybe longer.  There is a very hard difficulty (like in F-Zero & PGR2)  that should be good enough for diehards like us (challenge accepted).

* More battle arenas than first game.

* Online Multiplayer includes Halo/CoD playlists.  You have an ever-changing ranking like in Mario Kart Wii (win, it goes up, lose, it goes down).  Playlists include the Battle Race (three lives and you're out), straight up races with no powerups, and Capture the Chao (Flag).

* You will be able to play four-player split-screen online.

* All-stars moves work online.  Some are very similar in nature to make it easier to code them all into the game (i.e. some people shoot missiles, others get speed boosts, etc.)

* DarthS0L gets lots of grief online from people online.  Like where's Big the Cat???  Seems like people care more about their favorite character than the game itself.

* Fun experiment: S0L posts on the forums, "You can have any three characters you want, now choose" and the entire board goes crazy.  People begging and stuffing the votes by creating multiple accounts.  It wasn't real, however.

* Lots of passion for these Sega IPs.  During the first presentation of the Panzer Dragoon track, no one spoke, they just gasped.

* The gaming press tends to twist quotes a lot.  For instance, Gareth is asked "After PGR4, are you thinking about PGR5?"  "Yes I am" he says.  Then the media puts up the headline "PGR5 confirmed."  Ridiculous.

* Wii U version looks just as good as PS3, maybe better.  5-player split-screen is possible--four on the TV, one on the game pad.  The 5th guy is usually some "special" player with a unique power.  For instance, in the Super Monkey Ball level, the 5th guy (presumably a giant monkey ball) can squash other players.  The non-squashed players can save the squashed players by touching them but they must also avoid the 5th guy as well.

* You're playing the Wii U version of Sega All-Stars Racing 2?  Does someone else want to use the TV?  Just flip from the TV to the Wii U controller and walk away.  You can do it seamlessly without breaking the action.  You can return to the TV later if you like.

* How to speed up the game--use graphs and see where the game runs the slowest.  Look at the game's art--if something is too highly detailed but can barely be seen, tone it down.  Also crack down on lousy programming this way.  Also water physics takes a huge toll on the system too.

* The game was built for 512 mb of RAM in mind but since the Wii U has double of that, it can only make the game run faster!

* The music changes as the tracks & vehicles change.  Had to be careful that the music keeps up with the pace of the action.  All of the iconic music was hand-picked.  Also makes reference to famous Sega composer Richard Jacques who knows everyone and everything about Sega.  S0L is not a big fan game music but Jacques' work is great.

* Why isn't there a store that sells Sega merchandise--t-shirts, hats, music???  Good point.

* People at Sonic Boom asked about a Sega All-Stars fighting game?  What style?  This is challenging to design because you have big characters vs. small characters.  Threw around the idea of mech-based Virtual-On style combat and Sonic in Streets of Rage.  Don't copy Smash Bros. like Sony did.  People really liked a Power Stone-style brawler.

* The game should capture everyone's imagination based on age.  Hardcore gamers, kids, and families should like it.

* Gareth leaves at this point.

* There are three different levels of graphics for different consoles.  Different assets for different platforms.  That's a lot of different models that need to be made for many different versions of the game.

* What's your favorite Sega racer???  S0L says OutRun 2 (no surprise).

* Favorite Sega character???  S0L says Afterburner, OutRun, and Space Harrier--basically "AM2" he said. But that doesn't count so he says Gilius from Golden Axe.  You could go crazy with ideas...him riding a turtle and using magic so it was fun working with him.

* Anyone left out of All-Stars 2 that you want to include in All-Stars 3?  Turns down the question because he doesn't want to leak any of the roster.

* November is a tough month.  Can All-Stars Racing 2 compete?  Yes, because there's a demand for these kind of arcade, family-friendly games.  There aren't many games out there like that.  You can only find these kind of games on Nintendo consoles but now here's one available on all consoles.

* They all feel really good about the game and poured hours and hours of attention into it so have faith, readers!

* If the next Mario Kart steals an idea from us then that's great!

* Name recognition is good for us.  "Sonic & Sega All-Stars" is working out for us now.

* Will any recent Sega IPs get in the game, like Bayonetta or Rhythm Thief?  No guarantees because some of these games were released after they started.  The goal is to keep the age rating down to E-10 as well as keep that classic Sega feel so not every character was forced into the game.  However, nothing's guaranteed at this point.

* Voice clips will be recycled because to record dialogue for 29 characters is hugely expensive.  Some voice actors are no longer available.  Localization is a pain.

* The End.  This conversation goes on through 1:20 (80 mins) so that's a good amount of information to be extracted.

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Lest you forget, I did get to ask a few tough questions on the Sega Official Forums with replies from Sumo Digital so check those out too.

Overall, if S0L if confident, then I am too.  For once, a racing game not called Need for Speed or Mario Kart gets a load of attention.  All I have to say now is PREORDER the damn game if you haven't already.  Be there in November to get the game.  Back at E3, Sega All-Stars Racing 2 was denied "Best Racing Game of E3" because these airhead gaming types thought Need for Speed: Most Wanted was the better racing game.  Yeah, Most Wanted, here's the new trailer with all the "play any way you want in a generic city with a generic name (Fairhaven City)" bull crap.  So please, FOR THE LOVE OF GOD BUY SONIC AND SEGA ALL-STARS RACING: TRANSFORMED and do the Sega Nation a huge, huge favor.  Thank you and God bless.

BTW, what's this...a Sega-related story on Reddit Gaming's front page?  NO!!!!

Forza On The Horizon...(Open-World Racing!!)

I'll just cut to the chase now--my E3 "pick" for favorite game goes to Lego City.  I like it--it's colorful, happy fun and if it has vehicles in it, it'll be awesome.  Everything else was uber-violent or made by Nintendo.

There's one problem though...it's only for Wii U.  Rofl.  What am I going to play now...oh God no don't say it--

So here's Forza Horizon again.  I think my preliminary analysis was a bit harsh, but what else can you say?  That's how I genuinely felt upon seeing the news.  Forza has gone from a "serious" sim racer to a exaggerated speed festival with a bunch of things that are ripped right out the NFS formula.

Here's a Jalopnik article I will be referring to.  FYI, Jalopnik does a lot of promos with Forza--some of the DLC has the word "Jalopnik" written right on it.  So a Jalopnik blogger talks to some game boss producer or something at the Forza booth and we learn some things:


Microsoft is calling Forza Horizon an "action racing" game, and that underscores the big conceptual difference between it and Forza 4. Where Forza 4 is more of a racing simulator, this is more of an arcade-ish game.

I just think it's absurd that you need to tack on the phrase "action" to a racing game.  Isn't the racing itself action on its own?  Will this game add other action stuff like being able to get out of the car and run from cops?  Oh wait, someone did that already and it sucked.


He's the one who told me you'll be able to race a '70s Boss Mustang against a WWII P51 Mustang fighter. Sold.

Um, how can a car compete with a plane anyway?  Maybe in a drag race or a Amazing Race contest (get to the bus station locker first and win a million dollars), sure, but otherwise, the plane can just fly above the track and the car can't.  So that's fair.  You can't even pilot the plane (I assume) so what's the point?  This smells like one of those selling point story mode things that devs drop in the game to hype up interest.  Take NFS: the Run: Jack flips the police car over on the train tracks and busts out just in time.  And Jack dodges falling boulders along the mountainside.  They are story/campaign-related things that mean jack (pun intended) once you've played though it a few times.  It's cinematics & production value, that's all.  Very little to do with actual gameplay.


The lighting is dramatically more varied, with a low sun in the sky giving everything a striking golden cast, and your cars' lights actually work.

I must say that I applaud the Forza team for bringing out a lot of contrast in the environment.  That is a GOOD thing.  However, the lighting has me worried quite a bit.  Just looking at the screens (including the first one above), it looks a lot like they tweaked the hue values somewhat.  Games tend to do that nowadays, particularly the orange/teal hue in every damn action movie that's supposed to add "zing" to their visuals.  While Forza Horizon doesn't go to that extreme, it seems like they baked in too much yellow/orange lighting...enough to irk me just enough to bring this point up.

At least Forza Horizon doesn't exhibit the same dreary visuals you see from games like GRID or DiRT.  That would be terrible.

From what I saw, at times Forza Horizon seems to exhibit this phony lighting that is more obnoxious than anything.  I'll have to sit through even more gameplay first.  Wait until the game's release.  Whatever, we'll see how the game's final product looks first.

BTW, I'm glad that this game will have night driving for the first time.  Took you guys five games to get around to it, huh?  In the meantime, Gran Turismo had night driving from the start (see Special Stage Route 5).  Forza sucks.


The physics are tweaked just a bit, with your car feeling a bit more lively than in Forza 4, a bit more inclined to drama.

I think this is a good thing.  If it captures the little details that make games like Daytona or Outrun so fun to drive (responsive handling, car trembles at high speed, etc.), then that might be a saving grace.  But they said the same stuff in just about every other damn arcade racer (NFS comes to mind, again...) so I'm not holding my breath.


There's many more objects in the environment, guard rails and signs and fences, and they can all be effectively destroyed by some sloppy driving. And that's fun.

Oh noes guys, they're encouraging reckless driving!!  Weave in out and out of traffic.  Run from cops (think they would put up with these shenanigans?)  The true racing pastime.


The basic premise is you're attending a festival, and your goal is to become King of the festival by gathering fans. You do that by winning races, risky driving, stunts, special challenges and events.

Seriously, I hate this crap.  For some reason, a "festival" in the middle of Colorado reminds me of Woodstock with cars (or the original Motorstorm)--bunch of wannabe losers listening to bad dubstep, getting wasted on energy drinks and wrecking cars.  I think these things detract from the actual reason we play driving games which is TO RACE CARS.

Anyone played Need for Speed: ProStreet?  I did for the achievement points (beat every race)...it was average despite not having the open world exploration and police chases.  But the whole "race show" stuff was more of a hindrance than anything.  Plus, it has a "story mode"--your name is Ryan Cooper and you race to take down all the pro racers and become "King of the Racing Universe" presumably because your ride was stolen and/or someone pissed in your Corn Flakes.  But because you're stuck with that very name, half the race announcers affectionately call you by the nickname "Coop."  And trust me--I muted the announcer in no time.

Speaking of which, this open-world crap is a double-edged sword.  Some of my favorite games are the PS2 era Grand Theft Auto games.  I especially loved Vice City and San Andreas because they had a cool vibe, lots of cars, and a great soundtrack.

The Hotring Racer...one of my favorite cars in GTA.  I had the cheat code to spawn one memorized in the past.

Now when you're cruisin' around city/wilderness, it's kind of fun.  But the actual bonafide racing in the game SUCKED.  GTA wasn't a game built for traditional racing.  The city wasn't specifically designed to carve out race tracks.  It's like some producers dropped a few nodes across the city and said "go drive through them in order, good luck."

Even other open-world racers like Need for Speed or Burnout just aren't that great for racing.  It's like they'll carve out a path through the city and place a bunch of glowing barriers to block off roads off the beaten path--you can't go through them but the traffic can.  And the city is laden with all sorts of scenery such that it obfuscates any sort of "racing line" whatsoever so you're acting in a reactionary fashion--see some arrows just forcibly turn in that direction.  It doesn't seem well-polished for a true racing experience.  Not to mention that little "shortcuts" like side roads & ramps also take away from the experience since it becomes more of a game of memorization than one of actual skill.

I have no idea what I'm doing.

Speaking of which, there's always the Little Rascals...which demonstrates how stupid urban racing can be at times.  They take a "shortcut" off the beaten path which includes driving through a grocery store parking lot (and knocking pedestrians 10 feet into the air).  Whatever, this is stupid and I can't believe I'm posting it but I don't care:

I think the game that did city racing the best was Project Gotham Racing.  Technically, you can say so since since there are modes that remove the barriers and permit free-roam around the city.  As for the artificial race courses, they are designed in a matter that makes it clearly obvious which way to go...clear visuals and signs tell you exactly where to go.  This also applies to Sega racers like Daytona & Outrun 2...


If you see it, you can drive to it. Well, maybe not some of the mountaintops, but still. You can drive into the Rockies, then look down off the side of the mountain and see the festival below. The map is full and huge and there's many miles of road to discover.

 This is also interesting as well.  Again, the entire game takes place in Colorado.  While the game exhibits forests, canyons, and lakes across limitless draw distance, that's all you really see the whole game.  Even though the game is beautiful, I think driving around in the woods can get a tad bit old after a while.  But what do I know--I need to see the final map first.  Let's hope there is more scenery like that in OutRun 2 (the definitive standard for...well...pretty much everything.

Outrun 2 doesn't showcase the fanciest lighting or textures there is (the game is now 8 years old), but it's simple, colorful style makes for good, clean fun.


There's a LOT of cars. I can't give a number now, but it's huge selection. All road cars this time, no pure race cars like in Forza. They're an eclectic mix, cars you'd take to a festival.

Damn, no Formula 1 cars.  :(  You  think by now Forza would have 'em but it's too late for that.


...BTW, one more thing.  I was looking at the comments for this Jalopnik article and the racing diehards aren't very impressed either:

BtheD19, Formula J treble World Champion
"The basic premise is you're attending a festival, and your goal is to become King of the festival by gathering fans. You do that by winning races, risky driving, stunts, special challenges and events."

And this is why I hate arcade "racing" games. Pass the GT5, I've got lap times to set.

Rattleface Blouses @BtheD19, Formula J treble World Champion
Yup, that's where I lost almost any interest in this game. It's takes after Dirt 2's brotastic environments.


Glad to see there's others out there who are a bit uneasy with this new Forza as well but the knock on arcade racers is a bit uncalled for.  But the Sega Racing Nation still exists out there cause a couple of comments later, someone says this:

Dreamcaster @BtheD19, Formula J treble World Champion

Arcade racing games, when done right, are freakin' amazing. Play any Sega racer and you'll see it. 

I love this guy.  No homo.  Though none of the sim racing aficianados have replied.  Who cares...reading the comments section of any major blog/news site is a good source of brain cancer.  Just don't do it.


...I really don't know what else to say about Forza Horizon.  It looks better than the incredibly generic Burnout--I mean Need for Speed: Most Wanted (the 2012 one).  Seriously, I don't feel like commenting on the new NFS since it looks like Burnout w/ Facebook functionality.  No use complaining anymore because A. we don't know what the final product will look like and B. it's also tailored for casuals so if you're outside the intended demographic then deal with it.  Dumb games are dumb--I'm outta here, dudes.

Cruis'n USA Fan Movie

Awesome, someone decided to make a fan movie of that other USA game...Cruis'n USA. But it's okay because I don't totally hate Cruis'n USA!! Rest of the Midway racers suck.  An interesting take on the series.

Better than anything Midway has made in the last three years!  Edit: Well, Midway went bankrupt so this guy's picking up the slack.



Lol, the second video is mine. RIP Bizarre Creations and PGR series.

Two Great Things I Want To See In Racing Games (Fine Tune This In The Garage)

Hey guys, I just finished that pizza delivery flash game for school.  It's good (in my opinion that is).  I'll post a link to it some time in the future.

But anyway, you think about racing games and they're cool and all, but here's two things I can think of that would be interesting to consider adding in the future.  These ideas may be ridiculous/unnecessary but I guess this is just to make you think.

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1. "Practice A Turn/Section" feature.  This is something the casuals won't really care about, but if you're the slightest bit die-hard, then it can be a problem.

Usually, when you go to race, tracks are usually about 40-80 seconds per lap.  If you go to "practice" (which is basically a time trial mode, just admit it), seldom is there a way to practice the taxing turns that you want to.  And running through the entire track again and again doesn't help much because you can't focus in on the turn/section you want to improve on the most.

If this were part of the track, you'd want to prepare for it too.

Let me explain how I thought of this.  I was recently playing Sega Rally Online Arcade.  I was time trialling on the Tropical course.  Now that course is easy but there's one broad right turn about 2/3rds of the way in (the one after the trail of mud).  My natural instinct is to get to the left side of the track and "guess" when to turn hard right (usually gauged by the billboards nearby).  But sometimes I would come too close to the outside wall or start "chunking" the tires (get too sideways and you lose lots of speed).  So then I tried again next lap but by doing a little downshifting.

At this point, I was a bit confused on what to do.  Every time I made that turn, I tried to think of how I did on that turn and how I should take it next time.  However, I had to drive for 40+ seconds afterwards just to get back to that part of the track again and by then, I had forgotten what I was trying to do.  So I've gotten into a nasty habit of just "winging it" every time I approach that turn during a race and that's not good.

Oops, bounced off the outside wall.  Better luck next time.

Even reading "guides" on the internet aren't as effective and still doesn't do much justice.  You can't possible memorize all these details (approach this corner at 160 mph, turn two car lengths past the sign, let off the gas then apply it here, oh geez).  Not to say guides are bad...sure I'd love to take advice from professionals but you can't learn something just by reading about it--you need to actually DO IT and get hands-on experience.

Ever read these guides for arcade racing games (non-Sega) like San Francisco Rush 2049?  There's a bunch of coins in the game hidden in each of the tracks (like keys on the console versions), but this time, there's many of them (about 100 per track) and they're in completely different locations.  So this one guide on GameFAQs tells you where all these coins are...but are you going to print out some sheets of paper and read them while you're actually at the arcade?  So just reading how to do something then go do it doesn't cut the mustard (usually)...like that one time I read that Golf for Dummies book and tried golfing the next day.  It's not that easy.

This book is USELESS.

So basically, what I want to do is run (with a rolling start) through the same 10-15 second section of track over and over again until I think I got it.  Use split-time so I can see how much I improved.  Is that tough to do?  It's a bit extreme and unrealistic (yeah, just warp me back to where I was), but so what, these are video game we're talking about. The same games that allow you to drive wrecklessly without result and block off major sections of New York City just to watch some bubble cars race in circles.  The only game that has come close is Gran Turismo with the license tests.  Or if you're playing on an emulator, you can use save states to go back to the beginning of the turn.


Seriously, wouldn't a "practice mode" come in handy for turns like this?

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2. Heighten the intensity of music when you're on the final lap and/or near the finish line.  Now this is something that Sega racers really don't do but it's not that big of a deal (no one else does, really) but I really think it could serve to put an exclamation mark on an already exciting game.

Now I'm a big believer in that a racing game needs to have a tight soundtrack.  Songs have to be fast-paced and /or related to driving to a certain extent, although this is not set in stone.  Sega racers do this but not many others do.  I like to find licensed music that's awesome for the job.  Put them all in a folder on a flash drive, pop it into my Xbox 360, it sweetens the whole thing.  BTW, if you want supplemental material, read my super-old post on why I love the Sega soundtrack.

So back to your own custom racing setlists.  Forza 3 did something like this before.  As a promotion for this Microsoft Zune music service, Turn10 took a survey from the fan community to submit their favorite "racing music" per genre.  Then Turn10 compiled a bunch of setlists per genre (50 songs each) to download on Zune.  Now for some sucky reason, you cannot see this list without having created a Zune account...but thankfully, the Forza 3 game came with a Zune free trial so I used it to see what songs were on this list.  Particularly Classic Rock since that's my main genre.

I see some good songs (I'll save my "good songs" for another day) and some bad ones.  Like I'm not knocking on these songs, but when you hear songs like More Than a Feeling, Fortunate Son, Message in a Bottle, Do You Feel Like I Do, Money, and (get ready for it) SLOW RIDE (yes, that's right, a song about DRIVING SLOWLY), do race cars come to mind?  No, some of these are poppish/slow mellow songs and I don't know but they don't fit with racing.  But that's just me--some people may like driving to this (hell, that have friggin Classical music in this Forza setlist as well as in Project Gotham Racing 3/4), but I dunno, just my suggestion.

But anyway, about in-game soundtracks, games aren't going to have a bunch of high-profile songs so they either make their own soundtracks (Ridge Racer, Cruis'n games) or get a bunch of cheapo bands you've never heard of to get the job done (Need for Speed, Crazy Taxi on Xbox 360/PS3) EDIT: including Papa Roach with their cheeseball albums (Metamorphosis, etc.) that are perfect racing game fodder too.  Now neither isn't bad but when the music is boring and/or unmemorable, then those games tend to suck or be less exciting to me.  Like I can't recall a single tune from Fast and the Furious which makes that game even suckier than it already is.  Although from what I've experienced, I do think Need for Speed has done a decent job of picking songs so kudos to them (yes, I said it).

Anyway, what was I saying?  Ok, about reaching the climax of a song.  Imagine you're editing a racing movie.  You reach the climax of the film when the driver's on the last lap, trying to overtake his rival(s).  What kind of music are you going to play there?  Slow Ride (forget about it)?

  Although now that you mention it, I think Slow Ride would make a great song for crap movies like this.

Now some of my favorite racing songs have either great intros (Thunderstruck, Flirting With Disaster) while some have great outros (every Daytona 2 song, The Chain, Running Down a Dream).  So let's take running Down a Dream and put it in our climatic final race scene (likewise, you can begin the race with something with a great intro...get the hint??).  But you're not going to cue up just the middle portion of the song, you're gonna go for the ending guitar solo.  An exciting conclusion to the race is capped off with the exciting song.  It would cause your head to explode.

Skip to 2:50
 

Or how about Slingshot?

Skip to 3:25 for the GLORY NOTE!


So save the most exciting part of the song at the end of the race in order to convey the message, "Ok, this is the last lap, leave it all out on the track now!!"  Yeah, skipping around to other parts of the song (come on, seaming these parts together can't be THAT hard) may say weird but someone try it.  But what most racing games do is that they cue up the song and just play it through.  The race ends and the music stops.  Simple as that.  You may even end the song on no music at all (the song ends and you wait for the next one to begin).  Now that just sucks, especially if the race was really close.

Now what game does this?  Well, I hate to bring this up again, but it's.....Split/Second.  Well, I think so anyway.  If you watch this gameplay footage (ugh), you'll see that the music becomes a lot more apparent.  At least from what I see.  The music doesn't just jump from one section of the song to another but it does so in stride.



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So anyway, that's the two things that I want to point out about racing games.  There's also other stuff for me to talk about pertaining to racers, but I'll address them later.  This post has gone on long enough and it's really late so good night, good morning, good afternoon...whatever time of the day you happen to read this.

Magical Journeys Throughout Europe Just Got More Difficult

I really have tried to stray from political issues, but if this true, then it is disturbing.

Some people at the European Union are trying to ban gas-powered cars from cities by 2050.  What for?  Cause of climate change???...but Carbon Dioxide only makes up 0.035% (give or take) of the atmosphere and if anything, the earth is getting colder.  Record winters & snowfalls everywhere.  Remember the '70s Time Magazine cover of the coming Ice Age and all the panic these big heads get into over extremes.

And if cars are deadly...well, there's plenty of things that people get killed by, such as planes, knives, peppermints (assuming you choke on 'em), swimming pools, etc.

I also don't even know how this is supposed to work--you can use cars outside of cities but not in them...so if you live in the city, you have to ride a bike over to the parking garage on the outskirts of town then drive away, go to another city, park the car outside that city then walk to the destination?  Makes a whole lotta sense.  Go ahead and ban all cars while you're at it.  Ok, now that is sick.  Please God don't let 'em do that.

I wonder what luxury auto makers like Ferrari, Porsche, and so forth will respond. I love cars, I want to drive cars around, cut this government intervention crap. I hope this is one of those phony baloney stories that is being blown out of proportion.  EDIT: No more cruis'n around OutRun/PGR style.  Whatever happened to letting the private sector determine supply and demand?

I know some of my long-time friends are from the UK.  Stand up for liberty and freedom, people!  If they take away cars, then what else can they take away too?  Maybe fast food, video games, flushable toilets, etc.  For the greater good I guess?  Wow!  We may have bigger problems on our hands than all these stupid depressing video games and Sega's ineptitude after all.

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Oh yeah, two more things.  Afterburner Climax and Crazy Taxi are just 400 MSP on Xbox Live for one week only.  So go go buy it, go go go go go go go go.

Also, WHY ARE THEY MAKING CUSTOM XBOX LIVE AVATAR FIGURES NOW...first Fatheads, now this.  I hate these avatar things now with all the expensive accessories, make em stop...  What a crappy day.

WTF Is Going On

This is just a miscellaneous post, more serious stuff to talk about later.

I would like to know what happened to my poll vote count.  The one that says "Who makes the best racing games?"  There was once 9 votes (not including mine), but then it went down to 6.  No way, this is BOGUS, man.  And yes, I do pay attention to stupid stuff like that.  So vote, vote, vote and may the best developer win.

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And this is a bit old, but we all saw this coming so it's not too surprising.  Bizarre Creations officially closes its doors February 18.  They made the Project Gotham Racing series, among others.  PGR has always stood out to me as a good contemporary racer which is saying something considering how much of a hard-ass I am.  Dammit, Split/Second killed Blur, thus killing Bizarre.  Well YOU SUCK SPLIT/SECOND.  As if I couldn't say that enough.  Really, I did a rant on this before...

I don't think I gave Blur that much of a shot though.  Maybe I should go buy it for kicks.  Like I said way back, it's not too bad--certainly better than stupid Split/Second.



YYYYYEEEEAAAAHHH MENU MUSICCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCC

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And one more thing for now.  So right now, I've been playing some Rock Band 3.  I like playing the Pro Keys--that's my new thing.  But for today, I go back to drums and give it a shot again (regular drums since I don't have the RB3 cymbals).  Drums is arguably my weakest instrument although I can play some songs on Expert.  I actually own two RB2 drumsets which sit in my room, both in working condition.

So I'm playing songs like Everybody Wants to Rule the World and I get absolutely raped by the rhythm--barely 3-star it.  It's just a damn struggle to do anything semi-complicated.  I get to these middle-tier songs like King George, Rehab, and Lasso and I'm busting my ass trying to 5-star these.  I actually start to nail these tricky foot pedal/roll parts.  So I do, in my opinion, very well, but much to my chagrin, I'm in the top 40-50% of the leaderboards.  Which basically means that about half of all the drummers out there did better than me.

I mean, it's damn hard to play drums--it's hard to get the beat down, you have to cope with the drumset, you get sweaty.  And all these years of playing and I still suck that bad?  Everyone's good at drums now, that's a given.  Like how everyone's good at guitar/bass because they've been playing since Guitar Hero 1.  The only difference I can pass just about every Expert song on guitar, but on drums, it's a huge embarassment.


This is a more expensive and elaborate drumset, but regardless, WE'RE NOT WORTHY!

I guess part of the appeal of Pro Keys is that it's something "new" and that not so many people are as good at it, therefore I rank higher in the leaderboards and thus feel better about myself.  Plus I played the piano for years while I've never messed with a real drumset.

You ruined my life.

BTW, my younger brother is a huge drummer.  He plays in some teenage screamo band (which practices underneath my bedroom if you can believe it)--into bands like Underoath, Devil Wears Prada, A Day To Remember, etc.  They are Christian bands (I think, either way their music isn't "heathenish" by any means).  But whatever happened to that punk music--ya know, like Blink 182, Ramones, THE OFFSPRING, etc.?  Kids just don't understand.

PSSSH, go listen to some Anthrax, see drum video above.  It's nice to hear a metal band that actually sings in a pitch for once.  Yes, I admit to liking Anthrax.

Thankfully, my brother is only slightly better at RB drums than I am.  He can pass the harder songs, but I can get higher scores by not breaking my combo (assuming the song is within my comfort zone).  He hardly plays though, loser.

Thank You, Activision

I was going to post this in the previous post, but I decided to split this one up.

If you don't know already, Bizarre Creations is nearly dead at the hands of its parent company, Activision.  Let us talk about it for a little while.  Its first hit was Metropolis Street Racer (Dreamcast), a precursor to the Project Gotham Racing (Xbox) series.  I know my boy rjay loves MSR, so here one's of his videos:



And then there's PGR 1 through 4--this time with Microsoft.  I actually had a lot of fun with PGR1 and 4 though most prefer PGR2.  It was a good diversion for someone who's been depraved of Sega racing goodness for some time.  I filmed this video on PGR4, check it out cause it's wicked sweet at the end:



And then this is where Activision comes in.  First, Bizarre makes Blur which I talked about back in July '10.  Yes, I may have opened up on it, but to be fair, it's not THAT bad of a game.  I hear it sold over 360,000 copies, but the article says it didn't sell well at all.  Is this game a failure?  *shrug*

Then, Bizarre (despite being a racing dev first and foremost) is told to make an FPS.  This one's called 007: Blood Stone: click here to check out the review.  It's kind of like Quantum of Solace (by Activision themselves) which came out two years before.  With Call of Duty in the way, I highly doubt this game's going anywhere.  Surprisingly, Blood Stone does have driving sequences...albeit mediocre ones.

And that's it.  Blood Stone sucks, Blur's not getting any more DLC/updates, and Bizarre is dead.  So Activision killed Bizarre to keep up what they've done to Infinity Ward and RedOctane.  Hey Sega, maybe you can pick up these guys again and teach them about your SEGA RACING GOODNESS and recruit more soldiers in the fight...too bad no one's listening.

EDITEDITEDIT: Day later, looks like Bizarre may get a new owner after all, but they won't say who.  So they're alive! I guess...

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Oh yeah, and how about this:  Tony Hawk: Shred Sells 3,000 Units In The First Week. Man, I tell you this.  The old Tony Hawks were super-fun, just busting out sweet combos and stuff.  But starting with Tony Hawk: Underground 2, the series has become a laughing stock.  Now it's gone from a laughing stock to a coma patient because after the abysmal failure that was Tony Hawk: Ride, Activision ditches Neversoft, gets another dev to make Tony Hawk: Shred, and it sucks, sucks, sucks.  I didn't even know this game existed until now.  Why oh why does this happen.

Well, goodbye skateboarding genre, you were cool for a little while...  I know there's Skate but nothing will replace the old THPS feel.  Then again, after watching videos like this, the whole game feels gimmicky as hell now so, uh...there goes my Tony Hawk career as a poor loser.  I'm done ranting.