Burnout 2, WTF Man...

As I said earlier, I'm working on this massive racing game timeline and that means looking up tons of pictures on racing games I seldom remember.  Like Burnout 2.  Oh hey, that was Burnout before the series sucked ass and...wait, what's that I see--

OMFG THE NUMBER 2

PANIC AND ZOOM IN BOTH NUMBERS NEXT TO EACH OTHER

We should consider ourselves fortunate they are NOT exactly the same but for a good minute or so, I thought they were.  Clearly Criterion stole the scratchy number 2 idea from Sega seeing as Daytona 2 preceded Burnout 2 by a few years.  JERKFACES.

Oh, and another funtastic thing I found...who died and made Raw Thrills the "#1 Game Studio"?

GRID, Dead Heat, H2Overdrive: Three Arcade Reviews

Ok guys, while on July 9th's exciting Dave & Buster's expedition (complete with Daytona USA footage), I also had the chance to play some other racing games.  And at this D&B's, there was a TON of racing games. Unfortunately, only Daytona USA and Club Kart (which I've never really talked about...it's Chuck E Cheese fodder (so is Scud Race) ) in terms of Sega racers.  So I decided to play some other racing games.  Bear in mind that each of these following games cost slightly more than Daytona USA so every time I played one of these games, that meant one less run at Daytona USA so these better damn well be worth it.  These brief reviews are only based off of one play session so take 'em with a grain of salt.

GRID

This is the arcade version of Codemasters' racing "classic," GRID.  Surprisingly, this arcade version was distributed by "Sega Amusements" as you see the Sega logo plastered all over the thing.   Now, this game is off to a bad start for me because the game's dingy "realistic" hues still turn me off.  I mean, look at the box art of the game for gosh darn's sakes:

When the Xbox 360 logo is more colorful than the rest of the game then we have a problem.  The game's format is similar to Scud Race--four cars. four tracks.  IMO, that's disappointing.  In 1996, four tracks/cars would've been okay but it's 2010 (when the game was released) and based on an existing console game so cut me some slack.  Not only that, but three of the cars are American (Mustang, Viper, Challenger) and one is Japanese (Supra) so that's a great mix there (compare to the four nationalities of Scud Race cars).  There's only six cars on the track, not eight, not twelve, which is another disappointment, seeing as this isn't some PS1 racing sim people, it's 2012, remember?

Putting all that aside, I admit the gameplay itself is not that bad.  I picked the San Francisco track and some medium-level car, I forgot which one.  Indeed I picked manual transmission--the gear stick is like that of OutRun 2 & Crazy Taxi--shift up and shift down only.  It reminds me of Project Gotham Racing but with dingier hues.  Handling is a bit drifty and I had no idea how to drift so I just cornered hard on every turn and hoped for the best.  That seemed to fair well as I moved up from 6th to 3rd just before the finish line.  Only problem is you never seem to reach OutRun/Daytona speeds of 180+ mph which is kind of a bummer.  There's also a bit of car damage (including car doors flinging wide open mid-race) so that's kind of gnarly without being Burnout-ridiculous.

Overall, you could put some time into this game since it's not shoddily made but with only four cars & tracks and limited top speeds, I only see so much worth in this game.  Better off buying the console version for cheap I suppose.  LAZY REVIEW SCORE: 7.4

Dead Heat

Check out the official Namco page.

Ah, Namco, we meet again.  I heard about Dead Heat a couple of times and I wanted to know what all the fuss is about.  It looks like a crap Fast & Furious clone with loose Ridge Racer elements plus photo booth in one slick cabinet.  And we all know that in this Facebook/Twitter/awesome Blogspot era, everyone wants to slap their mug shot all over the place so what's not to love about this game???  Well, I'll tell you...

While writing this review, I have my conflicts on whether or not I'm factually correct.  For instance, this four-player Dead Heat setup DID NOT have gear shifters available on any of the dashboards.  I don't believe I was asked at all to choose Automatic or Manual Transmission.  But the pictures/footage I looked up online show that the game does, in fact, have a four-gear stick shifter.  But in my recollection of my game, there was no stick.  I'm serious folks--I could've sworn that this version of Dead Heat didn't have Manual Transmission.  If for some reason the game did have manual, then I was never made aware of it at any time during the game. EDIT: I recall seeing a couple of Fast & Furious cabinets that didn't have a manual stick at all so I believe there may be Dead Heat cabinets without the stick too.

As an aside, I'll say this.  Aside from a few exceptions such as Mario Kart and non-traditional racers (like Super Sprint or Bang Bang Racing), if your racing game does not have manual transmission (not even a simple hi/low gear like OutRun/Crazy Taxi) then it sucks, period.  I don't care if it's a "crap" racer like Cruis'n World, you get that gear shift working or else my interest drops rapidly.  Another reason why we need to round up all copies of Burnout & Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit and have a bonfire Fahrenheit 451-style.  EDIT: The way I see it, if you program different gears into to the game (to resemble an actual car, not just one long gear), then I'd better damn well be able to switch through them.  How hard is it to implement manual?  Press a button and the gear switches instead of automatically.  Wow, that was hard.

So what else is there?  Well, when choosing my car out of a lineup of generic street racers like the Corvette, Skyline, Viper, Supra, etc. I only had like, what, 9 seconds to choose a car?  So I scrolled through the cars then all of a sudden--BOOM, I was locked into the Dodge Viper.  Once again, I have a feeling that I'm inaccurate again because upon consulting other gameplay footage, they had more time with the car select.  But once again, I swear that I only had 9 seconds.  I just don't get it.  Nine seconds isn't enough time to pick a car when you offer so many cars as it is.

Then the best part of all, smile for the camera!  Now, the last thing I want the game to do is to take a picture of me and make me stare at it for 3 minutes!  God Forbid the game actually "stored" the photo in memory and used it as an AI photo for people who play the game after me!  That's probably not true but there's way too many mysterious faces in the game as it is so I don't know if they're recycling or not.  Either way, I just got up out of the seat and boom--game now has a picture of an empty seat.  Haw haw.  You can also tie your photo to your own account and come back and earn extra miles for paint jobs and stuff (remember, flame decals add 50% more horsepower) but the last thing I planned on in this moment was playing the game ever again.

Look at these people, they're demented.

Holy cow, how about the gameplay?  Well, there's for tracks--New York, San Francisco (dayum, this city is in every racing game these days), Chicago, and London.  I picked London cause...I really don't know why.  The tracks are supposedly based off of real city layouts (you mean like Project Gotham Racing???) but that doesn't excuse the fact that just four tracks is crap, I'm sorry.

Your car starts out with three NOS boosts.  Okay, nitrous in a racing game, never seen that in a racing game before so w/e, sounds neat.  Press the NOS boosts within the first 15 seconds of the race only to find out that the NOS doesn't come back.  It doesn't recharge like in other racing games so that's a bummer.

Car handling...well, it's loose in that you have to be careful while turning lest your car rubs the outside wall.  Either way, nothing about the game felt taxing at all.  The AI cars always stayed on your ass because of rubber-banding, that I know.  The landscapes were at least colorful and the sense of speed wasn't that bad (180+ mph) but that's all I got out of the main gameplay itself.  It was just mundane for me.  Taking a photo of myself wouldn't have sweetened the deal at all.

Then, as abruptly as you can imagine, the race ends.  I literally only played for 80 seconds.  Once again, this is my personal recollection and may not be accurate for other Dead Heat cabinets but I truly do remember saying, "Holy cow, that's it?"  I'm stunned that such a racing game could be so short.  I thought we moved on from crap short races like Cruis'n USA but no, nothing's changed over the last 20 years.  What a huge letdown.

This game's garbage.  Aside from the photo gimmick, nothing about this game is really any better than Fast & the Furious.  And since F&F is already terrible enough as it is, this game is truly mediocre.  Your money's better spent playing a Sega racer.  LAZY REVIEW SCORE: 4.4

H2Overdrive

Check out the official H2Overdrive page.

Oh God, another Raw Thrills racer.  This can only turn out badly.  So there was a twin cabinet setup at D&B's and I decided to give it a shot since I hate myself and want to take the hit so that the rest of you don't think about playing this lousy ass game.  EDIT: Thanks to the anonymous poster who said that this game was just published my Raw Thrills and actually not made by them.  Bonus point on the review score!

I'm just kidding with this game sucking so bad.  Anyway, I heard that NBA superstar Rajon Rondo owns his own personal H2Overdrive machine.  How do we know this?  Check it out.

Good for Rajon!  However, I have different opinions.  The game has seven tracks and nine boats.  It plays pretty much the same as Hydro Thunder.  Pick a boat, pick a track, use the handle to speed up, collect the little blue/red boost thingies, and race to the finish.

I picked the hard track "London Underground" as well as some other hard difficulty boat.  Anyway...there's really not much to say about this game.  It's practically Hydro Thunder but with different stuff.  Problem is the game didn't seem as "exciting" as Hydro Thunder was.  This H2Overdrive version felt washed up.  Hence while I was playing the London Underground level, I was driving through these dark alleyways, dodging police boats and buoys while bouncing off the walls.  I tried doing the jump trick to reach the high boosts\ but failed because they must've changed how to do it or I'm just an idiot.

The London Underground level wasn't that great.  After plowing through dreary canals and sewers for a minute, I had a sneaking suspicion that I would fall through the ground into a vat of lava/radioactive waste.  Instead, I hit a ramp and flew into a happy forest setting with a sign that reads "Ye Olde Finish Line."  That's great, Raw Thrills, after fumbling around the most depressing level ever, I finally see blue skies and a few hints at something pertaining to Renaissance England and the race is over.  It only lasted about 90 seconds which, like in Dead Heat's case, isn't great.

Like in Dead Heat and every other Raw Thrills racer, you can save your progress with a password.  I really don't know what for but it seems like another gimmick to get people to play more than once.  Overall, this game is just "meh" to me so that's what score I give it.  I'd probably take Hydro Thunder over this.  LAZY REVIEW SCORE: 6.0

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

There were a couple more racing games at D&B's such as Fast & Furious Super Cars, Fast & Furious Bikes, Dirty Drivin', Need for Speed: Carbon, Tokyo Police Cop (wtf indeed)...I mean, what's the point of playing any of these games?  Playing any of these games meant one less play at Daytona USA so why waste my time with that dreck?  It also meant I had to wrack my brain even more writing more details about these non-Sega racers.  So I went to play Daytona USA and that was the end of it.  BTW, yay Olympics.  So that began today?  Cool, back to watchin NASCAR races...

Sega & Midway Similarities: The Death Of Gaming Giants

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

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

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

And now for your feature presentation...

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Dave & Buster's Daytona Adventure

I will get to the FIEA capstone stuff later.  Spoiler alert--Battle Fortress Tortoise (and Plushy Knight...psh) survive the final cut.  Seriously, I can't be bothered to talk about school stuff for a while.

Anyway, my dad's in town for the Daytona 500 and we had a day to relax and do stuff.  So we decided after our failed opportunity to visit Dave & Busters' in August, we would go today.  Traffic along International Drive was bad but we made it.  D&B's is usually packed to the fire limit but here, we got in right away since it was still daytime.

If you don't know about Dave & Buster's, it's basically a large arcade full of arcade games, a bar, and a fancy restaurant.  It's not a Sega Gameworks but it'll do for now.  D&B's is like Chuck E Cheese's but with fewer kids around--granted there were quite a few around sucking at every game imaginable. I'll cut through the crap now--there was a six-player Daytona USA 1 setup.  There was also Fast & Furious Bikes, Sega Go-Kart Racing, Need for Speed Carbon, Dead Heat, NASCAR Arcade, four-player Pac-Man,, Time Crisis 4, Ghost Squad...I mean, who cares about any of that junk (except for Ghost Squad which is good)?  We're here to play Daytona USA.



Take a quick glance at the 5-6 sec mark...see the Daytona USA cabinets in the background?  Oh, and FnF, GTFO with that trash.



He's clearly playing Daytona USA in this scene although you never see the screen/logo.

This is what your Dave & Buster's Daytona USA setup looks like.  This is NOT a picture that I took--I had this one on my hard drive months ago.  It's not your normal Daytona cabinet.  The screens are huge and  the seat is cushy.  Oh, and the seat shakes like all hell when you turn.  Just like *BRRMMPPP*, the thing doesn't gradually slide at all--it just tilts back and forth like a simulator theme park ride.  And the wheel force feedback was really tough--it took about two games before I got used to the setup.  I persevered despite aching in my arms, legs, and fingers.  You have to wrestle that beast to the ground.  I'd like to see Team Marubaku put up WR's on these things.  Thankfully the cabinets were clean & functioning properly--no broken shifters or pedals so props to the staff.

Each go cost about $1.25.  You can't pinpoint an exact price since you had to swipe special D&B cards that you purchased credits for.  The more credits you bought, the greater deal you got on them.  We just plunked $25 and I played a lot of Daytona USA which was a damn good time.

Thankfully, my Daytona XBLA skills really paid off.  I wanted to play the Advanced and Expert courses, but if anyone joined during the 15-second wait time, you were forced to do whatever course they selected, usually Beginner.  When I did do Advanced & Expert (people stopped jumping in later on), I smoked the game.  Put up 3:02 on Advanced, 3:27 on Expert.  Ok, so the Expert time is pretty bad but it's up to par on my XBLA skills and I need to go back and improve.  It was the best I could do.

When I did play multiplayer, it was always on Beginner.  And I just about smoked everybody.  You'd be surprised the amount of people who hop on and have NO IDEA how to play the game at all.  How typical that they pick automatic transmission, bounce off the wall on the Sonic turn, accidentally go in the pits on occasion.  Only thing keeping them in the race is the major rubber-band/catch-up.  Noobs driving AT behind me didn't even have to strategize whatsoever--they were about a second behind the whole race but I made no mistakes.  Took the Sonic turn at about 180-185 mph each time and put up low 17 second laps.  I won.

Must've played about 12 races myself, let my dad try a few times.  We left feeling good about ourselves.  Finally, I had some fun for once in my life.  We will hopefully come back another day.

Here's another Daytona USA pic for good measure.

Now some other things about D&B's.  The place had a Star Wars arcade game (Model3, baby!!) and that game's just weird shooting your blaster with the flight joystick.  I can see using that thing while piloting a ship but not while traveling on foot.  Oh well.

And I also saw a new Midway/Raw Thrills game called "Big Buck World."  Now I know about those cheesy deer hunting games in every arcade/pizza place imaginable, but I just want you to take a look at the logo and see if you notice something:

Don't see it?  Well, lemme help you out:

That's right--the buffoons at Raw Thrills decided to recycle part of the Cruis'n World logo.  I can't believe--Eugene Jarvis and the crew just blow me away with their games.  The level of crap in their games is evident even in the logo.  Just great.

As for the rest of the games, there was a couple of HUGE basketball games (sink baskets not from the free throw line but the 3-pointer line) and a ton of slot-machine ticket games.  It's basically like a casino but kids are welcome to play.  Yeah kids, come on down and gamble your cash for a couple of Chinese finger traps and Jawbreakers.

The ticket redemption area is in the corner of the arcade and it looks like a small Disney gift shop.  You'll see toys, candy, soccer balls, giant stuffed animals, t-shirts, grills, blenders, deep fryers, iPads, PS3s, Xbox 360s, I mean what the hell???  If you want a blender, go to Target and buy one.  How many adults are in dire need of a blender that they would be willing play Wheel of Fortune/Deal or No Deal redemption games to get the tickets required???

Honey, get that deep-fryer with the Dave & Buster's logo on it!!!

Aaaannddd...there's the restaurant which is just like your normal Applebee's/TGI Friday's stuff.  Place looks nice and has a bunch of TV's with ESPN.  The cheeseburger was alright, nothing new but satisfactory.  Then we went home.  Had a lot of fun.  Daytona USA was great.

Now I have to go to bed and drive to the Daytona 500 tomorrow.  It's gonna be great.  I'll try to bring a sign that says "Hey Sega, wish you were here, bring us Daytona USA 3" but I don't know if they take signs.  EDIT: No, signs are stupid but I'll bring something Daytona USA-related anyway.  Hahaha, later guys.

DAAAYYYYYTTTOOOOONNNNNAAAAAAAA!!!!  ROLLLLIINNNGGG STTAAARRRTTTTTTTT!!!  BLUE BLUE SKIEEESSSSS!!!

Spending Time With Family, Saints, Go-Karts, Ghost Squad, F***in' Fast & Furious, Disney Sucks

First of all, this was a good weekend because I had no homework and my parents drove over to Orlando to spend a few days with me.  But let's get to the Saints next.

I'm going to be like Joe Beningo here in a few minutes so little kids, please cover your ears.  All I have to say is that thank the Lord that I didn't actually see this Saints vs. Rams game on TV (I instead watched NFL.com updates).  Because this has to be the MOST EMBARASSING DISPLAY I have ever glazed upon in my life.  No excuses to lose this game.  What a disgrace!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


There are two types of teams in the NFL.  Teams that should win and teams that shouldn't.  The Saints are a good team (I think so, anyway).  They should be in charge of their destiny.  There's a reason the Rams were 0-6, because THEY STINK!!!  They had their backup QB in!!!  And then the Saints go to St. Louis and do what all dumb teams do and that is suck ass.  F***ing suck ass.


Compare the Saints to the Packers.  Let's just get this out of the way now--the Packers are probably going undefeated and are getting the #1 seed.  Why?  Because the Packers ARE WINNING GAMES THAT THEY SHOULD BE WINNING.  The Saints aren't.  And don't give me this "the team has to lose to learn to play better" nonsense since that just means they are undisciplined in the first place.  This sequence of "embarrassing" Saints losses goes back to last year when the Saints blew the games to the Cardinals, Browns, and Seahawks (first team to lose to a sub .500 postseason team, choke away 10-point lead, humiliating Marshawn Lynch replay).  Shame on you guys.  The Saints should've played with fire under their asses in order to keep up with other NFC teams but they look like they didn't give two s***s about it.


Oh, BTW, you know how awesome it was that ESPN gave the 62-7 victory over the Colts zero air time?  Well, expect ESPN to run a million stories about the Saints' 31-21 chokejob (most of those were garbage points) loss to the Rams with stories like "SEE I TOLD YOU SOOO SAINTS ARE ONE-AND-DONE ROFL" and "FALCONS WILL WIN NFC SOUTH CAUSE THEY HAVE MATT RYAN AND RODDY WHITE, TWO GREATEST PLAYARS EVER HAHAHA."  Good work, Saints.  Enjoy the embarassment.  Just suck it in and feel good about yourselves.  Really good.

Man-crush on Tony Gonzales!!!

And also don't give me this "Rams were playing passionate football," or "parity exists in the NFL" crap because it also applies to the Saints too.  If the Rams were playing tough, then the Saints should've played tough too.  AT WORST the game should've been tied by the half, but no.  The Saints scored ZERO POINTS in the first half.  That is completely indefensible.  You all are incredibly mediocre and deserve ZERO credit for today.  Sean Payton should take a paddle and just whip everyone with it.  Even Drew Brees since he's been throwing lots of dumb interceptions lately.  Seriously, just beat their asses with it.

Or maybe a ruler, you know...keeping with the Catholic theme.

This reminds me...I've said this before (in the Call of Duty: Max Performance post) that the day you underestimate the competition, you will LOSE.  Don't care if it's some dumb kids on XBL or your mom, you give it 100% all the f'n time.  This is true especially in professional sports.  Consider that a wounded animal WILL fight back when threatened.  Rams may be winless but they will get desperate at some point.  So you let 'em off the hook.  Good work Saints for playing down to the competition! 


And bear in mind that the Saints lost to a franchise that put out this video instructing its fans on "how to cheer" during the game.  Really?  This is absurd.





Seems like ever since "HAKIM DROPS THE BALL!!", the Rams have been the Saints' kryptonite.  Cause this is the second time a winless Rams team has gotten its first win against the Saints.  Sweet Jesus, this is bad.  So bad and I won't hold back.  I'm not going to "bail" from this team cause I still bleed black & gold but dammit I am just gonna call it like I see it.  Especially when I'm trying to enjoy time with my parents.

Know for a fact that someone will post this eventually so let's get it out of the way now.  And Rams fans, don't take this personally.  I'm mad at my team, that's about it.  There's still time for us to peak during the playoffs but enjoy playing on the road!  Geez.

Hey, it could be worse.  At least I'm not a Rangers fan.  Otherwise, I would be hospitalized right about now.

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

Okay, now I've gotten that train wreck out of the way, let's talk about what happened in real life.  On Sunday, me and my family are traveling down International Drive in Kississimee, FL., the big line of attractions/tourist traps near Disney & Universal Studios.  And we're looking for a go-kart track to drive on.  We find this three story wooden go-kart track and it was fun.  Just like the ones in Pigeon Forge, TN.  DAMN was the ride bumpy as I bobbed all over the place on those poor wooden planks which ate my dirt.  But, nonetheless, I continued on.  I lapped everyone too.  Kids were driving slow so I cut them off...all without bumping into them, of course!  Otherwise, those bums would've yelled and me and dragged me off the premises for "threatening to kill everyone."  No one's allowed to have fun anymore.

There was also an arcade at this place.  The arcade was decent--that is, if you enjoy Fast and the Furious very much.  I counted TWO Fast & Furious bike cabinets, FOUR Fast & Furious Drift cabinets, and THREE Deluxe Fast & Furious cabinets?  I mean, s***, do you really need THAT MANY FAST & FURIOUS GAMES???  No one was playing these games too.  Also, just for the lulz, I saw that one of the deluxe cabinets was missing a brake.  And none of them had manual gear shifters.  Not like you need either of those things, HAHA!!!  Seriously, I think I have more fun picking lint out of my pockets than I do playing this game.

The arcade did have Ghost Squad (2004) there and I played it for about six minutes.  I wasted two credits on it cause I accidentally shot the hostages (well I didn't know you had to hold the "special" button!).  Seriously, what an interesting game.  I played that cabin level and it was neat.  The machine gun controller was cooler than the traditional pistol weapon.  Main problem is that the screen wasn't in good shape...it was faded and the attract screen logo was burned in there too.  The same thing can be said about the 18 Wheeler game right adjacent to it.  So is it just me or is EVERY Sega arcade cabinet in poor condition???  Does anyone even bother with these arcade games anymore???

And why oh why does there have to be a Guitar Hero cabinet at the arcade too???  Do we really need MORE GUITAR HERO GAMES???  Go away, Raw Thrills, just...go away.  Can't take it anymore.  Friggin Fast and Furious & Guitar Hero in every arcade.  Well, at least we got Daytona 1/2, Scud Race, OutRun 2, etc. at home so it's not too bad.

I should mention there was a twin Sega Race TV cabinet there too and I played through it just once.  It was just as mediocre as my first experience was.  Game still makes zero sense to me this time.  I picked the Plymouth Hemi Cuda which has low top speed which meant that the AI would just sidle up to me near the finish line so I lost that way.  Man, this game is pissing me off too.

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

Oh, and it gets even better!  So me and my family decide to go to Downtown Disney.  It's this boardwalk-style attraction with a bunch of stores with blaring Radio Disney tunes (including Aaron Carter who is apparently still relevant) everywhere.  We checked out the Lego store they had.  Nice store, but no Xalax Lego Racers so no dice--Lego sucks now.  Yeah sure, just make a bunch of Lego dragons & Toy Story characters and we'll be on good terms--ooookay.  Then they had all these purple lit-up bars with dubstep music.  Another EPAC FAIL LOLOLOLLO.  And this "section" of Downtown Disney was called "Pleasure Island."  Geez, hide the kids.  Cause I imagine there was booze and hookers all around there.

Then I discover this store (or section of a store) called Ridemakerz.  Yes, it has a "z" on the end.  And you go there to make your own RC car.  Oooooo, gotta check it out!  So you pick up a plastic frame for your car (it's about a foot long & six inches wide), give it to the guy, and he outfits it with parts.  I picked a blue & white stock car.  Oh hell yes, after all these years, I finally get a "decent" RC car to play with.  Should be fun to drive around FIEA and whatnot.

So I read somewhere on the shelf that each car costs $22 at bare minimum.  I'm not interested in purchasing the shiny rims or the red tires--I just want a normal RC car shaped like a standard stock car.  Guy puts the thing together and says "Would you like a remote control with that?" and I'm like "Huh?"  The remote control is an "optional" accessory that costs an extra $25.  Wait, so I was about to buy an RC car without a controller??  What the f***ing s*** is that all about?  So the price of my car just doubled from $25 to $50.  Oh silly me, I thought I was getting a good deal on something at Disney World.  HA, forget about it.  So I just left after waiting for 15+ minutes.  Hate this crap.  TBQH, the car actually looked pretty good so it's a damn shame I had to give it up.  Maybe for $40, I'd give in but $50 is too much.

Anyway, I kissed my mom and dad goodbye and now I'm back at home, ready to take on the world by myself once again.  Thanks Saints, thanks Fast & Furious, thanks Disney for ALMOST ruining my day.

So What's Raw Thrills Up To Anyway? Pissing Me Off As Usual...

Nice, I'm watching the NASCAR race on TV...it's about time.  It's at Pocono, the Daytona USA tri-oval.  I keep forgetting to watch these things.  Now Brad Keselowski wins (and is drinking a Miller Lite) and Kurt Busch just said "bitch" on live TV (referring to an altercation with Jimmie Johnson).  And forget about censoring that word--if he can say it uncensored SO CAN I.

But I recently checked out a couple of Twitter accounts.  Raw Thrills has a Twitter, oh geez.  Anyway, here's what I got.

Justin Bieber on a Fast and Furious Bikes game...good enough of a reason NOT to play it now, sheesh...

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

Here's a YouTube video. 



The Description: Employees of Raw Thrills, Play Mechanix, Betson Enterprises and Namco Cybertainment risk their lives to bring you the best games in coin-op...

WHERE THE HELL IS SEGA???  WHY IS IT THAT EUGENE JARVIS HAS MORE DESIRE IN HIS PINKY FINGER TO MAKE A GOOD RACING GAME THAN IN EVERYONE AT SEGA COMBINED???  AND RAW THRILLS DOESN'T EVEN MAKE NASCAR GAMES, GOD FORBID THEY ACTUALLY MAKE ONE NOW???  AND NAMCO, WHY ARE YOU STILL HERE???  MY GOD, WHAT HAVE WE WROUGHT???

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

There has been both a Big Buck Hunter and a Big Buck Safari tournament recently.  The winner of the Safari tournament took home $10,000.  Wait--$10K?  Isn't that the same amount offered to those at EVO and MLG?  Screw Cock o Doody: Boring Ops, Gaylo: Reach, and Starcrap 2; I wanna watch some BIG BUCK HUNTIN'!!!  But no, really, Big Buck Hunter is the kind of game you'd see in a tiny pizza parlor arcade or in the front entrance of a Wal-Mart.  Golden Tee, an underground competitive game, is treated with more dignity.  Geez.



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

And now for the big salad.  This is a flattening article if you're Raw Thrills, otherwise, it's embarrassing.  Top 10 Secrets for Arcade Operators to Make Money.

Many survivors, such as Sega Sammy and Namco Bandai, were forced to merge and expand far afield into non-amusement territory in order to survive (despite which, their annual profit and loss statements still don't look nearly as healthy as stockholders would like).

This rocky history makes it all the more impressive that a relative newcomer, Chicago-based Raw Thrills, founded in 2001, has succeeded in a tough industry during a very difficult decade of consolidation and retrenchment. The extent of the company's success is impressive. Not only did distributors vote Raw Thrills top honors as "Manufacturer of the Year" in 2007 and 2008, but leading operators have named Raw Thrills chief executive Eugene Jarvis as 2009's Man of the Year. The Amusement and Music Owners Association of New York will present this honor at a dinner on Feb. 8 in New York City.

*profuse vomiting*

I'm going to apply this to SEGA....

Lesson 1: Learn your trade through years of hands-on experience. - Suzuki and Nagoshi have been making arcade games for years. 

Lesson 2: Build a great team. - These are the same people who made Virtua Fighter & countless arcade racers so no excuse there. 

Lesson 3: First be great at doing "just one thing." - Suzuki talked about "self-improvement" in his words of wisdom section from the game design book which is close enough. 

Lesson 4: Be an entertainer, and keep it simple.
Lesson 5: Respect the hits. - Quoting from the article:

When RT launched in 2001, the amusement trade could not foretell the staying power of its games. But from the very start, the company has worked to achieve a style of gameplay and graphics presentation that attracts the casual gamer and holds his interest. Rather than over-complicated simulations, simple yet fun gameplay has led to core playability that keeps cashboxes full. In short, RT always remembers that it's in the entertainment business, not the "super accurate simulator" business.

....and...

If you're in the entertainment business, then you are in a hit-driven business. The U.S. economy increasingly has no room for "mid-list" book titles, "fairly popular" TV shows, and "modest sleeper" films. Either it's a blockbuster or it's nothing. Raw Thrills embraced this principle through licensing hit properties such as The Fast and the Furious (remember, it was a hit film before it was a hit game) and the Terminator franchise. RT was an obvious choice when a safe pair of hands was needed to bring the million-selling Guitar Hero consumer videogame franchise to the arcades.

Step 1: Make mediocre games based on pop culture crap.
Step 2: ???
Step 3: PROFIT!!!

Sega can't win here, they just can't.  When they're making good games based on true blood, sweat, and tears, they lose.

Lesson 6: Build your own brand.
Lesson 7: Remember the basics.
Lesson 8: Teamwork.
Lesson 9: Market to your ultimate customer, the player ... not just to the next level down in the business chain. - These all pertain specifically to managing arcades, something that Sega surrendered on years ago (aside from UFO catchers).

Lesson 10: Get connected. - Ever since when did Sega meet with their fans?  Other than ridiculous canned crap, like Sonic Boom at E3 or Nagoshi doing Yakuza promos???  Where's Yu Suzuki anyway???  Doing nothing other than  

Bonus lesson: Stay focused on the future. - Does Sega strike you as focused on the future?  Or are they just trying to stay alive, not looking to overtake anyone?  Whatever happened to Japanese honor???  What a catastrophe.

So lemme ask you this--if Raw Thrills can crap out anything and it's a hit, why can't Sega?  Two reasons:

1. No one wants to play Sega games because they are really bad and us Sega diehards are too blissfully unaware to notice this...
OR
2. Sega is too lazy and doesn't care.

So shame on everyone, shame on Sega, welcome to the future of racing games--Fast and Furious and Need for Speed!!!

EDIT: Well, let me elaborate on what Sega should've done.  Tomorrow, they can't just come out and say "We're reviving twenty of our IP's with 300+ man teams each," no, doesn't work that way.  Maybe in the past they could've produced some more DC/Saturn/whatnot ports, treated them with more TLC, started with smaller games working their way up in order to raise their confidence and consumer awareness thus beginning the process of rolling the ball down the hill.  Don't get me wrong, they've done this in the form of a new Yakuza and a new Sonic game (after six/seven botched attempts thus flatlining the franchise) and OutRun/Sega Rally Online Arcade, but that's not enough, it just isn't.  Especially if you're a racing game fan like I am.

And they don't necessarily HAVE to make an arcade comeback here--home consoles are fine by me.  Better that we get a measly Sega Racing Classic XBLA/PSN port than get another unique arcade racer (like R-Tuned or Sega Race TV) that makes a grand whopping total of US arcade appearances in the single-digits.  But no, today they're in a crap position so they're in a bind here.

I expect some Midway fans to read this someday and then proceed to call me a fanboy.  Hell, I tell you this--I played the crap out of Cruis'n USA and World (both in arcades and on N64) when I was a kid.  It was fun.  But now, I see through its transparency...

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

And one more thing.  EDIT: I didn't find this on the Raw Thrills Twitter--no, they wouldn't touch this with a twenty foot pole.  This is about Pinball and Williams Entertainment (which would later become part of Midway).  Pinball lost popularity in the late 80's-90's.  Why?  

In 1986, Williams High Speed [a pinball machine] changed the economics of pinball forever.  Pinball developers began to see how they could take advantage of programmable software to monitor, incentivize, and ultimately exploit the players.  They had two instruments at their disposal:  the score required for a free game, and the match probability.  All pinball machines offer a replay to a player who beats some specified score.  Pre-1986, the replay score was hard wired into the game unless the operator manually re-programmed the software.  High Speed changed all that.  It was pre-loaded with an algorithm that adjusted the replay score according to the distribution of scores on the specified machine over a specific time interval.

Basically, what Williams did was alter the free game thresholds, either by making them increasingly more difficult or completely random.  And this isolated novice players and thus pinball lost a lot of players.  Then pinball proceeded to die.  Game over.

And what's sad is that Williams AKA Midway continued this winning tradition into Cruis'n USA, Cruis'n World, Fast and the Furious.  Come in first, win a free race.  Yeah, but the rubber band AI is so cheap that it's just a big tease to get you to play cause MAYBE you'll win one.  At least Sega racers don't give you this free game BS--you play one again, win or else, you're happy.

You know, I always thought it was weird that people would stand in the middle of the road waiting for you...what if you don't stop on a dime?  You run their asses over as they explode into packets of blood (Maximum Force-style).

Now don't get me wrong, these aren't the WORST games I've played.  But this is what I say--Midway/Raw Thrills make cheeseball games.  They ruined arcades for me...watching that Daytona USA or OutRun cabinet being ushered away for a Cruis'n or FnF game.  Makes me wanna puke (again).

Oh yeah, here's some quotes by Eugene Jarvis that I'm too lazy to elaborate on...

I need to go back to sleep.

Raw Thrills Presents Dirty Drivin'

Hello everybody, I'm alive and well.  Uh, I was going to talk about multiple games at once, but since this one game went on for too long, I'm gonna save the rest for later.

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

Thanks to rjay once again for the tip, Raw Thrills releases another arcade masterpiece known as Dirty Drivin'.  You drive trucks, smash into stuff, get powerups, and YANK THE CRANK!!





Now in all honesty, this game looks way too easy to make fun of so I'm not gonna do that.  My main problem is that it looks too damn distracting to actually focus on the driving.  I mean, holy cow.  Grabbing powerups, slamming into bad guys, trying to navigate the confusing track design, dealing with all that junk on the screen--I'd be frustrated too.  And yet the guy nearly comes in first there at the end--typical Midway/Raw Thrills rubber-band AI which dupes you into thinking you had a chance back there but you really didn't.

The game uses a "crank" much like a handle on a slot machine.  Now I think if that crank served as a four-gear manual shifter (i.e. "dropping the hammer" in a stock car) it would be a slick replacement to the traditional nub stick, but this crank just replaces the traditional flashing button on the dashboard.  EDIT: Didn't mean to say "get rid of the crank."

You save your progress with a PIN number, you roll the wheel at the end to see if you get a free game (which never happens), and that's it.  I mean, the environments look rather detailed and it's a "novel" concept (I guess) so I can't totally hate it.  Right about now, I know that Raw Thrills will never make a "serious" racer so they might as well go the opposite direction and make it as ridiculous as possible.

Also, why do they use More Human Than Human (by White Zombie)?  That song was also used in a Forza 4 trailer IIRC.  Now if I were playing any racing game, I'd take Black Sunshine over that.  Beware cause both songs have women moaning in the background in certain parts which is always nice...  But anyway, Black Sunshine begins with lyrics about driving a car:

Gripping the wheel, his knuckles went white with desire
The wheels of his Mustang exploding on the highway like a slug from a .45
True death, 400 horsepower of maximum performance piercing the night
This is black sunshine 

AMERICAN MUSCLE!!

There's a bit of car porn for you.  EDIT: Let me reiterate this too--I'm not blaming Dirty Drivin' for using a potentially offensive song cause I do think White Zombie is a good fit considering the source material.  Just in case you get that idea.

A Festivus For The Rest Of Us

If you know me, I'm a huge Seinfeld fan.  December 23 may be Christmas Eve's Eve, but no--it is indeed Festivus.  See here; too bad it's an abridged version:



"The Strike" Season 9 Ep. 10, first aired December 18, 1997.

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

Now for my personal Airing of Grievances.  I'm exaggerating here BTW so don't cry about it:

Sega, you didn't make that new Daytona USA game and I'm pissed!  As a matter of fact, you've done little more than piss on our childhood dreams!  All you do is publish games and take credit for it--you don't develop them!  Stop making games about urinals!  Also, try to build upon your old Dreamcast games rather than release they hackneyed ports that disintegrate in the bowels of Xbox Live Marketplace!

Toshihiro Nagoshi, you bum, stop hitting up the bars and tanning booths and make some good old Sega games from the old days!  No more of this Yakuza or Binary Domain crap, give me something Daytona-related!

Sonic Team, thanks for stabbing the Sonic franchise with a rusty shank all this time!

Nintendo, you're overrated and no one has the guts to say it so I will!  The Wii is a shovelware receptacle hinging entirely on the likes of Zelda, Smash Bros., Mario Kart, and miscellaneous motion control games!  Also, I will never forgive you for making the bikes overpowered in Mario Kart Wii!

Microsoft, the Kinect is a piece of crap!  Also, your little Xbox Live Avatars are incredibly ugly and seeing them makes me want to puke!

GameFAQs, your site is a good source of user-submitted guides, cheat codes, and reviews, but the message boards stink!  Your moderators are crazy and so are your little user-contests!  The Best Game contests are also lousy cause I can't take this Final Fantasy or Zelda crap anymore!  I also don't like in that "Rate The Song" contest on the Rock Band 3 board you posters gave Werewolves of London, I Can See For Miles, Foolin', Good Vibrations, and Rock Lobster (yes) crap scores while you gave Beast and the Harlot a good score (click here)!

Kotaku, you're turning into the G4TV of gaming blogs!  Stop pissing me off with your mis-representation of racing games, the miscellaneous science stories, dumb random crap, and all those anime chick pinups!

G4TV and Spike, congratulations on making me feel embarrassed to be a gamer!  X-Play is trash, Attack of the Show is lame, and Code Monkeys is the kind of crap my obnoxious WoW-obsessed Mountain Dew-drinking "accomplice" would like!

Game Informer, I'll never forgive you for that old OutRun 2 review where you gave it a 6.5!  Your magazine sucks and I hope you fail!

Activision, you are an embarrassment to the gaming community!  The way you slash and burn game companies--you do not allow any room for creativity or innovation!  It's all about the money, isn't it?

Namco Arcade in the mall, I'll never forgive you for taking away that Daytona USA 2 cabinet, regardless of the logistics behind it!

Forza 3 and Turn 10, I'm pissed at how the PI ratings are so screwed up that I can't play it anymore!  Perfectly good game goes to waste and now I can't play it anymore!

World of Warcraft, you ruined gaming as we know it with its grinding gameplay, crap graphics in which all the characters look the same, and turning everyone I know into zombies who use nerdy lingo and don't shower!

Midway and Raw Thrills, you suck, end of story.

All you people who don't read my blog, you don't know what you're missing so shame on you!

...I lost my train of thought, that's the end for me, I'm through.

Racing Contributors Informative List -- Why Sega Is Number One

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

Ding Dong, The Witch Is Dead? (Midway/Cruis'n Games/etc.)

http://kotaku.com/5612465/so-long-midway-and-thanks-for-smash-tv

Feb '09, Midway declared bankrupcy (which explains why Midway games like Smash TV, Paperboy, and Root Beer Tapper were taken on XBLA).  Apparently, today, all the studios are gone forever or are sold to someone else, as you can tell by the Midway logo in the trash can.  I'm going to say a few words--I'm not going to kick the company while its down but I'm not going to give an eulogy either.

BUT FIRST, let me just say that I'm going into the Cruis'n series quite a bit here.  Before you all call me a fanboy, a whiner, a stupid idiot who doesn't know anything, let me just say that I have played A TON of Cruis'n World and Cruis'n USA in arcades and on the N64.  I sat there with my little N64 racing wheel and got 9,999 points on Cruis'n World, unlocked the Speed Demon as well as all the other cars (except for the Tommy which I think is impossible).  I also set a world record on Cruis'n USA which I think may have been beaten right about now, but since the site that held the record has disappeared, it's really nothing right about now.  What I'm trying to say is that I've spent a copious amount of time playing these games so you can't say I don't know anything about them.

Probably the hardest track in the history of racing games.

Midway has always been a punching bag of mine, mostly because of its IMO mediocre Cruis'n series which has turned Sega racing games into an endangered species as far as I'm concerned.  That latter reason is why I take this a little personally, otherwise it can exist all it wants and I don't care.  But you kind of have to give Midway some credit for they've really pushed arcades ahead in America such as Paperboy, Smash TV, Root Beer Tapper, Defender, Joust, Gauntlet, etc.  They were kind of a "we make whatever games we want and you can't tell us otherwise" developer.  Plus they've released a ton of their arcade games in their Arcade Treasures series (although the emulation wasn't 100% perfect).

Cruis'n Series: There's Cruis'n USA, Cruis'n World, and Cruis'n Exotica, three arcade games that came home on ports for various consoles.  John Marine wrote a pretty good article on this here.  Well, what's my problem with these games?  Well, let me go with what I really don't like about it...

* It's a twitch racer.  Basically, the main difficulty with the game is not hitting the driving lines, instead its simply reacing to turns and oncoming traffic.  Most tracks anyway, some like Chicago and Redwood Forest in Cruis'n USA are insanely difficult.

* No need to use the brake at all.  Very little need for skill and not much room to improve yourself.  Flips, barrel rolls, etc take some skill to do but that's about it.

* Collision detection.  If you're driving along and you make a little love tap with another racer, just flip two coins, one for yourself, one for the other guy.  If the coin lands on heads, spin out.  If tails, lose about 2 mph and keep going.  Basically, it's just like a random integer that causes you to spin out for no reason whatsoever.  For some reason, the likelihood of a spinout is much less in Cruis'n USA which means it got worse then on IMO.

* Rubber band AI.  OH MAN DO I HATE THIS.  You can be in the lead, cruis'n, first place, not doing anything wrong, hitting whatever racing lines may exist, but the computer will still be riding your ass the whole way.  Sometimes when I'm playing this (this is mostly in the arcade version for obvious reasons) I lose and it just makes me want to punch the screen.  And another thing Midway has the kindness to do is offer a "free race" to those who come in first, but you might as well play a light stopper game if you want freebies.

* Time limit is too generous.  Races are too short, some lasting at least 1:30 or longer, depending on how well you drive.

* This one's for the arcade versions of Cruis'n World and Exotica, I'm looking right at you.  When you're on the Kenya track or whatever, little sprite animals like zebras and elephants can wander right out onto the track.  What happens when you hit them?  They explode into blood chunk giblets that fly all over the place.  PETA should've sued Midway for this.  Anyway, I might've found this entertaining...if I were a five year old who likes making farting noises with my armpits and making death threats against Barney the Dinosaur.

NEW FOOTAGE:

About as gruesome as a shotgun-wielding lunatic at a furry convention.

On the other hand, there's a few good things I can say about the Cruis'n games and that is it's got a decent "vibe."  Like it's a game that doesn't take itself seriously.  Good music, good menus, cool cars, a decent sense of speed.  It's not the worse game I've ever played...but at someone whose standards are way up high, I don't know, I just can't take it at all.

Cruis'n USA came out in '94, nearly the same time as Daytona USA and Ridge Racer.

The original Cruis'n USA had a Ferrari Testarossa, '63 Corvette Stingray, a Jaguar XJ220, and some weird '30's Chevy...thing.  The cars were cool and the music was good which IMO makes Cruis'n USA the best in the series.  That was before the series took a dive into Darth Vader territory with a bunch of ridiculous cars like little Beetles, Hummers, that 3-wheel truck thing, as well as flips and stuff which really make zero sense in any racing game as far as I'm concerned.  This game even has drifting which really doesn't make any sense other than to do heli spins moves.

Like I said about the Cruis'n games, they're games that you can't take seriously.  I mean, when I'm playing Daytona USA or OutRun, I always gotta do my best, but here, it's just stupid fun.  But that's the main problem--it's something that NO ONE takes seriously!  It's a game that the average Joe arcade gamer throws money at and then quits because they don't feel like playing a game like Daytona USA and busting their ass to get better at it.  And that's why I think the Cruis'n games are dominating the arcades.  And that's why I have a vendetta against them.

Everything Else: I could've gone into a long list of games but since this article's too long anyway, let's just sum it up quickly.

Mortal Kombat, their most prized possession.  Personally, despite the violence, I never saw it as that great of a fighting series because it mostly ran on the blood gimmick.  The later 3d series has really improved it's visage when compared to serious contenders like Street Fighter, Tekken, etc.  Not going to comment much since fighting games aren't my forte.

NFL Blitz and NBA Jam, not bad.  They got numerous home ports (including a new NBA Jam game coming soon) and they are pretty goofy.  Although I prefer NFL Street, Blitz is basically rugby with QBs and RBs throwing the ball 50 yards with a perfect spiral and late hits and all that crap.  Still, it's good fun and it's pretty easy to pick up.  NBA Jam, fun too.  Decent sports games.

San Francisco Rush, probably their best game IMO.  Decent racing game with low gravity, the tracks are cool, tons of secrets.  And get this, YOU HAVE TO USE THE BRAKES.  Rush 2049 is a good arcade game that actually warrants some replay value (finding coins, gaining miles), but it didn't last long.  Too bad the N64 versions were graphically underwhelming even by N64 standards.

Rampage, basically you play as three Godzilla-sized monsters and go punch buildings and eat people.  Game really makes zero sense whatsoever but I can see little kids getting a kick out of it.  The game basically becomes a "don't lose your HP" game as tanks and helicopters shoot you up and I never really could do anything to stop it.  So yeah, this one's stupid.  BAD.

Area 51 and Lethal Enforcers, compared to Time Crisis and Virtua Cop, this one's just laughable.  There's no way to avoid getting hit so it's really up to level memorization to beat the game.  At least there's a few cool secret items and rooms and crap.

Hydro Thunder, everyone knows about this one.  It's a boat racer which is pretty cool and it's basically in every arcade in the world.  It's one of Midway's best products, but I'm not bombastic all over it.  Check out the new H2O Overdrive for arcades or the Hydro Thunder game for XBLA if you're so inclined.

California Speed, the bastard child of Cruis'n World and San Franciso Rush.  It's basically like Rush but you can't blow up and are glued to the road.  It's got some crazy locales like Silicon Valley and Mojave Desert which leads to environments such as large supercomputers, UFOs, volcanoes, large shopping malls, roller coasters, etc.  It's still a pretty crappy game though.

Revolution X, remember this gem?  It's got Aerosmith in it, but still, not even they can save it.  Why AEROSMITH WHY??

Remember, music is the weapon.

Primal Rage, a bunch of dinosaurs punching each other in a blood bath to the death.  Evo and Major League Gaming is considering adding this one to their lineup.

I could really go on, but that's about it.  After '09, Ed Boon (Mortal Kombat creator) continues to work at the old Midway Chicago studio under Warner Bros.  Eugene Jarvis (Cruis'n creator) bailed out and created his own company called Raw Thrills where he can spam Cruis'n and Area 51 clones to screw us over in the 21st century!  Fast and the Furious = game of the century.  So I guess you can say Midway really isn't "dead."

Anyway, bankrupcy can be bad and there's probably some Midway fans hurting right about now.  But what if something like this happened to Sega?  Didn't they come close to biting the bullet after the Dreamcast?  I don't know, it's just something scary to think about.  If Sega is gone, not only would you lose Daytona USA, but any chance of sequels!  Plus Sonic the Hedgehog, which would make tons of kids and the UK cry.  I'm outta here, adios.