Hello everybody. I've been a fan of Sega Racing games (Daytona USA 1/2, Scud Race, OutRun 1/2, Sega Rally, Crazy Taxi, Virtua Racing, etc.) ever since I first played Daytona USA 2 in the arcade around 2002. I like them and try to promote them as much as I can. Let everyone know about the magic that is Sega Racing Games!!!
Stop right there, you must read this or your family, friends, and pets will die in a fire:
I'll set you a challange. Without any policing from the SUMO or SEGA crew, if you can all agree on three characters by the 1st of December and prove there is sufficient interest of at least 1000 unique people *per* character, I will present the result to SEGA. I can't promise anything will happen as a result, but since you're starting it... - DarthS0L
I personally petitioned for the elusive Daytona USA 2 transformer, made up of the Scorpio Car, the Chums Gum Boat, and the Phantom Jet. What...Daytona 2 needs some love too? And Scud Race. And Sega Rally. Damn Hornet steals all the attention. Too bad my idea didn't go through.
But THERE'S MORE SECRET CHARACTERS! These characters are on the disc but they had to be hacked to get the videos you see here. There's only twenty-three slots on character select screen. Wait, are these guys platform exclusives or are they on-disc DLC? If they are DLC, why Sumo, why??? Well, you paid $40 for the game, just shut up and let Sumo take your money.
Jolly good show, mate! I'm in Sega All-Stars Racing, that's massive!!!
There's gonna be a bunch of flak taken for this character. I mean, a FOOTBALL MANAGER character??? Fantastic! I am actually not bothered by this. Everyone loves British accents. And that silver Rolls Royce is pretty cool. Notice the helmet? You were never meant to see this bloke's eyes and hair. Couldn't see them on the box art, couldn't see them in this game.
I was going to make a funny joke about being in first place but that's the second stereotype I played up in this post and I don't want to blow it. Well, everyone loves Japanese samurai dudes...the car's pretty cool, made out of wood like a 70's station wagon but if you're gonna put an Asian in the game...why not Ryo? Or Segata Sanshiro? SUMO IS A DISGRACE TO SEGA!!!
It's Alex Kidd, I have nothing funny to say about him.
Once Gaben takes over, he'll make his own Valve kart racer. And for the first time in the History of the World, Reddit Gaming will actually care about a racing game (DAE PLAY THIS GAEM???).
Also, watch out guys, pieces of Billy Hatcher, Jacky Bryant, and Zobio & Zobiko were found in the code. I know Billy was cut (S0L said so) but these guys may be set for future DLC. Yes, they can bring Billy back, I believe it! Just vote in the thread above, buy the game, and rate it 10/10 on all the terrible websites like GameFAQs, please.
EDIT: So guys on the Sega forums are spamming links to the thread on various forums, including Kotaku and Reddit. Kotaku is a joke of a gaming site, only post about bad aspects of Japanese culture, snack food, Reddit reposts, and the occasional article about how awesome of a gamer you are because you play Assassin's Creed/Portal/Halo/Minecraft. Reddit cares more about stuff that doesn't even deserve to make the front page on /r/midlyinteresting, such as this:
Well I got some pretty lame news. Remember the internship that I got three months ago? Well today, I was politely informed that my brief tenure with the company has come to a sudden conclusion. Basically it means I was fired.
FIRED!!!
Let me explain. The exchange today went well. I left on a good note. But, from the questions I asked, it wasn't because I did a poor job or I was a slacker. It was because they basically ran out of stuff for me to do. At least I think so--if I sucked then I wouldn't know since they didn't tell me. I don't think I said or did anything offensive as well (at least to my knowledge). I'm awfully disappointed, yes, but I really can't hold it against those guys since they're struggling now. At least I learned a lot of new things, like how to use a Mac computer. Yes sir. It was really a good experience.
About this place that I worked at. Well, I kept my place of employment a secret at first. I won't tell you them now but I'll go ahead and say that it had nothing to do with racing games. It was a startup Facebook/IOS studio with a few EA veterans in it. That's all I can say since I don't want to inadvertently slander these guys in any way.
This studio had one semi-popular Facebook game up for at least a year before I got there. What game it is--I'm not telling. As soon as I showed up, my main job was to bug fix the hell out of that thing. This meant digging into an existing ActionScript and PHP code base. That's not bad cause at least I'm working on games and it's still interesting to me (at first). Me and one other senior guy worked on stuff--he was the pilot and I was the co-pilot. We were doing lots of bug tracking and QA stuff.
Well, a month later, my "pilot" was fired for seemingly no reason. That's great--my pilot goes AWOL and now I have to fly the plane on my own. So I had to take initiative and find bugs on my own. I was more proficient at the Mac Terminal, Source Tree, Flash Builder (yes, we used Macs, deal with it), then it became readily apparent that the company wanted to "sunset" this game (a fancy term which means disconnect the game in 3-12 months) because the game wasn't making any more money. Basically Zynga would stop advertising the game and hope that any existing players would lose interest so when the servers are shut down, no one would care. And I got distraught because this game was my "baby" and I spent so much time fixing it up and now all is for naught. I actually sort of "liked" the game too--it wasn't something I detest like Farmville, World of Warcraft, or Burnout.
Eventually for the last three weeks, I was absorbed into the "analytics" team which is basically 5-6 guys working on business software. They took me aside and say "hey, you're a smart kid, sit in our long-ass meetings and help us out." This included lots of PHP and Objective-C. I didn't really have much choice since it was the only place a programmer like me could find something to do. Eventually my task was to be a pioneer and make some unit tests or port Actionscript code to Objective-C and I basically did that...right up until now when I was fired.
Also on that same day, and apparently I must've missed the memo, one of the analytics team guys quit as well so the company was kind of f***ed at that moment. But really, up until that moment, the whole thing was a drag on myself and the company. I wasn't making games. I didn't have a whole lot to do. 30 hours a week was a stretch for me and I didn't want to hang out in the office playing Facebook games as a lame excuse to say "look at these hours, I worked so hard." And even I thought my hourly wage wasn't worth the work I was doing so whatever...away I went.
I felt so bad over the last two or three weeks. Like my morale threw out the window. My dream is to make racing games. And I'm just sitting here making business software. As for the other guys in the company, they're prototyping board games, hoping to get that blockbuster hit like Words with Friends. I can't blame 'em but that wasn't for me and I'm sort of glad I was laid off. Just really sucked since I was friends with a few people from my school from previous cohorts (they went there a year before me) and today, we walked downtown to Five Guys. Ate a burger. Talked about Reddit. I didn't expect to be fired that day but whatever. Bad things just happen. Watch the news. Enjoy every moment of every opportunity you have.
Money-wise I am fine so don't worry about it. I'll return back to gaming school, look for more opportunities, and so forth. Instructors there are very helpful and will do anything to help with the job search. Right now, my main goal is Sumo Digital in the UK (of course). Second would be Firebrand Games in Florida (no brainer). After that, I really don't know where I want to go. I could've stayed there in 2013 if I had nowhere else to go but I think leaving was inevitable. Just really sucks cause some people right out of game school went straight to "great" studios like Bungie and DICE and where am I? Back to working on Super Sprint and updating my resume...
I think I got lucky I got the job there. After reading 30+ resumes and interviewing 10+ people, I was the only one hired and that was about a month after my interview. I think they were reluctant to hire anybody so they just got one person--me. And since I was on borrowed time from the get-go, I'm not surprised about what went down today.
Hey, there's one good thing about being fired like that. As long as I didn't "suck," it's a good alibi on my resume. Employers tend to frown on short jobs (6 months or less) because you aren't "loyal" to the company but at least I can say "I worked hard but they were downsizing and it was inevitable so you can't hold my loyalty into question." A win for our side!
Now to eat an entire gallon of Blue Bell Cookies and Ice Cream, play Civ 5 for 12 hours, and cry myself to sleep!
Okay, a day later and I still cannot get over being fired. Like Ricky Bobby, I saw the fear...I know I can get s***canned from my job at any moment. Yet I can't stop joking about it. It's like getting hit by a car--it sucks but everyone thinks you're a total BA cause you survived. Or something...
MACFRY!!! I WAS JUST READING THAT BLOG POST YOU MADE. YOU ARE TERMINATED!!!
I don't even really work here (I'm an intern being payed close to minimum wage). That's what makes this so difficult.
I like Valve, I can work for Valve. I can make Half-Life 3. GABEN GABEN GABEN, APERTURE SCIENCE, WHEN LIFE GIVES YOU LEMONS MAKE LIFE TAKE THE LEMONS BACK, HAY GAIS DAE REMEMBER DIS GEM??? Also ponies, Rainbow Dash is my favorite. Well that's really not fair.
I feel dejected right now. One of my good friends who runs the Shenmue Stare site called it quits. Seems like Sega fans are just losing it as am I. So here comes the rant.
One thing we can all agree on right now is that Sega has some problems of certain levels of severity. I mock Sega. I pick at them a lot because I love their racing games and they haven't returned to their prime. But at someone who has some knowledge of Sega (i.e. the immense amount of money they lost) it's somewhat understandable. Yet to others, picking on Sega is usually for s***s and giggles by the media. Here's a choice quote from the infamous Shenmue Dojo post pertaining to Sega & Hajime Satomi of the Yakuza:
SEGA is also the victim of general bias and hate from both the gaming 'media' and 'gamers' in general; both of whom are indoctrinated to believe Nintendo is the be-all and end-all of gaming creativity when in truth Mityamoto's creative output is dwarfed by one SEGA development studio and slaughtered by Yu Suzuki alone. When companies such as RARE and UbiSoft are sold or sell-out, these typical sheep are up in arms. When SEGA was literally raped, butchered and murdered slowly by Sammy, nary a word from the press or the 'gaming' community.....
Exactly my point. The thing is I'm afraid that lots of people are just ignorant of Sega as a whole. Sega was this "great empire," now they are to be mocked and ridiculed on seldom occasions when someone on sites like Kotaku, Joystiq, or Reddit references Sega in some way. But let's be clear, no matter how pessimistic I seem, Sega isn't doing TOO bad. Here's a list of things they're doing well. They're making money again. They aren't abusing Sonic as much. They released ports of Daytona USA, OutRun 2, Sega Rally, other Dreamcast games so I can't totally hate on the guy. Seriously, read the LEAVE SEGA ALONE! post from last year. But others who have no emotional investment in Sega, they couldn't care less.
Quick--here's a pop quiz. Answer these questions in a minute and don't look up the answers:
1. Name four Sega consoles. 2. Name two important Sega people. 3. Name five franchises originated by Sega.
They couldn't do it. They'd spit out the usual talking points, "Sega, hmm....they made the Genesis but the SNES was better, they made the Dreamcast which failed, they made Sonic the Hedgehog which they ruined....and oh, they made BAYONETTA! (not made by Sega, made by Platinum Games with some involvement on Sega's part) Other than that, I know nothing." And these are the same people who gush all over Nintendo, all over Blizzard, all over Bethesda, all over Rockstar, all over Valve, all over other "visionaries" like Cliff Bleszinski and Notch but when it comes to Yu Suzuki or Yuji Naka, they draw a blank. Can't stand it.
Okay, disclaimer time: I'm not saying EVERY GAMER thinks this way. But I have a hunch that too many DO think that way since whenever I seldom hear about Sega, it's always in a negative light. You don't necessarily have to be a "Sega fan" to criticize them too. Take Electronic Arts--we all beat up on them but they're front & center on the stage all the time so there's no excuse not to know about their antics. But here's some anti-Sega media:
Speaking of Sega's age, they're practically on par with Nintendo. FIRST RECOGNIZABLE GAMES: Nintendo's Donkey Kong = 1981. Sega's Monaco GP = 1980. CONSOLES: Sega Master System = 1985. Nintendo Entertainment System = 1985. Though technically, there's the Famicom which came out in 1983. But anyway, I'm just trying to get this whole "Nintendo came first" baloney out of the way now. Also, Sega was kicking ass in arcades during the 80's/90's yet Nintendo wasn't. But since consoles are the only thing that mattered, Nintendo gets praised while Sega gets dumped on. Arcade success means nothing to these people.
I realize Sega got what's coming to them when they trampled the Sonic series, but it's turned around and, all petty complaints aside, isn't as terrible as it once was. So if the media could stop running with the mantra "I can't play Sanic gaemz cause they r so bad and made for furries and kids with autism" then maybe I won't get so irate whenever I read a Sonic story on these "neutral" game sites.
Wait, what--there's Harrison Ford with a Master System. And nobody wants to play with him. Speaking of which, I wonder where this NES bias came from. I don't think I was ever shown a Master System. Not that the NES is bad (it has uh...Mario and Zelda!) but come on--it can't be as bad as gamers portray it (by completely ignoring it altogether)?
The "news" sites like Kotaku are just bad. Whenever you do hear something about Sega, it's a gag story. Like "Sega's brown man (Nagoshi) interviews porn stars (for Yakuza)" or "Here's a screencap of old Sonic telling young Sonic 'Your future's gonna be great!' " or "WTF is wrong with Sega making a Mario & Sonic Olympics Game?" I only glaze over that site's stories just to check in on what's the news with gaming in general but other than that, this site sucks. Speaking of sucking, I've noticed Kotaku has the tendency to post news/videos/pictures seen off of Reddit Gaming a day later. Lazy reporters have nothing good to say.
Speaking of Reddit Gaming. I've browsed that website for a good three months thus far and I'm tired of it. Most of the posts are innocuous (funny screenshots & other stuff) but Good Lord, I'd be lying if I didn't say it was the Valve Show over there. Don't get me wrong--Valve is a great company, all their games are top-notch, they give you the tools & source code to make your own mods (look at my CS 1.6 maps), Gabe Newell is a pretty good billionaire who doesn't afraid of anything, but is this company the ONLY game dev they focus on? Same group think--WHERE'S HALF LIFE 3??? GABEN, PORTAL, CAVE JOHNSON, WILL HALF-LIFE 3 EVER BE RELEASED??? EDIT: This is the top Reddit Gaming post of 9/3/12:
As an aside, I'll go ahead and say this now. Disregarding the fact I think Half-Life 2 is good but overrated (another linear single-player FPS but your character can't talk, how clever), Half-Life 3 is inevitable. Valve is a very successful company. Gabe Newell is a billionaire who is always in touch with fans. There's at least 100 million Half-Life fans out there. There WILL BE A Half-Life 3. On the other hand, try saying that about Shenmue 3. Or Daytona USA 3. Or even Sonic Adventure 3. NO SHOT. Sega is nowhere near as good as Valve is and all of their talent has basically packed their bags & left. EDIT: And any "diehard" Sega fans are so far & few between that you seldom hear them among the vast "ocean" of the Internet.
Speaking of Sega, Reddit Gaming couldn't give two s***s about Sega. No surprise. The only Sega-related story that makes the front page of Reddit Gaming is another repost of the "Genesis Tower."
And one more thing--this is about GameFAQs. I still do my damnest to stay off that lousy-ass website. But you remember a while back how GameFAQs would run all those Top 10 lists and Contests to decide what the best games ever made are? I'm dead serious--if I go to this website and am told ONE MORE TIME about how great Mario, Zelda, Pokemon, Halo, Starcraft, Grand Theft Auto, Final Fantasy, Portal are and how they're so much better than all other games, I'm going to punch a baby. The same people who circlejerk their mainstream games on these websites, such as GameFAQs or Reddit, who try to lecture me on the same groupthink crap are going to make me snap.
It's just sad because the only truly apparent group of Sega fans are...Sonic fans. And they're the ones who get raked over coals--for bickering amongst each over about what Sonic games are good or not (Sonic 3, Sonic Adventure 2, Sonic CD, etc.), for being "furries," for spamming the message boards asking whether or not miscellaneous characters will be in Sonic & Sega All-Stars Racing (omg, can we get Blaze the Cat DLC????), thereby obfuscating the point of the game which is to be about GOOD, SOLID RACING as opposed to a bunch of Sonic characters. Really now, I like Sonic but seeing as the company now lives or dies by it gives the haters a bunch of ammo.
And then there's other gamers. We're at school and we're talking about what game companies we want to work. Here's what happens:
Other Guy: "Where do you want to work?"
Me: "I want to work for Sega."
Other Guy: "Sega is a s***hole." (he's probably right)
Later that day, the same conversation occurs with another guy:
Another Guy: "Where do you want to go?"
Me: "I want to work for Sega."
Another Guy: "Wait, Sega is still around?????"
Case in point, no one knows s*** about Sega. The hard work done by Yuji Naka, Yu Suzuki, and others will be washed away by a clusterf*** of Zelda, Mass Effect, Call of Duty, Halo, Need for Speed, and Grand Theft Auto games. Because we all know that those were the truly "innovative" games of our time while Sega.....pssh, they sucked, no one cares.
One more thing, there's this which was great because it paints Sega in a positive light and it actually made the non-Sega blogs like Kotaku:
And there's always some smart-aleck who chimes in, "A Shenmue 3 wouldn't work in today's age." Which is probably true. I mean, the expectation people have for free-roam story-based games like these is too much. Where are the weapons, why can't I blow up hookers, why can't you run over people in the forklift, why does this game have QTE's (Shenmue invented them but now every other game has incorporated them, running this type of gameplay into the ground). Yet at the same time, these people don't want their Zelda/WoW/Half-Life/etc games to change--it's Shenmue that has to. Zelda never ages, Mario never ages, Final Fantasy never ages, Street Fighter never ages, but Shenmue does therefore it's overrated. Makes a whole lotta sense.
Seriously, I did not intend for this to be a "fanboy" post but for God's sake, if you're going to launch salvos again at Sega (like every other gamer has, regardless of whether they care about Sega's well being) then cut us some damn slack since dealing with this company is a roller-coaster ride and there's been some effort recently for Sega to make a comeback. I felt this post needed to be made cause I'm getting pissed off about this every day. Until then, here's hopes for blue skies...someday.
Adorable picture. The irony is the PS3's older brother (the PS2) killed the Dreamcast. How does it feel to be related to a killer?
You know what, there's so much crap going on with Sega. People getting fired, Sega guys joining Nintendo, Yakuza games turning girls into porn stars, you know the whole ordeal. I really can't go through it all since I got a lot of work to do and I really can't think it through right now.
But I did have a dream recently. I have a lot of dumb dreams and this one's no different. However, it's semi-relevant to this topic (as is this dream months ago). This is how it goes. I promise you that I'm not embellishing this.
...
Me and my dad are in a slim office building about 40 floors high. There's large glass windows spanning multiple floors and a modest-sized crowd around. What we were all doing there, I really don't know. We're near the top floors and we're trying to get to the ground floor. Apparently the glass elevator was broken but rather than walk down the stairs, we waited for the elevator to be fixed.
So while waiting, I discovered that the top floors of the building are in fact the Valve offices, where they make Half-Life, Portal, Left 4 Dead, Team Fortress, etc. Surprisingly, my imagery of the offices were similar to their real-life offices. And guess what--you could just walk in and chill out, shoot the breeze, whatever. There weren't that many people around so we weren't disrupting anybody.
So I get to the top floor and there's this brown board room with business execs in suits doing business stuff while little kids are running around playing with various toys like at a daycare. It didn't make any sense. But guess who was there standing around--none other than gaming billionaire Gabe Newell.
So I go up to Gabe, not to have a panic attack and shout "IT'S GABE!!!!!" I play it cool. But the first thing that comes out of my mouth and--get ready for it--is something like this:
"Gabe, you're a game developer guy, right!? I want to work for Sega! Sega needs help! What can I do to help Sega?!?!?!"
That's right...I asked the head of one successful company how to help another unsuccessful company. So Gabe just scoffed at my question with a non-answer. The glass elevator (those scare me) was fixed and he started to walk out the office. Then it was like a movie cliche how Gabe tried to get away but I remained in pursuit to ask for his wisdom. I threw in some shoutouts to racing games cause I'm a baus like that ("Sega needs racing games").
Eventually, we made it to the ground floor and he casually walked across the boulevard to a lemonade stand (wtf??). And as expected, I followed him. Eventually, at the lemonade stand, he stopped and said this to me:
"Just keep making great games and don't worry about the money."
And that's when I woke up.
....
What does it all mean?? And why Gabe Newell?? I don't know--it's just some random game producer. A fat, hilarous game producer? I'm not interested in Valve right now (besides Counter-Strike)....
I think the message here is that money is temporary. Yet the glory of a great video game lasts forever. And if you put money before games, then you will fade away, hence what has happened to poor old Sega. So, starting now, forget about the money, make the games that make people happy, and as a result, people will show up in droves and hand over the cash...for it is money they have but peace they lack (hence the serious businessmen & the worry-free kids).
....just go make the games already, dammit!! I'm sick and tired of all this marketing bulls***. I didn't go to gaming school for the $50K+ paychecks or to make a bunch of business suits happy, I can here to MAKE THE RACING GAMES!!!
*Sega takes my advice and goes bankrupt* Waw waw waaaawwww...... More relevant posts to come...this weekend.
BTW, I had a carton of orange juice in the fridge that was three weeks past the expiration date. You ever drink outdated orange juice? It's not pretty. How did that outdated juice get there anyway??? Did I pick it up from the supermarket past the date? Who knows...
I was pleasantly surprised to log into YouTube about a week ago to find out that a 4+ year old video I uploaded is now "copyright infringement" and my account has a strike on it. Tell me what else is new.
But rather than send me an e-mail of wrongdoings or come over to my house and drag me into the town square as they scorn, whip, and spit at me, I get an stern invitation to "YouTube Copyright School."
You have to watch a Happy Tree Friends video of how horrible of a person you are. Wait--what...?? Happy Tree Friends?? Do they show the part where you're impaled by a stake or beheaded with a guillotine??? The video talk about how you can't post videos of other peoples' content and paste the words "I DON'T OWN THIS CONTENT" or "IT'S FAIR USE, I SWEAR" as an alibi. If you do, you get a strike. Three strikes and your account is suspended FOREVER. If you answer the questions (not all of them are referenced in the video), you get your strike taken away...six months from now.
...But enough about me. I don't care about those videos anyway. So you may be wondering why these videos are taken down. People who own the content sift through YouTube searches and mark any video that they believe violates they copyright. But wait, what about Fair Use? No, nothing to do with SOPA/PIPA/etc. this is just normal old copyright law. In brief, here are the four things that are looked at to determine if it really is Fair Use:
1. The purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes.
2. The nature of the copyrighted work (if it's a motion picture, soundtrack, video game footage, etc.).
3. The amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole (did you copy bits and pieces or the whole thing?).
4. The effect of the use upon the potential market for, or value of, the copyrighted work (how much profit do you detract from the owner?).
The funny thing about Fair Use is that there's no absolute formula to figure it out. If your video negatively applies to two or more of these, it's probably Fair Use. If it's one (or even zero), it's probably not Fair Use. Hence, properly. I assume most of the evil copyright police don't take the time to think whether or not it's Fair Use--they just mark the video and move on. If you disagree with the mark, you can reply with a counter-notice (a document that says "it's Fair Use, STFU") but it's such a mess I wouldn't bother with it unless you're absolutely certain.
Now for how it pertains to video games. It's funny because when you think about it, there's a hough-jazz amount of video game clips out there. And in theory, most or all of them violate copyright in some way. And not just unedited footage but montages, guides, paradies (specifically and supposedly covered by Fair Use), YouTube Poops, and fan stuff in general. The only reason why there isn't this mass eradication of YouTube videos is because frankly, most game companies don't care or have the patience to deal with it.
I read somewhere that as video games become more cutscene-based, that you're seeing more and more of these long ass cutscenes, these "Let's Play"s, or whatever. Stuff from games like Mass Effect, Halo, Heavy Rain, Uncharted, Assassin's Creed, Grand Theft Auto. And, in some sort of a sick way, they can deter people from actually buying the game. Part of all these massive games is the curiosity of figuring out and unlocking stuff. And with the opportunity to just cut through all the "lousy" gameplay you don't like and see everything for yourself, spoilers and all.
Honestly, folks, you have no reason to play this game now.
Let's take Heavy Rain. I already talked about this game before. In terms of gameplay, it's all walking around and QTE's. There's a couple of things you can do to change the outcome but not much else besides go from stage to stage. What if don't feel like playing it? Or buying it? Or buying the PS3 required to play it? Just look at a YouTube movie. Problem solved...sort of. Not the same thing as playing it but you get some "entertainment" from watching it. Enough to divert a couple of folks like me.
PRESS X TO JASON
This whole topic may sound asinine to some cause playing the actual game is best way to go. Hey, I'm not denying that. Nor am I suggesting that all game cutscenes should be removed from YouTube. It's just strange that in the face of DRM's, anti-used game policy, tons of DLC, etc., one of the most back-handed ways of "cheating" the system is right in front of you. It's as if an avalanche is being held back by a single stone and no one's nudging it. Some game companies have caught on and start putting ads in front of their vids which probably infers that's the farthest they're willing to go.
...doesn't really bother me anyway. I like production value in my games but personally, I'm a "gameplay guy." Only exception is Shenmue which is awesome. The rest of you crappy games can go to hell.
But actually, back on the subject of game companies--it seems completely random which companies want to take down copyrighted footage. I knew a YouTube guy named Howard Cneal. Basically, he had mounds of ROMs on his computer for lots of vintage consoles (Famicom, Super Famicom, 32X, GBA, X6800, Amiga) and would "review" each for two-three minutes and make ridiculous commentary about them. Somehow, he pissed off some relatively non-descript JRPG company like Atlus and then his account was swiftly removed. He obviously stopped uploading videos after that. It's really funny that a few obsolete movies can tick off a few people and then the harshest of penalties are dealt.
Bear in mind, that this whole time, we're just focused on video game footage. Same thing applies to TV, movies, music, etc. but much worse. Watch out for Viacom!! They will molest you the first, second, and third chance they get. Oh, the YouTube leviathan...don't f*** with YouTube.
Evil TV footage eroding the corporate culture of the Internet. BTW, this show is boss.
BTW, your YouTube account is also binded with Google and Blogspot. If my YouTube account was suspended some day, does that affect my Blogspot account? What if Google concludes that I'm a troublemaker who doesn't deserve a blog? Why do they instill us--err...me with such paranoia?
Sadly, if SOPA passed, it would've been much worse. Remember the "recording of little girl singing Lady Gaga" example. Apparently, according to SOPA, that's pure evil and may result in jail time. So throw Fair Use out the window there. And it would've been nauseating to watch the nukes & fallout all over YouTube. I'm just glad that bill is gone...for now. We're fans of games. That's why we make YouTubes, fan sites, blogs, etc. Cut us a break since we're all empty on the inside.
I won a can!
Still, Shenmue defies all the rules cause it's awesome. I refuse to spoil the game by watching the cutscenes. You know what, I keep hearing all this talk on Reddit and elsewhere about the overwhelming desire for a Half-Life 3. Valve is a rich nice guy, Gabe Newell is a billionaire who replies to your e-mails, etc. so bring us Half-Life 3. That game will inevitably come out, that's for sure. But you know what--WE WANT SHENMUE 3!!! DO IT, YU SUZUKI, AND BALANCE WILL BE RESTORED TO GAMING FOREVER!!! Well, that, or Daytona USA 3.
Though I wouldn't mind a Half Life 3...wait, cardboard signs outside Valve??? We need to do something like this Sega.
------------
EDIT: NVM, I've seen the light. Thanks Reddit cause this is 100% true.
These YT videos are so craptastic they aren't obstructing anyone's copyrights. But I would like to see 'em taken down anyway.
First, I'd like to thank all the commenters for the comments I've received lately. I hope I'm doing a good job here on this blog which I do entirely for free every day!!!
A weekend that lasts six days. Now that's the kind of weekend we can all get behind!!!
Anyway, go buy Sega games off Steam now!! Most are 75% off or more.
Well, I own some of these games for Xbox 360, sorry, PC gaming is "lame," rofl. What's this--buy 79 Sega games for 79 dollars??? Why are all these games on sale anyway??? Is Sega that desperate to sell games that they give them away for that cheap? Anyway, it doesn't even include all games like Renegade Ops. That costs $15 and you have to buy it separately. I've heard it's a good game though! EDIT: And I also realized RO for the PC will also feature the Gordon Freeman buggy...so there you go again, SegaxSteam fanfiction on the way...
40 of those 79 Sega games are Genesis games. As cruel as this sounds...just get a Genesis emulator. You get save states and speed throttling. If anything, the emulator should cost money, not the games (roms).
You have to realize though that Steam has been practically giving away games recently. Most people are playing console games, not PC games, hence the whole "PC Gaming is Dead" phrase. Not to mention rampant piracy on the PC. I bought Left 4 Dead 1 AND 2 for $5. Let me repeat--2 games for $5. Well, L4D1 is now null and void cause you can play L4D campaigns on L4D2 now, but L4D2 for $5...not bad. Now I have this l33t laptop that can run Source games flawlessly. But I've got bigger games to play, like Sega Racers, Rock Band, and Advance Wars!!
And another thing...what's up with Team Fortress 2 and all the hats? I know TF2 is free but the hats require some time & effort to unlock. So it's sort of their Call of Duty/Farmville hook to get you playing. Something's not right, people. EDIT: Finally found that picture I was looking for...two weeks later.
Look at this, it's a mess. These hats are a mess, yes I said it. I'm going back to Team Fortress Classic. I love Goldsource.
Oh, by the way...since I go to a video game school, I occasionally get free stuff, like video game beta keys? One of my professors made his rounds offering people free Diablo 3 beta codes! But I turned it down. Why? I don't like Diablo, rofl.
Come to think of it, I should've taken it and sold/used it as bribe material. Yeah, so I guess I screwed up! But that's okay cause I only advocate happy games, remember? I will not sell out on my values!
Poor guy
...I wish I had more to talk about but it's been a long day (sat at school for 8 hours, drank cold black coffee again and got the jitters) so I just want to be left alone for a sec, okay.... If you want something educational pertaining to games, read this: Ten Facts about the Video Game Crash of '83! Good read...
Consider this a "reverse birthday present," something lame that I give to you. Three more CS 1.6 maps--not flashy but they have more detail then you see here:
Aw hell, see the rest of the maps if you click here. Now I've still got many more maps to go.
I was playing some Counter-Strike with one of my long-time online buddies and he likes to play CS in a different way. We all play the normal way--buy guns, shoot the other team. Well he does something known as "Kreedz jumping," which is sort of like a GoldSource parkour game. You jump around to do tricks, particularly long jumps. It's actually very difficult since due to the free-wheeling nature of the GoldSource physics engine, you can gain speed by bunny-hopping and moving your character in a certain way (wave back and forth).
BTW, GoldSource = Half-Life 1, CS 1.6, Team Fortress Classic, Day of Defeat, etc. It was introduced in 1998 by Valve. Thank you, Wikipedia. It's basically a heavily-modified version of the Quake 1 source code. I've actually got my hands on the GoldSource code, but I was unable to do much with it (I created a little mod though). I've said before that Valve likes to distribute their tools for user-created content so I got to check out the map editor (Valve Hammer Editor) and the source code.
WARNING: Music has a few curse words lol.
There are several ways to go about kreedz jumping. One is that you just take a regular level and try to do the jump over and over again until you nail it. You just say "Betcha I can jump from here to there," and you try it over and over until you get it. Server plugins allow you to reset your location making it very easy to restart if you faill. Hopefully, you will have recorded the demo & edited the clip for the highlight reel.
Another is to play maps specifically designed for kz-jumping. Basically, you gotta make about a hundred jumps in a row to make it to the finish--either by climbing a mountain, clearing a bunch of rooms, and so forth. Usually in these kz-specific maps, you want to finish as fast as possible. Click here to check out an example world record run.
I don't expect anyone to understand this. Seriously, it's foreign to many, but this kind of gameplay has a HUGE following. People from all over the world make elaborate movies of their skills. Like tell me if this isn't overkill:
If you thought kz-jumping was crazy, try surfing. No really, you slide down these ramps and fly all over the place. The GoldSource engine is CRAZY. Of course, the opportunity to pull these tricks in a regular shoot-'em-up CS game is super duper rare. There may be a few glitches such as the ability to climb into the skybox and "exit" the map, but as long as you're playing on fail-proof maps on a decent server, you shouldn't worry about it.
And back to my friend. So we were playing CS and he likes the mall map, the Sonic map, etc. Which is good. Then I'm looking around at all these fun maps we used to play, the good times we had...I just don't give a damn about graphics anymore. CS 1.6 is still a hell of lot of fun today--such a shame that it's dying. Oh well, that is the nature of things. These people are playing for the love of the game--they won't be super-popular at the end of the day, but so what.
I may talk more about game graphics later. Not really going to talk more than I already have for now, I've gone on for too long.
Today is actually a pretty good day...don't have any school work, I can take a nap, I can eat normal food again (for the most part), not bad, things are better than before...
But I was intrigued by this. Left 4 Dead loves Dead Rising 2...now isn't that classy. Stories like these make me smile.
Not only did they make that image above and put Chuck Greene in one of their comics, but they also made passing references to Frank West from DR1, etc. To me, this is like if Namco made another Ridge Racer and Sega came out and said "You've got a damn fine racing game there, my good man." Although neither company seems interested in racing games anymore, but that's besides the point. DR2 isn't in direct competition with L4D (they aren't even the same genre, FPS vs. Action/Adventure), but they like zombies too. I just wonder if the feeling's mutual on Capcom's side. After Inafune said that Japanese games were five years behind US games, I think he's a bit touchy to say so.
And throw in this too. I like Valve. I like them a lot. All of their games are pretty good. Yeah, I get on violent games, but at least Left 4 Dead was on the cusp of the zombie wave so they get a pass. Plus not to mention they've come up with some unique ideas instead of spitting out these Halo/Fallout/CoD clones, geez. They have unique ideas, fun characters, different vibe, etc. Not only that, but they've really fueled the user community by releasing Garry's mod, map-making tools, and the HL source code for modification--lots of fun stuff.
Believe it or not, I actually had the chance (for a college class I might add, in Fall '09) to create a mod of the Half-Life 1 engine. I got it going alright, but my teammates didn't really follow through and I worked on it mostly myself...I'm proud of what I learned though--it's nice to get your hands dirty. I am also a huge fan of making FPS maps--I talked about that way back in a July '10 entry about Goldeneye/Perfect Dark maps in CS 1.6, but that's just the tip of the iceberg--there's more. I may touch on that someday, but don't count on it any time soon.
Overall, gotta give Valve some props. Cheers.
BTW, I actually got 1000/1000 on L4D1 (a long time ago) so that's not bad. But enough of zombies. In all honesty. Screw 'em.
NOTE: I'm sorry Kotaku that I keep borrowing your images. I hope you can forgive me someday.
You know, yesterday, I was feeling mellow, alright, school wasn't too bad, but today, I'm really pissed off. Parking at college is horrific--I literally had to park in the lone corner of the campus because the rest of the spots were taken. Had to walk fifteen minutes to and from class in the swelling heat. That's gonna screw me out of a good grade in my first class because we have surprise quizzes that I can't take if I'm late. What a piece of crap.
But I would like to take the rest of the entry to say this to the Video Game Industry: All your games suck. Here's why. I collected a bunch of articles from that garbage Kotaku site and here we go, time for the breakdown:
I'm pretty sure that everyone knows about the original Motorstorm for the PS3. It's a rally game where you drive 4-wheelers, rally cars, bikes, big rigs, whatever. Someone at Sony had a serious mud fetish cause within seconds of the race, your car goes from squeaky clean to absolutely muddy. Disregarding this, it was an okay game. But this time around, they decide to rehash the same game, this time taking in the apocalypic badlands of an abandoned city.
Let's put the whole 3D junk out of the way. WHY DOES THIS GAME HAVE TO TAKE PLACE IN A WASTELAND??? Why does every game nowadays to seem "good" have to take place in some sort of dark, grimy, depressing, macabre-like setting!?!? Okay, we have FPSes like Gears of War, action like God of War and Devil May Cry, indie games like Limbo, whatever, keep it to yourself. But now, it's leaking over to racing games as if racing games nowadays haven't been bastardized enough. WHY DOES THIS NEED TO HAPPEN!?!? WHATEVER HAPPENED TO GOOD CLEAN FUN!!!??? WHY DOES EVERY GAME NEED TO BE AN EXERCISE OF MY DEPRESSING SIDE!!??!?!
Let me point to UK Resistance's "Blue Sky in Games" campaign cause they're absolutely right. It's okay to play an emotional little game here and there set in some dreary backdrop, but whatever happened to stuff like "Let the good times roll!"??? I mean, at the end of the day, you can give me this gloom-and-doom BS about how we're all gonna die, but do you think God gave us the emotion of joy never intended for us to use it?
Are video games soap? Basically, by soap, they're products that you use and are done with. They don't have any significance in the long run. My ideas deviate from the article quite a bit. Look at it this way, you got all these FPSes and action games every which way. They keep spitting them out and they're all nearly the same. You got these gritty FPSes with all this blood, you got all these "kill everything on the screen" games, you got car racing with explosions and gorgeous "car violence," I mean, it never ends! Whatever happened to making games that last for a lifetime!? There aren't many games out there that don't copy the same-old formula. Make a game like Halo, like Call of Duty, add lots of guns, etc.
EDIT: I mean, look at Daytona USA, look at OutRun, these are games we never forget about! They engage me! After going through a million FPSes and other junk, there's only maybe three I still care about--Goldeneye, Perfect Dark, and Counter-Strike 1.6 (GoldSource). What ever happened to the substance? A lot of these games look to sell a bunch of copies, not to leave a lasting impact--that's not to say they all do, but there's not many.
This article claims that as video game graphics become more realistic, they become more brutal and mind-numbing than ever before. Because games like Halo and Call of Duty are so popular, devs are hauling ass more than usual to make dirty, grimy FPSes and spit 'em out on the market. To be fair, none of these games are THAT bad but these aren't the kind of games I want to go through like Fig Newtons in the sleeve (see previous article). It's disturbing because if you take a look at the lineup of the most popular games nowdays, at E3, at Stupid Generic Gamecon that comes out, most of them are M-rated. It's just "kill, kill, kill." That's not to say all FPSes are dreary and depressing. I mean, I like FPSes, but games like Perfect Dark are a farcry from the muck that we have now. I just can't wrap my brain around this crap anymore. I mean, 2000 was about when FPSes were at their best, then they just went downhill since, especially due to the fact that they're now undisputably the most popular game genre.
EDIT: That is not to say that every game that comes out is bad. I mean I still like FPSes, but COME ON, turn down the violence and come up with something new. If you're going to make an FPS, at least make it somewhat colorful--Team Fortress 2 and TimeSplitters come to mind. Or at least use someone other than the n-teenth "grizzled space marine," or "elite military operative." Seriously, let me reiterate this--if I see another Master Chief clone, I am going to snap. Gotta give props to Valve cause they use scientists and regular joe dudes in their games, much more entertaining. I love those little Garry's Mod videos--Valve always has funny characters. I talk about Valve a little bit here (they dodge the bullet just a little).
One more article and I'm not really going to comment on this one much cause I can't take it anymore and I'm sounding repetitive. One of the main reasons I like FPSes is because of the tactical and excitement aspect. Contrary to these people who spit out this behavoristic worldview that all human beings are out to rip each other's heads off and suck their blood (and have rough sex with all the women too), I'd like to think that gore doesn't make the game necessarily better. I like FPSes for the tactical aspect, kind of like how in Pac-Man you eat the dots and in Mario/Sonic, you get to the end of the level. It's challenging. Competing against other people can be fun.
But somehow, in the end, it has to be about violence. Hey, if I want to get excited about something, I'd rather play a good racing game. And GTA, I play that mostly to drive around, because TBQH, the shooting action in all those games stink. Give me CS instead--I'd rather kill terrorists instead of innocent AI civilians walking down the street. At least the T's in CS are a little more settling IMO, plus it's less violent and borders on hilarity (funny death sounds).
So what can we do about it? Well, the only game company that seems to be making "friendly" games is Nintendo. But they're only making them on the Nintendo consoles, which means that the Xbox 360 and PS3 are just this wasteland of games. Remember the movie "Escape from New York" where Manhattan gets turned into a maximum security prison full of gangsters and Kurt Russell has to go in and save the President? Well I feel like that we 360/PS3 users are in that prison. We're just in this mire and we're trying to get out. So Nintendo is practically useless at this point, screw 'em.
And this brings me to Sega... When I look at the Dreamcast's lineup of games, they were friendly, they were happy, they made me feel GOOD. That's why I wholly advocate them and wish that Sega had kept up their quirky goodness because I feel that if things don't change in the next few years, consider Sega dead and all these crap games will rule the world. I'm dead serious. Sega needs to step it up here, I'm serious. Cause I can't take it anymore. Just gonna end it here since I'm out of things to say.
