Sonic & Danica, Lolwut

I must say this year's E3 was very entertaining.  Entertaining in that we had lots of things to poke fun at!  Seriously, when they closed E3 to the public, gamers wanted back in so they opened it up again.  Now gamers want to get out of there as soon as possible.  What's going on, people.

But anyway, OMGZ YUO GAISSSSS HERD DA NEEEEWWWWWZZZZ, Danica Patrick is in Sega All-Stars Racing 2!!!!  And there's about one billion articles on this very story on gaming sites, racing sites, sports sites, even on CNBC (???).  News bloggers/repeaters copied and pasted everything they saw from the other schmuck..."Gamers will get the chance to test their racing abilities as Danica against an All-Star cast of SEGA characters including Sonic, Knuckles, AiAi and others."  Yada yada yada, like 95% of the people who post these articles care (or even know) about Sega characters or Danica Patrick.

Also love the Masanao Maeda (President & COO of Sega of America) quote:

"Danica Patrick is one of the most popular athletes in the world and her accomplishments both on and off the track make her the perfect partner for Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed. Danica’s involvement showcases the broad appeal of this title – everyone from casual gamers to hard core racing fans will be able to enjoy the fun."

Most popular in the world??  Maybe in your dreams, she is...

Hey look guys, I can Ctrl-C, Ctrl-V too!  It's secret agent DarthSOL (from Sumo Digital)!

"You know, when they (SEGA) pitched us the idea we went ‘The fans will go wild…’ I think they didn’t get what we meant from that though.

End of the day she hasn’t replaced any SEGA characters, she’s an extra and we’re very happy with the vehicle design we’ve done for her, which incidentally isn’t the one you might think it is."

I can understand why there's so few Daytona fans left.  Cause when you are teased like this on a consistent basis, no wonder so many jumped ship.  We're doomed, we're dead, I'm on the roof and if I see one more Need for Speed advertisement, I'm gonna jump.  EDIT: I'm just kidding...if DarthSOL is reading this, we love ya buddy :p

Anyway, I wonder how far Sega will go with factoring Danica into the game's presentation/advertisements.  She's driving the blue #7 Sega car at the Nationwide race at Texas on November 3rd.  Which is a crap day because everything will be enshrouded by the Presidential Election.  As for the game, I have a hunch she may be the race announcer/narrator (they said the old announcer is gone).  What she looks like (realistic, cartoony, etc.) and what the car looks like is beyond me.

But anyway, I will not flip a bitch about the Danica pick like 2/3rds of the gamers on the Internet have done (i.e. Sega sold out, they don't know anything, Danica sucks cause she only won one race, NASCAR sucks).  I mean just think about it--this is Sega we're talking about, you get used to these kind of things by now :)

Hmm....imposing a real-life female "bombshell" actor onto a fictional arcade racer...think I've seen this before:

That's Brooke Burke, Need for Speed: Underground 2 narrator and 5-year host of Dancing with the Stars!!  And she's a BABE (apparently).  And Pocketbike Racer is the greatest driving sim known to man.

A Danica thread is never complete without Go Daddy commercials.

I admit, I lol'ed...

That's it, two GoDaddy commercials is ENOUGH.

But wait--there's also this! ...

Hey Sega, none of this would've been an issue if YOU JUST ANNOUNCED THE HORNET AND/OR SEGATA SANSHIRO AS PLAYABLE CHARACTERS.  Dammit, it's time for bed, I'll talk more smack tomorrow, I swear.  But here guys, this is to cheer you up:

I love this corporation...GOOD EFFORT!!  GOOD JOB!!

EDIT: Rather than make a new post on this, here's Danica doing a brief interview with Kotaku/Gametrailers/I don't know who so just listen in anyway:



A lot of this ain't new but it's just strange to hear Danica repeat what we've already heard--"you go by land, you go by sea, and you go by air...the race combines all of them and I'm a character you can play."  I get the sense she doesn't know that much about the game, but what do you expect from a new spokesperson who has had very little to do with video games up until now?  Yeah, like I was expecting Danica to reveal Daytona spoilers in the video, lol, fat chance...

WHAT'S THAT CAR THING AT SEGA'S E3 BOOTH

So I'm sitting around putting up with coverage of everybody else then I find out about this on the blogs. WHAT'S THAT, THE HORNET CAR???  *pulses rising*  what Is THIS???  COULD WE GET THE HORNET IN SEGA ALL-STARS RACING 2???  OR MAYBE A NEW DAYTONA?k$#@j@#?$k!?!?!?!???

 

SIKE!!!  IT'S NOT THE HORNET!!!  It's just Danica Patrick in a Sega All-Stars themed stock car.  Which'll appear in the game.  lolwut??  Um, that's interesting (to say the least).

Lol, Sega!!!  Thanks for getting me all hyped up at worked for nothing!!!  Although stock cars are cool. 

Not a bad looking car though.  If she races this thing for real, she better damn well win this race for SEGA AND DAYTONA'S SAKE!!!!

Good old Sega... *deflates like a balloon*

EDIT: You want new info?  Here's a new pic (there are plenty of these all over the web EDIT: but just go to Danica's official site):

EDIT: You can watch the Danica's speech & unveiling of the car here:

 I swear, the video is really this narrow.

Danica will be free DLC (you sure that's free?).  DarthSOL on the Sonic Stadium board (why not the OutRun Online Arcade board???) about how Danica will not "replace" any other characters.  So is this a bad thing?  Not really, no.

As to why I'm mad, it's not that I have anything against Danica...it's just that WHY would Sega wheel out a stock car AT E3 OF ALL PLACES that has NOTHING to do with Daytona USA???  I've become numb all over, I can't do jack s*** right now, let me go take some pills & recover from this first before I talk about it again.

E3 Sucks, Racing Games Suck (Who Would've Thunk It?)

All aboard the E3 Hype Train, where every company (besides Sega) gets major pimpage!  Good time to be a Sega fan!!!  Waiting for that Shenmue 3 announcement!  Waiting, waiting...still waiting.....(in the meantime, Nintendo has already gone through numerous new consoles & franchises...life is fair).

Anyway, I knew E3 was coming but I don't give a crap about it.  And especially after hearing some of the highlights thus far, I'm just flat out pissed.  What else is new.

EDIT: Dafuq happened to this .gif...it literally turned into a .png and doesn't animate anymore.  Stupid blogspot.

First!  I would like to congratulate Microsoft for turning Forza into a Need for Speed clone!  Here we go again...Forza Horizon is set an "open world" (don't you get sick of hearing that?) consisting of farms, canyons, and rural towns.  Driving around in sports cars, dodging traffic.  Hey, where's the cops?  Anyway, there's gonna be "speed shows" complete with trophy girls, drifting, and terrible dubstep.  EDIT: I also wonder what the wrecks will be like.  If it's anything similar to NFS/Burnout then that's a huge demerit IMO.  It's about racing, not smashing "beautifully-crafted metal cages" (according to GameInformer) to bits.

If there's any solace here, it's that it's not made by Turn 10--it's made by Playground Games.  So basically, Microsoft has joined in on EA's antics by using the titular "Forza" name on anything even remotely car-related.  What a joke.  We've had how many Gran Theft Autos, Need for Speeds, Test Drives, Midnight Clubs, Drivers, etc. so far?  Please do tell what this game'll do that the others haven't already.  EDIT: Well it SHOULD use Forza's handling which is leagues better than NFS's, I suppose.  If somehow, this game differentiates itself from the others in a drastic, then I won't be so bitter about this.  I might actually download the demo (oooooo).  Until then, I'm not holding my breath.

Only good news...I save $60 by not buying Forza 5.  Forza 4 gets a TIME EXTENSION!!  Get to keep my Ferraris for longer so I don't have to replay the whole game again to buy 'em all over again...

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BUT THERE'S MORE!!  There's a SECOND racing game announced on the same day.  This one is called Need for Speed: Most Wanted.  Huh, what?  Didn't we already get a Most Wanted?  Yes, we did...in 2005. But since gamers apparently have the attention span of a fruit fly, Criterion and EA decided what the hell--let's use the same name AGAIN!  Seven years later...who's gonna notice?

Seriously, I just looked up "most wanted" on GameFAQs (puke) and these are the results.  They seriously thew in the "(Criterion)" part of the title to differentiate the two.  Think about it--there are TWO NFS: Hot Pursuits on the Xbox 360 now.  And these aren't the same game (like a port/remake), these are two completely different games.  So why couldn't they come up with any other title???  Holy s***balls, this is unbelievable.  First Hot Pursuit, now this.  Originality at its finest.  EDIT: Sega also released two "Sonic the Hedgehog" games on 360/PS3 which is understandable seeing as Sonic 2006 sucked ass.

So what's the game like?  Well, as the natural evolution of games go, Need for Speed is now Burnout.  It's predicable as usual.  You drive around town running from cops.  It's another "open world" (does that mean anything anymore??) where you compete online to accomplish tasks to raise your score and become the "most wanted."  Oh wow, never heard of that concept before.  Not to mention the game's dingy teal/orange hues rear their head again in a vain attempt to appear more "edgy" and "futuristic" although it makes it look less appealing to look at as I can tell from here.

As for the racing, it looks generic as usual.  Run from the cops and overtake your rivals.  Occasionally, you'll knock out another racer/cop and a tame "you took him out" cutscene occurs.  Once again, your car is made out of steel and everyone else's are made out of tinfoil, seeing as you inexplicably take out five/six guys just trying to get away while your Porsche gets a few fender benders but that's it.  Guy hits a ramp and, on-cue, the title screen pops up.  The end, lukewarm applause follows.

FUN FACT: The mini-leaderboards on the lower-left side of screen feature names of English Royalty.  oicwutudidthar...

And one more thing.  Why the hell are there so many cities in racing games???  Didn't we get enough urban driving before in Grand Theft Auto, RR: Unbounded, and so forth?  Cities are great...until you overuse them.  Know what was the most fun I ever had driving around a city?  More fun than I'll ever have in a NFS game?

Exactamundo.

Seriously, I said before that Need for Speed is basically EA's petri dish for whatever concoctions they want to try with the racing genre and once again, I'm proven right.  Basically, they've given NFS over to Burnout since due to the abysmal failures that were Underground & The Run, no doubt the series will turn into Burnout clones in no time.

I'm sorry, guys.  I know some of you are Forza/NFS lunatics but this is pathetic.  While neither game is as egregious as Split/Second or Burnout: Revenge in terms of "car-nage", it's just insulting to know that the racing genre is all nice and cozy doing the same "street tuner" thing (plus wrecks) over and over and over and over again.  Really, I'm not going to sugar-coat this and pretend to be a rabid dog spouting crap laced in a witty fashion--I'm just ripping the band-aid off cause I'm pissed.

"Eric, if you don't like these games, what would you do differently?" - Cut the cliche crap out already.  Make a colorful racing game that has responsive controls for once.  While you can't entirely emulate Sega, there's still things that could make me stop & appreciate more often.  Read this and go away.

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BTW, Microsoft's show sucked too.  No new games, just some rapper guy named "Flo Rida" does a dance show featuring the Kinect.  Seriously, can the Kinect just DIE already?  And as for this horrible hip-hop crap that keeps playing over "pop music radio," I feel really bad for the "true rap" out there.  Yeah, I'm not the biggest rap fan in the world but nowadays, rap has become synonymous with trashy pop music that I'm fairly certain the original rap aficionados are sick of it too.

No....I hate this...

As for the rest of the shows, I don't give a damn.  To conclude, one wonders why do these game devs keep pushing the same crap down our throat even though we reject it?  I'm talking about racing games (for me anyway), the Kinect, World of Warcraft ads, terrible Spike TV/G4 promos, pop music, Call of Duty, etc.  I'm guessing the more of this they throw at you, your "immunities" will break down and you'll succumb to the whole thing.  Like, "oh I give up, I'll buy Need for Speed because I need a racing game" or "oh, I'll buy the Kinect cause it can't be THAT bad" or something.  That's the ONLY explanation I have as to why these things never cease to go away.  What a piece of crap.

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BUT THERE IS GOOD NEWS!  According to SegaBITS, Nagoshi-San is at this year's E3!  I'M CALLING IT NOW, he will say NOTHING of importance except maybe to announce another English translation of Yakuza whatever number much to the delight of a couple of thousand Sega diehards.  Wait, that sums up us wanting a new Daytona.  We can't win now, can we?

*walking around E3*

"Who are you?" - generic nerd

"I'm the creative head of Sega!" - Nagoshi-San

"Sega sucks." - generic nerd

" :( " - Nagoshi-San

Now you know why I piss all over E3.  Check for more Sonic & Sega Racing 2 info--that's the only thing I really care about now.  That and NASCAR: The Game 2013.  I love me some NASCAR....

I'M SHO PISHED AWFFF U GAIIISSS!!!

New HTML (Plus Current Events)

Cause the old site was too bland.  Needed more colors.  And DAMN am I tired.  It's not perfect but I don't care and I can work on it now, good morning...  I'll delete this eventually.

EDIT: So I'm going to save this post.  Some of you have been wondering what's going on.  I'm working on a portfolio website to showcase my programming work over the years.  I'm not going to show it yet but it does involve HTML (which is why I worked on this website as well since I was in that "HTML-y" mood.).  All I know is I ain't mentioning this blog on that site since anything said on this blog can be used against me (obviously...just look at all my bitter rants).  I don't have much more to say until I'm done.  I'll talk more about jobs & stuff later.

NAMCO PRESENTS TALLADEGA USA

DAMAIT PEOPLE, it took me two hours to make this 100% legit pic:

What if I told you that the Hornet appeared in a Ridge Racer game, complete with a Dinosaur Canyon clone and a new Mitsuyoshi song (or at least an imitator) all thanks to PS Vita DLC??? Well yeah...cause that's exactly what happened!!!!

So then I watched the video and I was like:

I'm sorry about the very offensive f-bomb.  I contemplated for 20 minutes whether to use this picture at all.  So what does this mean???  Is Sega in bed with Namco now?  First the Sega x Namco x Capcom game, now this?  Is Namco trying to steal more thunder from Sega now or what?  Whose wise idea was this?  Certainly it wasn't Nagoshi since he's out drinking & recruiting more Yakuza models.  And why is Sega assisting Namco when they should be helping THEMSELVES make another racing game???  And will Namco/Sega include the Hornet in Ridge Racer: Unbounded 2 as well (assuming they make a POS sequel)???

Lol, jk, that's crazy talk, in reality it's great cause we got a new Daytona USA.  Sort of.  Add the Hornet MT colors and then we'll talk.  Therefore...