Nobody Loves Sega

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:

EDIT: Click here to see the rest of these.

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:

OMFG

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?

NASCAR Is Very Serious Business (Kurt Busch Sucks)

At last night's Sprint Cup race at Bristol, Tony Stewart was contesting for the lead when he got in a wreck with Matt Kenseth.  Afterwards, Tony gets furious and throws his helmet at Matt's car.  Tony went from leader to finishing 27th just like that.  EDIT: Replaced video cause some idiot took first one down.

Now that video makes Tony look like a fat old man.  Also, Sonic & Sega All-Stars Racing Transformed spokeswoman Danica Patrick wrecked too (to nobody's surprise) late in the race (was still on the lead lap, amazing) and pointed at instigator Regan Smith as he drove by.  So it was old-school racing at its finest and everyone got angry.  Lol, you mad?

But Tony's helmet toss is not surprising.  Just for fun, here are clips of people getting mad and swearing for the camera.  Warning: PG-13 Language.

And then there's Kurt Busch who is in a league of his own.  You know about his younger brother Kyle who is an asshat, but he clearly learned everything from older brother Kurt.

You could fill an entire 90-minute special on Kurt's antics.  Oh wait, someone already has!!!  The first 50 minutes or so are about Kurt picking fights with practically every other NASCAR driver.  If you want to skip to the good stuff, I'd say go to 55 minutes and watch that.

Not a coincidence that Kurt was fired from Penske Racing in 2011.  He was picked up by Phoenix Racing in 2012 and his luck has turned for the worse (his car sucks).  Even worse, his #51 car is unsponsored since no one wants to be involved with such a troublemaker as him.  Guess what, Kurt?

Courtesy of lolracepics.com

Speaking of arguments between drivers about who instigated a wreck and who's the dirty driver and so forth (the kind that would result in fights over Forza, iRacing, etc.) , NASCAR seldom penalizes drivers in these situations unless it's blatantly obvious/reckless on a certain driver's part.  Otherwise, it comes down to vigilante justice.  If a fellow driver treats you with courtesy & makes clean passes, you return the favor.  If he rubs elbows with you, then you rub him back.  You can type "X gets pissed at Y" in YouTube for anyone and see how these rivalries occur.  What goes around comes around--since Kurt was hated by every other NASCAR driver at some point, he is basically abused by everyone in return.

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I will go ahead and say this: I think auto racing, both in real life and in video games, is probably the most anger-inducing of all sporting events.  Racing?  As opposed to something more violent like football or Call of Duty?  Seriously, I've heard things on Forza that make Call of Duty kids seem pious.  Ignoring the little Xbox Live kids who curse up a storm because they're too immature to be playing games anyway, let me explain why.  There are three factors:

1. You're on your own.

There's two types of competitive sports/games--teams and solo games.  Team games include soccer, football, basketball, baseball, hockey, Call of Duty/FPSes in general.  Solo games include golf, tennis, auto racing IRL and in games, fighting games, chess & poker (I suppose they count).  Yeah, sure, auto racing is a team effort--you have crews and fellow drivers assisting you, but in the end one person raises that trophy and that's you.

The good thing about being on a team is that you usually have fallback options.  If you're doing poorly--either you make one or two bad plays or need to be benched from the game altogether, at least you have your teammates to pick up the slack and hopefully make a few great plays, guide the team to victory, and make up for your mediocrity.  Sure, it sucks for you but at least you still "won."

However, in solo sports, it's all up to you.  If you play poorly and/or lose, there's really no one to blame other than yourself.  If you're having a bad day or are embarrassed, there's no evading it.  You need to keep your composure and finish the entire length of the event, take the loss, and face the music, knowing "I coulda/shoulda/woulda done better but I didn't and I lost, shame on me."  Yet some can't come to grips with losing which is why we kick and scream when that happens.

2. All it takes is one mistake to ruin the race.

Thinking about other games like football, soccer, Call of Duty, even solo sports like tennis & golf, etc., if you make a few terrible plays, such as a turnover or you die a few times, it's not the end of the game.  You can still catch up.  If the other team wins a few rounds/sets/holes and there's still some time left to play, at least you can outplay them later and make it an even game.

However, in racing, all it really takes is one or two miscues and you wreck and are set VERY FAR back.  Well, it depends on the game--in Mario Kart, crashes are expected to happen but in racing "sims," the penalty is much more severe.  It's so easy to just graze the other person's car and you're both flying.  Hopefully, it's a very light wreck and you're only set back about 10-15 seconds or so (Forza) and you can make the comeback assuming you race your ass off and/or the people in front of you screw up too.

But that doesn't take damage into consideration.  If that wreck dings your bumper, congratulations--your aerodynamics are shot which slows you down and makes it even more difficult to win.  Even worse, the engine/transmission could be shot which means you have to putter around the track at half-speed just to come in second to last as opposed to dead last in order to garner a few more points for the standings.  No worse feeling than that.

Now Forza is bad.  Playing with sim settings is awful once you hit the wall and dread trying to finish, but at least you can start a new race a few minutes later.  So think of it from a NASCAR driver's standpoint.  Each week you travel across the country to a new track.  You take the car out for numerous practice sessions, tune the thing over and over and over and over again to make sure it's just right.  Then you race.  Halfway through the race, the car spins out and smashes to pieces.  That's some hundreds of thousands of dollars of equipment GONE in seconds and it probably wasn't your fault.  Plus that entire week was in vain as you finish in the bottom third of the standings and have to do it all over again next week and hope the results are better.  That's just aggravating to think about--I would be cursing too if that happened.

3. Driving is a strenuous ordeal.

Even though sports on a high level, such as football, soccer, baseball, basketball, etc. require extreme fitness, at the very least you get breaks.  You can stop for Gatorade, you can call timeouts, sit on the bench, halftime, hit the showers, etc.  Yet in auto racing, that seldom ever happens.  The race begins and it lasts for some 3-4 hours.  Yes, there's yellow flags (and the rare red flag) which means you're not exerting yourself nonstop.  But to sit in that confined car in that racing suit & helmet of yours and experience those G-forces for that period of time is tough.  BTW, did we mention the possibility of unexpected wrecks, wild rides, injury, death???

As an aside: I still fail to believe some of the things in this video, like the 13 pounds of water weight (I imagine they would be unconscious if they were in a 130-F oven being tossed around for 4 hours without a drop of water) but SportsScience tends to paint athletes as these gladiators who are able to ascends to the heavens and wrestle the gods while us plebians need help to even get up out of bed and use the bathroom cause we're so weak (or something).  But you get the idea, racing is tough.

I suppose this also applies to video games to a much lesser extent (well duh).  There's no pauses in the action--the entire game is nonstop "keep moving."  And that can be tough since the goal is always to move forward--you can't slow down for anything (i.e. "let's regroup" in FPS games and stuff) and hence your mind is always racing, trying to keep the car in equilibrium while simultaneously taking additional factors into play like other drivers trying to cut you off and so forth.  Just something to think about.

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Now you know why NASCAR is so hard and why drivers like Kurt Busch get hot under the collar--CAUSE IT'S TOUGH BUSINESS.

BTW, I didn't know this happened at the Daytona 500, hilarious:

Daytona USA 2 Saved/Ruined My Life

EDIT: Fixed some typos & stuff a day later.

Well guys, I'm back.  Let me tell you what's been going on.  Recently, I had a two week break which I spent at home in Slidell, Louisiana.  Then I drove back to Orlando, Florida and I've already completed one week of my internship.  Just didn't bother mentioning it until now.

Driving to and from Orlando by myself was a nine-hour nightmare (that happened twice).  It rained a lot both times (precipitation for about 40% of the distance) and there were two traffic jams in which I had to come to a complete stop.  The only excitement came from a "race" between me and a geriatric couple in a white Dodge Caravan.  I pass these guys and two hours later, they start creeping up on me (at 76 mph) so I slingshot past them (at 77 mph).  Hey, anything to keep me alert is fine by me.

Me driving with my little furry friend.  I'm not ashamed.

BTW, Florida toll booths are crap.  There's this one booth that charges $3 for a two-axle car.  What a piece of crap.  What's worse is that I didn't have $3 in change on me (sorry I don't walk around with tons of cash in my pocket) so I offered the toll booth lady my debit card.  They don't take cards of any kind.  Are you serious???  The hot dog cart lady outside of the FIEA building takes credit cards but the State of Florida doesn't???  So they took my license & plate number and now I have to mail them a $3 check within a very limited amount of time that my dad agreed to pay for me.  But he got lazy and said "you got a Louisiana license plate that's crap, don't bother."  So now, if Florida law enforcement tows my car, confiscates my license, and makes me face a judge, then I know who to thank.  Thanks, dad.

So now I will tell you about this old town of Slidell, Louisiana.  That's my home.  You check out what has changed and, as usual, nothing really has.  So I made another pilgrimage to Northshore Square Mall.  Not even this mall has changed.  That's not bad seeing as indoor malls are "on their way out" but whatever, it's still good to know.  Buy some expensive cookies, some flat greasy pizza, check out the arcade, sit on the bench, I have zero interest in buying clothes so what else is there to do so I left.

It is properly fitting that as I begin working in the game industry we visit the place that actually got the ball rolling on this career path.

This is the water fountain, a picture taken while sitting on a bench.

Another water fountain...ooo, that's pretty, I love palm trees.  Yu Suzuki does, that's why the AM2 logo is a palm tree (omg, symbolism).

This is the shot directly behind where I was sitting.  It's the arcade.  That's hallowed ground there.

As usual, my head was swimming with thoughts at the time.  Now I already told my arcade story a while back and how this all began, but I omitted some details.  I should mention these now.

I practically lived in Slidell my entire life until a year ago when I moved to Orlando.  I've always known about this arcade.  At first it was "Pocket Change," then it was "Namco Arcade," now it's "Coin It Up."  Pocket Change had a Turbo (1982 Sega arcade racer) cabinet and that was great.  I loved race cars as a kid and that was one of the many games that I played at the time.  Unfortunately, my parents were always reluctant to take me to the arcade for many reasons--it costs money, the mall is a ghetto full of gangsters and miscreants, and so forth so I didn't play much Turbo.

Never mind that, let's move on.  It was about 2000.  At the time, my greatest extent of racing game knowledge was Cruis'n World and Mario Kart.  Didn't know much else.  But Penny Arcade brought in a California Speed cabinet!  That was great--the first time I played it, I thought it was the greatest that racing games could ever get.  Stupid, I know.  Then what happens?  Penny Arcade closes down.  Aww, that sucks. I felt a bit sad but whatever, let's zip ahead a year when Namco Arcade opens a month or two later.  This is the make-or-break moment.  I mean, I had an It's a Wonderful Life moment and wonder if that arcade never opened.  Like if it were replaced with sporting goods, cell phones, or a hair salon.  Let me explain why.

What I've seldom said is that those years from 2000 to 2005 were some of the worst in my life.  I'm not going to paint a picture of doom & gloom--I had two parents who loved me, I lived in a nice house, and I didn't suffer any terrible injuries or sickness.  But I did suffer from extreme anxiety which I apparently got from my mother.  There's many reasons, most of which has to do with social situations.  EDIT: I wouldn't say I was a nerd (like Napoleon Dynamite) but I was just foolish when it came to these social situations.  I went from home school to a private school and I acted like an idiot--a Socially Awkward Penguin.  I also spent a lot of time on various internet message boards, making social blunder and blunder and not knowing why.  I was a fool who had just lost all of his childhood friends and made none other at that time.  School was miserable and all I really focused on was getting good grades--I maintained all A's from 9th grade up until my Senior year of College, true story but not like it matters now.  My loving grandmother died in 9th grade.  Took tons of anti-depressants.  I spent a lot of time playing "grind-it-out" games like The Sims which really proved to be a waste of time in the long run.  9/11 just happened and that was depressing.  And finally, I had some religious questions pertaining to my Christian faith that hung over me--not stuff like the existence of God but stuff like,  "What is Heaven like and what are you supposed to do for eternity," and "If the world is supposed to end soon, why bother doing anything?"  (please, for the love of God, no one comment on these things or I will probably delete it).  Oh, and puberty, that probably made me depressed too.  I try to block out this clusterf*** part of my life as much as possible.

Well, except for one thing: Daytona USA 2.

No, really, the new Namco Arcade had a twin Daytona USA 2 cabinet.  I can't remember the first time that I played it (purely on a whim, nonetheless) but it was pure joy every time that I played it.  What was otherwise a miserable time of my life was capitalized by the times I got to go visit the arcade and play it.  But like I said before, my parents hated going to arcade.  I only got to play Daytona 2 only a handful of times every two weeks.  I kept track of my fastest times with each car, bought Namco Arcade coupons to increase my number of plays, and ingrained the soundtrack in my head (whatever bits I could hear over the roaring engines).  In other words, old racing games that I thought were "good" were now bad because Sega moved to #1 in my book.

But as you know, Daytona USA 2 never came to home consoles.  I always read the occasional story while browsing lousy Reddit Gaming about how video games changing peoples lives for the better.  Pokemon, Halo, Portal, OH MY GOD GUYS they saved my life, thank you developers!  Yet the distinct difference between those games and Daytona is that you could actually play those games at home.  YOU COULD NOT PLAY DAYTONA USA 2 AT HOME AND IT HONESTLY BROKE MY HEART WHEN I THINK ABOUT IT (and still do today).  So I look up more Sega games, I buy a Dreamcast & find out about OutRun, Crazy Taxi, Sega Rally, the Dreamcast version of Daytona, all of which were great but why Sega chose to cast Daytona 2 away made no sense to me.

Then I always talked about that day: February 1, 2005.  Aaaand, it's gone.  Goodbye Daytona USA 2, it disappeared from Namco Arcade and never came back.  I stood in the rain and cried all night while my dad thought I was bats*** crazy.  He offered me the three most encouraging words from a father that you could ever hear: "GET OVER IT...."

I felt like a goldfish whose fish tank just cracked.  There goes my primary source of happiness.  And I did the only thing that I could--frantically post on the internet about Daytona, research more about Sega, learn about game design, and ultimately wallow in a state of depression.  I even e-mailed a 20-page document directly to Sega-AM2 with a bunch of ideas for a new Daytona--yeah the ideas were stupid but at least it was a valiant attempt.  They never replied back, to no one's surprise.

Then one day, I was sitting in a chair thinking about life.  You see, up until this moment, I didn't have a clear career track in mind for the future.  Until then, my mother was trying to groom me into this preppy, intellectual type--piano lessons, Latin classes, chess club, all sorts of honors societies.  But then, just like Forrest Gump, I had a revelation and got up out of that chair and said,  "There is no doubt what I'm going to do with my life.  I'm making a new racing game.  If Sega ain't doing it, then I will.  I'm bringing back the Daytona USA name once and for all and may the Lord Jesus Christ have mercy on those who try to stop me!!"  In Forrest's case, he just ran.

But I'm running too, sort of.  Running down a dream!  Go to Southeastern Louisiana University, get a computer science degree.  Never programmed anything before then!  Then I went to grad school and I'm nearly done with that.  I also made the Northshore Square Mall Counter-Strike map to exorcise some of the demons--it helped but it's still a sad state of affairs.

But it's so easy to lose track of the "goal."  Daytona USA 2 was released FOURTEEN YEARS AGO.  A lot has changed since then.  Arcades are dead, Sega is a deplorable, hollow shell of their former selves (which'll probably die out in a few years), I've been locked in a war of attrition with this new commercial-obsessed model for game design/publishing from the likes of EA and other game companies that have been stripping me of my morale.  Oh, and the racing genre is a complete joke now but that brings me to my next point...

Maybe Daytona USA 2 was a flash in the pan?  Look, most/all of us racing aficionados can say that Daytona 2 is a "good" game.  But is it a great game?  Perhaps it left that emotional impact on me because of the circumstances--it was one of the only good things going for me during those years, I seldom got to play it, it's gone now so it makes an emotional story...to bring the game back.  And all it does is make me irrational to think about it...to get mad at stupid video games (usually other racing games that I'm supposed to "like" so much) I don't like and ostracize myself from the rest of the community.  And it makes working on games especially difficult.  Other programmers are a happy-go-lucky type--they'll work on games X, Y, and Z without problem.  Yet with someone like me, whose has become so hung up on a 14-year-old game no one remembers, I'll work on X but struggle with Y and Z simply because "I hate it" or "I wish I was working on Daytona USA."

And then there's Bart's Model 3 emulator.  Once Daytona USA 2 (and Scud Race) finally came home, I wasn't overjoyed, I was FUCKING ANGRY.  Angry cause it took me so damn long to get this game back.  Angry that Sega did next to nothing to try to bring this game back...that it took the efforts of rogue fans to save the game to make some 50-100 people on the Internet happy.  Angry at whatever outside forces, directly or indirectly, held back any chance for Sega to redeem the game.  Angry that this game got no credit until now.  Angry at video games in general which have done nothing that let me down over and over again.  I played the emulator, yes, and I was thrilled, but it's not the same as it was before.  All I could do was throw rocks at the proverbial abandoned Sega building as hard as I could before giving out.

Of course, I learned more about Sega's situation at the turn of the century and clearly they were on hard times like I was.  So beating up on Sega is equivalent of beating up the special kid on the playground and it was no use.  So while I feel inclined to help Sega not just for myself but everyone else's sakes, I don't even know if I'll work there someday.  Whatever happens to Sega, I'll still bust my ass on that definitive racing game...the "utopia project"--whether it's Daytona 3 or some other game altogether.  It's only a matter of finding out who'll help me, whether it's Sega or some other studio or group of developers altogether.

So even though Daytona 2 was made available at home, my job's not done yet.  Which leads me to me and my very first game design "job."  Like I said, I can't tell you where I'm working or what game or platform it is, but I've just submitted a few lines of code to my very first game.  It really is a legitimate game--you could Google it and find out plenty of information on it.  But otherwise, it's a mellow job in which I work alone having just ditched all my old friends at FIEA.  See, I was the only person offered an internship from my cohort.  I did my best to leave FIEA on a good note--have fun, tell jokes, take people to Wendy's for lunch, etc. so I'm demoralized.  Despite my inability to make friends, those that I do become accustomed with over the years usually go away and I never see them again.  And this will inevitably happen--if I'm trying to go to Sega (or some other important place), well....goodbye, friends!

Back to Namco Arcade, I wondered if that arcade had never opened.  Maybe I had never played Daytona USA 2, I would've probably shed that depression, grown up, and become a fully responsible adult, never having to suffer the burden of dealing with "bad" racing games that let me down.  Maybe I would've been a pianist, a lawyer, a scientist.  Or maybe I still would've been a game programmer but I would've been a much happier person, able to work on anything at anytime with no emotional encumbrances whatsoever.  Stupid things like this can be morale killers which explains why I lose the motivation to do "necessary" things like post on the blog, work on Super Sprint, and engage in racing-related activities in general.  But my brain is full of f*** and I can't continue talking anymore so yeah, that's it, I'm done, I'll return when I feel like it.  Not proofreading this for a while.

TLDR: I was miserable from 2000-2005, then I played Daytona USA 2 which made me very happy.  I wonder what would've changed with my life had I never played it and never had that burden of living up to that game in my head.

Danica Vs. The Shoe

At the Nationwide race at Montreal, Sonic & Sega All-Stars Racing Transformed spokeswoman Danica Patrick is in the lead during a caution.  That's pretty good, she might win one at last!  But some jerk-off fan throws a tennis shoe/sneaker onto the track (we don't see who it is).  Danica inexplicably runs over it and flings it out the rear bumper.  While it appears to be innocuous at first, later Danica complains about bad handling as she begins to drop back a few spots.  Eventually, pieces of her car shoot out the rear.  She would later pit and get it fixed up but not before dropping six laps.

Swear to God, watching the highlights of the race on ESPN, seeing Danica's car fall apart with the stupid rock BG music ("derrr-deee-derr-duhh"), I just about broke down into tears (of laughter).  You'll also see a Sonic the Hedgehog logo in the pic above (to the right of the tire), which is bad Sega karma.  All over a f'n shoe.  She's SOL and Oh God Help Us because if she continues to get screwed, then Sega will be doomed.  To recap: Danica ran over a shoe and ruined her chance at winning.  What the f*** is that s***, indeed...

EDIT: It just dawned on me two weeks later.  Why couldn't that have been a SONIC shoe...and give Danica a speed boost????  WWRRRRYYYY?????

You'd think being associated with Sonic would make Danica drive faster but no...it doesn't.  *okay.jpg*

Worst Racing Game Ever Made (Wonderful ActionScript Programming)

Click here to play Racing 3D.

Could it be possible to make a racing game WORSE than this?  Well, possibly these abysmal games from long ago, but this one takes the cake.  Literally doesn't handle like a car at all--you don't turn, you "strafe" left & right.  Can't even get the car to drive straight down the road, you know...like in a normal racing game.  Plus this rap/techno loop makes my ears bleed.  And the three McLarens look stupid.

I know this could pass as a beginner's flash game, but seriously, I cannot get past how f***in bad the car handling is.  If it weren't for the handling, perhaps this game would be okay and have some legs to stand on but here, it is USELESS.  Seriously, if you doubt me, just play the game for yourself.  If you can actually come in 1st place, I will rain praise upon you.  Also, to the website hosters, please don't take this game down--it should be used as an example as NOT how to make a racing game.

This groovy post inspired by a Reddit post: "playing this game is like trying to drive a bar of soap."  Well said.