Gaming off the Beaten Path

  Let's talk a little bit about launch titles. It kind of feels like launch titles have been de-emphasized in recent years. In this era of streaming subscription services, digital downloads and backwards compatibility, having a strong list of games available at launch just isn't as critical as it used to be. Because back in the day, launch lineups were incredibly important. Any time a new console was announced, people would immediately start speculating on what would be available at launch. Remember, you couldn't just go download a digital copy of whatever you wanted. You also didn't know when the next round of games was going to come out unless you subscribed to a gaming mag. Because of this, a system's launch titles were very important and often used as a selling point. However, these titles also always seemed to have a certain feel to them. Most launch lineups included one game from a major franchise, a bunch of second-rate titles in whatever genre was popular at...

In a lot of ways, it always seemed like Sega was always chasing the magic that Nintendo was so frequently able to capture. A lot of developers, publishers and general gaming related companies have gotten themselves into trouble with the "because Nintendo did it" mentality. The offending parties quickly learn that just copying the big N isn't enough, if you aren't taking the same care with the games you are building. That usually wasn't a problem with Sega. Sure, they copied their rivals more than I think they should have, but they usually did a pretty good job of doing so. It almost seems like they've gotten better at it than they were when the two companies were actually competing. Even still, it's a little frustrating to see them do it at all, unlike some of the other inferior game companies out there Sega didn't need to try to match their competition move for move. But hey, if you are going to do it, at least do it well. Sega has tried to give Sonic...

So it looks like it's we're back into "this is totally and completely countercultural for me" territory. I'm just going to come out and say it, I know next to nothing about NASCAR. I know it's incredibly popular, but it's just not something I grew up with. I'm from the wrong side of the Mason-Dixon line for that. But it's more than just regional. Racing just wasn't something my parents or anyone I knew paid attention to. As little as I know about NASCAR, I know even less about F-1 or rally racing or drag racing or whatever other competitive kinds of racing are out there. My extent of knowledge of the sport comes from not changing the channel when SportsCenter showed race footage between football highlights and coverage of MLB trade rumors. It's not that I don't have respect for NASCAR drivers, in fact I don't understand people that refuse to call them athletes. "They only make left turns!" Have you ever made a left turn go...

  You know, I'm glad they included "racing" in the title. It's kind of a subtitle on the case and disc, so when I saw just "Mag Force" I thought I was about to play some sort of shooting game. But instead we have a racing game, a futuristic racer originally published in 1999 by Crave. For those that may not remember, Crave was also the publisher responsible for the first game I reviewed on GOTBP, Shadow Madness. But we can't really use that for comparison, a traditional RPG and a futuristic racing game are about as far apart as two games can be. In doing some research, the most similar game I found was something called Killer Loop, it's also a futuristic racer, also published by Crave and also released in 1999. It's almost like it's the same game. Wait a minute...it's not almost the same game. It IS the same game. For whatever reason, they decided to change the name for the Dreamcast version of the game. It's Killer Loop on the PS1 a...

 I can't believe it's taken so long. I've covered such a wide range of games and touched so many different franchises over the past two plus years. My reviews have spanned a wide range of IPs, from popular to obscure. I've covered series' I'm passionate about, ambivalent towards and even ones I dislike. And yet, this is the first time I've ever touched "The Simpsons." I've talked at length about how video game series' like Final Fantasy and Mega Man have impacted my life. But I'm not sure any media franchise has made the impact on me The Simpsons have. Anyone who knows me knows The Simpsons are kind of my thing. Those other franchises may define my taste in media. But the Simpsons have defined pretty much my entire personality, much to the chagrin of some. Oh what, you thought I was personable or I had a good sense of humor? Not really, pretty much anything I've ever said that made someone laugh is just a recycled Simpsons joke or r...

I know it's a bit of a stretch for the whole "obscure games" thing, but I've been playing a lot of Mario Kart recently. It wasn't necessarily by choice. You see, my son has recently become absolutely obsessed with this 2003 entry into the much loved franchise, so much so that he asks to play almost every day. He's played games with me before, but this was really the first one he played by himself. He's not going to set any records (he finishes a course in an average of about ten minutes, they're supposed to take, like, two.) he does do a pretty good job for his age. Honestly, I kind of messed up, I had at least three years I could have used the "unplugged controller" trick left, but now there's no way he'll ever go for that again. Still I'm happy he enjoys it and it's nice to have some common ground. Of course, he doesn't understand that there are other versions of Mario Kart out there. This one, for the GameCube, kind of ...

Looks like it’s back to license games yet again. I think it’s worth reiterating that not all licensed games are bad.   I mean, last week’s 10’s game was technically licensed.    So are just about all sports games.   But you know that I know that you know those aren’t the kind of games I’m talking about.   I’m talking about stuff like “The Golden Compass” or “Street Fighter: The Movie: The Game.”   And yet as strange as the latter was, this week’s entry may be even more bizarre. Some of you might remember Antz, DreamWorks’ first digitally animated feature.   Released in 1998, it received solid reviews and performed okay at the box office.   It had quite the star-studded voice cast too, with Woody Allen, Sharon Stone, J-Lo, Christopher Walken, Sylvester Stalone, Danny Glover and Gene Hackman.   It also massively pissed off Pixar, who accused it of ripping off their follow-up to Toy Story, “A Bug’s Life,” which would hit theatres o...

Oh great, another racing game.  By now you all know exactly how this is going to go.  At this point I think I’ve made it clear that I don’t like racing games, I hate driving, they usually don’t appeal to me, etc. etc.  This is just going to be more of the same, right? Not so fast.  This futuristic racer isn’t like the “realistic” racing games I covered before, nor is it a random entry in a series that has nothing else to do with racing.  F-Zero GX, released for the GameCube in 2003, is an absolutely phenomenal game from what many consider to be Nintendo’s forgotten first party franchise. Most gamers know series protagonist Captain Falcon from Super Smash Bros., but F-Zero has had little love thrown its way by the big N other than a few references in that series.  How little love?  This week’s game was the last one released on a non handheld console in the United States.  Remember, this came out in 2003, which was 17 years and almost three consol...

Oh great, another racing game.   Look, I think I’ve made it pretty clear I don’t really like these things, but they don’t take too much time to play or review.  This one isn’t even that obscure, a lot of folks that played video games in those days have heard of it and its even part of the Nintendo World Championship cartridge.  It wasn’t quite mainstream, but not really off the path either. I do talk a lot on here about “the name in the corner” with games.  Games are frequently under- or overrated because of who developed or published them, probably more so than any other type of media.  It was true then and it it still true now, even though there are far fewer developers (if you aren’t counting indie developers, of course) than there used to be.  Most of the ones that were around in those days were very specialized and known for making games in only one or two genres. And that’s what makes Rad Racer weird.  You m...