Steady She Goes

More updates for the Club Sega part of the site. As usual, there’s an assortment of small html tweaks and several page updates.

Don’t worry, I’ve got some non-Sega updates coming soon. If you’ve ever found yourself looking for the I ’76 quick reference card, it’ll be up shortly, and so will the year’s round-up of reader mail/Q&As.

Updates:
Rez
VO ads
VO:OT screenshots
New reviews
VF3 Saturn update

More Clubbin’

Tripod.co.uk is getting on my nerves. Despite tweaking my code to get it looking just right, their shitty advertisements are screwing up my text and layout. If anyone wants to point me to a better server, please let me know.

The Club Sega section is updated all over the place. New reviews, more text, more general tweaking. There’s a lot of little things, so check out the dates on the bottom of the pages. They list the last time that page has had an update.

Updates:
Club Sega

New Stuff

There’s a huge update to the Sega section. The site has been revamped. Looks-wise, it’s probably more of an evolution than anything else. It has been looking stale for about the last six years and I’ve been planning to get the Sega blog stuff on there for a while, so it seemed like now was the time to update it.

That particular section of the site has been through a lot. And by that, I mean periods of time in Notepad, then Frontpage Express, then Frontpage, then Dreamweaver, and now finally… back to Notepad. To use a pad pun (or two?), the pages were in htm hell.

I’ve been out of the web game for a bit, so it was nice to catch up on the new css/html updates. That being said, everything on the new pages is strict xhtml 4.0 and things are a lot less messy behind the scenes. Is it perfect? No, but at least I can just play around with the stylesheet to get it right. I won’t deny it, I am proud that it’s all done in notepad. Not proud enough to put up an image of it, but still proud nonetheless.

So, some quick answers to a few questions: Yes, I’m still using the background that I ripped off of Sega’s official site ten years ago. Yes, I think it “makes the page.” No, the content hasn’t really been changed.

And yes, it looks much nicer. And possibly more like Wikipedia. Granted, my site has been around longer and looked like the Wiki before the Wiki existed, so take that for what it’s worth.

In the words of some semi-famous guy, “We took all our favorite parts and threw them into one big pile of shit.” Or something to that effect.

And by the way, check out famous guy’s new album Death Magnetic; it’s not too shabby.

Enough rambling, go take a look.

Updates:
Club Sega

Assorted Shorts

I’ve been attempting to catch in on some good deals with my newly-acquired PS2 (and hopefully soon some SEGA Ages titles…). With no particular criteria, here are some rankings.

Guitar Hero III – 9.5/10. Does it feel like playing a guitar? Well, not really, but that’s alright, that’s what a real guitar is for. It’s fun – and that’s all that matters.

Lego Star Wars – 8.5/10. I played this one a few years ago on the X-Box and a had a good time, but there were a couple of frustrating parts, such as the Pod racer level. Improved upon in the second game.

Lego Stars II – 9/10. Yes that’s right, I thought it was a pretty damn good game. It’s easy to get into, fun to play with a friend, and you can play for 10 minutes or an hour.

Outrun2006: Coast2Coast – 8.5/10. Outrun2006 feels like a 1980s arcade game with beefed-up graphics, and essentially that’s what it is. Drifting and sliding is good fun in itself, but all of the additional features make this game worthy of owning at home.

Pride FC – 7/10. The game does a good job incorporating the various moves and positions of MMA into a fighting system. The problem is that there is no career mode, unlockables, or rewards of any sort for playing the game.

Resident Evil 4 – 8/10. I don’t have a good history with RE games. In fact, this is the only one I’ve managed to finish. Ultimately, the game feels like a good chase scene in a movie – lots of action and excitement, but not much else. With the Pro Logic on, this surround is pretty killer.

Virtua Fighter 4 Evolution 10/10. Balance and depth have always been associated with the VF series and it’s no different here. The big addition is the training mode. Since VF4:Evo has been around and many of the strategies and techniques have been figured out, they’re presented here to get you up to speed in some of the finer points of Virtua Fighting.

Virtual On Marz – 5.5/10. It’s not the worst game in the world, but after playing the other games in the series, it doesn’t compare. The speed has been slowed and the areas opened up to more like Armored Core. It doesn’t work too well with the VO play mechanics, though.

Club Sega

Yes, it’s true. I stepped into the blog world. So, I opened up a site that I’m calling “Club Sega” for now. The idea is to take my current Sega-game focus and squeeze it into a site that’s based on shorter articles and editorials – kind of like the news page. The Sega section of this site will still be updated and will continue to be a poor-man’s encyclopedia of sorts.

In other news, things have been archived and I’ve finally uploaded things that I’ve been typing up for the past few days. Hopefully, a few miscellaneous links are fixed as well.

[Club Sega]

Yakuza Impressions

After hearing that it was a Shenmue-like game, Yakuza caught my interest. It also seemed to be one of the few Sega games to come out lately that didn’t suck. That was really all of the info I had about the game, but after playing it, I can see some of the Shenmue comparisons. Really, the game is a beat-em-up, like Die Hard Arcade or even Zombie Revenge, with exploration areas to get to the action.

Shenmue was about being able to explore everything, for better or for worse, and getting caught up in everyday life. To really enjoy the game, it had to be played with a “stop and smell the roses” attitude. Rush through the main objectives and the game could last about 10 hours. On the other hand, spending time talking to characters about finding sailors, going through every drawer in the house, or standing in a parking lot hitting the punch button repeatedly is not everyone’s idea of a good time. The pace was definitely slow. (Warning: Intentionally bad sentence ahead.) The game tried to mimic reality and the reality is that reality is really sometimes boring. The fighting engine was great, at least for the few fights in the game. I haven’t really made up my mind about QTEs yet, but they seem to be finding their way into more and more games (like Resident Evil 4).

Yakuza seems to take Shenmue and redirect its concepts towards action. You can’t go and walk into every single building, but for every building you can get inside, there’s something to buy or do (as opposed to hearing how they didn’t see anything unusual on the day with the strange weather). Fights are way more frequent and follow the standard beat-em-up more so than Shenmue’s VF-based style. Grab objects and beat people up just like the arcade games.

The story seems pretty important to the game, even though I’m having a hard time keeping all of the characters straight. Hopefully on the second time through, it’ll be easier to recognize people. The voice is acting is better in Yakuza, even though the number of f-bombs in the dialog seems overkill. That said, it’s nothing spectacular.

At this point, after only a couple hours of play, I’d rate the game 8/10.

Virtual Out

I found a copy of Virtual On: Marz for pretty cheap and I’ve been playing it as of late. I hate to say it, but it’s not really that great of a game. Basically, it’s the home version of Force. Instead of being a direct copy of the arcade, though, it’s been geared to have missions and you basically go around destroying multiple enemies, a la Armored Core. The problem is that the gameplay doesn’t translate well with multiple VRs or over the different areas. Three-on-one fights are fairly one sided, even if the opponents are severely handicapped. Trying to move down a passageway is hard to do when the dash tool is really designed only for short bursts, not continuous streams.

On the brighter side of things, I finally talked myself into getting some of the Sega Ages line-up. Hopefully, things pan out well and I’ll have some info/reviews on them in the next couple of months.

Not that anyone asked, but to clear some things up about the site: Instead of finishing up articles, I just post whatever I’ve written, even if it’s a poor, off-the-top-of-my-head draft. Why? Simple, if I waited until it was “done,” I wouldn’t have anything on the site. Also, I may write and date things before they’re uploaded, so just because the date on the page is from a couple of weeks (or months… or years…) ago doesn’t mean it didn’t just get added to the site.

Updates:
VO: Marz – I’m actually acknowledging the game exists.

Yuletide Knights

Looks like the new Nights is out and the reviews are averaging about 7/10. Shocked? Me neither. Of course, when people actually play the original, they’ll realize it’s about an 8.5/10 game. No one’s going to bother digging up a Saturn, so maybe it’ll keep its mystique, at least in America. Japan, on the other hand, is getting the original NiGHTS and Christmas NiGHTS. Maybe I should stop being a cheap-ass and just import some games… Or maybe I’ll just stick with the Saturn.

I’ve been playing Resident Evil 4. Finally, Capcom has fixed some of the things that made the older games so goddamn annoying. No more ribbons, just find a typewriter and save. It’s really refreshing. Keep in mind, I’m basing all of this of playing the original RE years ago and getting halfway through Code Veronica… years ago.

Updates:
I ’76 Classic – Team Picture added.
Outrun2006 – Page added.
Virtua Hamster – Greatest game that never was.
Virtua Fighter – Siba appearances added.

Train Keep Rolling

Alright, lots of updates on the site. Actually, it only seems like a lot to me. You’ll only see about 5 different changes, so here’s the list:

Virtua Fighter 3 – Saturn stuff.
Virtua Fighter 4: Evo – I’ve been playing it, so I figured it fill it out a bit.
Nights – Spot the added line.
Fighters Megamix – More meat.

And let’s not forget the mandatory works-in-progress and a hopefully a few fixed links.

Aging Like Wine

I realize my site has fallen into the category of “Retro” gaming. Not really by choice, of course, but time seems to have a way of making these things happen. I’m not going to fight it. Instead, I’m going to enjoy the title and all that comes with it.

I’ve finally stepped into the modern world of gaming and purchased a PS2, which means I’m only about seven years late to the party. The real winner of the PS3 vs. Xbox360 war is the PS2 – a relatively cheap console with a huge library of inexpensive games. Looking to Japan yields an even larger library…

The Sega Ages 2500 line of games have been published in Japan for a few years with mixed results. Sega’s older titles have been (re?) re-released on the PS2, sometimes with better graphics, sometimes not. Quite a few Saturn remakes have been coming, and a PS2 Nights is on its way.

I’m a bit hesitant about purchasing anything, though. The Virtua Fighter 2 game is the closest home conversion yet, but it’s still not arcade perfect, even on a console that is several times more powerful than a Model 2 board. Still, it has piqued my interest. Newer games in the series tend to be done well, with better graphics, updates, and new extras.