1999 Rants

8th December 1999

Before I get started.... If you are after an example of how badly the UK gamer is treated, then lets take a look at Sony’s Um Jamma Lamy on Playstation. This game was initially supposed to be released in the Summer, demo disks appeared on magazines, and while reviews were mixed, fans of Parappa will obviously find the game a glorious extention of the original. While a Summer release would mean we were six months behind the Japanese original, it didn’t take long for the game to slip. It’s replacement October release date came and went, and it wasn’t until this week that the game finally hit the UK high street, a whole year after Japanese gamers got their hands on it. I have seen the original version of the game, and this conversion to English would have taken very little time, considering the original Japanese game is in English too, in any case, the US had this game ages ago. Nothing new I here you cry, the UK gets late releases all the time, well, this one is a bit more serious.

On booting the UK version a couple of days ago, I was presented with a warning screen, advising me that it could not be run on a Japanese playstation. My Playstation is in fact a UK machine, chipped to play multi-region games. I’m sure Sony feel very pleased with themselves, devising a way to cut out chipped machines, but they are penalising the very hardcore gamers who are tired with the incredibly poor way European releases are handled. I am lucky enough to have an additional un-chipped machine, but what of those gamers who are not so lucky. The only thing they can do, is give up waiting for official releases, and get grey imports anyway. That’s the very practise I assume Sony are trying to stamp out with their new protection system. To impliment their new cut-out software on a title so heavily and unreasonably delayed, is frankly unbelievable.

26th November 1999

MEGA RANT! - It’s been a pretty busy week, so i’m going to cover a few different things in todays rant. Firstly, the sneaky release of Soul Fighter and Soul Calibre on Dreamcast on the same day. A company which has to resort to such devious means to sell games surely doesn’t deserve to sell any. It’s bad enough that us UK gamers have had to wait until today to get their hands on Calibre, considering the title was a US launch game. Add to that this new confusion, that casual buyers could well buy the wrong title, and the release of the DCs premier title becomes farce.

Jace on Edge - For those of you who didn’t read the title page, I have just finished my first article for Edge. I have long bemoaned Edge, (though occasionally praised the publication) but only bestow any criticism because I see Edge as such an authority, indeed, the bible for hardcore gamers. I am sure many fellow game fans will agree, and I must admit, it has long been an ambition to write for the magazine. Those of you who have written dismayed at my abandonment of Retroworld in Future’s N64 magazine, will be pleased to know that my first feature in Edge is a kind of end-of-the-millenium round up of classic consoles, including gorgeous colour pictures of some super rare consoles like the Odyssey 1, Cassette Vision, Game Pocket Computer and Entex Adventurevision. Make sure you check out the next issue. Just in case he reads this, i’d like to thank Tony Mott for the opportunity.

The word RETRO seems to be appearing everywhere, and while we should maybe see it’s use elsewhere as a kind of flattery, we are in danger of having our identity smothered in the wash of profit led pretenders currently flooding the collectors scene. While we didn’t invent the word Retro, we were the first company in the world to advertise using the word to mean classic video games, but, catering for enthusiasts doesn’t bring in enough profit to waste two thousand pounds on full page adverts in Edge. In a way we are kind of responsible, thanks to the rush of publicity we managed to generate a few years ago, indeed, I personally persuaded Amazon to introduce a Retro section on their new UK direct sales site. Ebay’s full page Retro advert in the latest Edge must be influenced by that. I suppose it all sounds pretty patheticl, but seeing everyone else exploit the name just makes me want to shout it from the rooftops that we were here first, and we actually care about collecting. I apologise for this outburst and will do my best not to let it happen again!

Nolan Bushnell appeared in UK trade paper MVC today, and you have to wonder what relavence he has on todays games industry. When asked on what improvements in games he had seen lately, he spoke on the impressive storage capacity of CD-Rom?? I won’t even comment. He approved of the revamping of retro titles currently being released under the Atari name (with that foul alteration of the original logo), but you have to wonder if he’s actually played any of them. It is one thing re-creating the classic gameplay of classic titles, but in my view, this is simple exploitation of old licenses in order re-sell them to their original audience. Lets face it, the new face of Atari is purely commercial, a far cry from the experimentation of Bushnell’s early involvment. What he should have said was that the name Atari should have been left alone, left as a cultural monolith and important milestone in the history of computer games. The continual wattering down of such an important icon can only be seen as video game sacrilege. Until next time....

22nd November 1999

DREAM OF PERFECT DARK - There have long been arguments in the games press concerning whether games are harmful to society, encouraging violence and speeding the world into a full state of lawless anarchy. The traditional stance is for gamers to laugh at the suggestion, belittling those who suggest such things, as it is highly probable they have no idea what video games are really like. I too have always held the view that games breed violence with the upmost contempt. However, I can sense people stopping reading at this point, but i’ll continue anyway, on Friday I had the strangest dream. I was in a corner of a very grey courtyard, for some reason hiding. I was very tense and worried, but a couple of minutes later my friend Mark, a fellow gamer, crept around the corner, and joined me in my corner. A sudden burst of noise startled the pair of us, and I looked round to see a large metal roller door, which I hadn’t previously noticed, open at great speed. Then a parade of soldiers marched from inside the door and continued to parade around the courtyard. Me and Mark stayed silent, until they were around twenty yards away, then I pulled a revolver from my pocket and started shooting at them. Mark grabbed a huge wooden box, and threw it on its side, so we could hide behind it. The soldiers rushed towards us, and as they did so, I managed to take out a few more. They were shooting at us, but the box seemed to provide ample protection from their bullets. Mark was shouting, “ I’ve got no gun, what now! “, I lept from behind the box, grabbed a machine gun from the hand of a dead soldier on the ground, and threw my revolver to him. We then continued blowing them away, I aimed my machine gun fire at their heads, and they seemed to die very satisfactorily. A few minutes later, the courtyard was free of living soldiers. I’m sure we got hit a few times, but we just laughed, and were generally very pleased with ourselves. Thankfully, the dream ended there, and when I awoke, the first thing I thought was, wow, games are really going to be that good one day. It wasn’t till a few minutes later that I realised that the violence I had imagined had meant very little to me. Perhaps in my dream I assumed it was a game all the time, or perhaps more frighteningly, my twenty years of videogame warfare has left me unmoved by such terrifying events. The dream was very Goldeneye, and of all games, I think Goldeneye best creates the reality of killing people for your own survival. I’m a normal guy, I hate violence, but I love these games so much that their content enters my dreamstate. Who knows what they would do to me if I was not of sound mind.

9th November 1999

AMERICAN GAMES ARE TOO EASY FOR BRITS! No, I haven’t turned into a raving xenephobe, this was the quote from a Radio One (the biggest radio station in the UK) news feature today. While this may be a statement easy to take out of context, my American friends may well add some weight to the argument. Ok, firstly, being a British gamer, I may sometimes appear biased towards UK games, but I recently finished what must be the best US game this year, Ready to Rumble on Dreamcast. On reflection, I did complete the game remarkably easily. Indeed, if it wasn’t for the still very funny two player game, I may have thrown the game in the cupboard with all my other “dull” DC games. I may be stepping out of line here, but maybe it is safe to assume that the argument if easily turned around, and UK games are deemed too difficult in the States. I have one example. A good American friend of mine, and fellow collector, raved about the revamped Robotron game which came out on N64 last year. He said it was infuriating, and just as addictive as the original. On his reccomendation, I obtained a copy, only to complete around fifty levels on my first go. The thought of playing the game again filled me with nausea, and on raising my difference of opinion with my friend, he maintained that the game was really challenging him. Questioned on other classic, but tough games, like Gran Turismo and Banjo Kazooie, and he said he didn’t like them, favouring Sanfransisco Rush and Sonic. Obviously, this is his taste, and we are all different (thankfully), but I wonder how many US gamers actually prefer to buy an American game to a British one. My comments on Jet Force Gemini last week may also add weight to this argument. The guys interviewed on the radio reckoned that US gamers are far more casual than UK gamers. Does that make us sadder?? Locked away in our houses desperate to claim the last key of kagnazax for our own?? Probably!

For a column with which I hope to attract US readers, this may have been a pretty brave subject for my second attempt, but hey, i’m not gonna run away from what’s happening as I write the column. I’m just thankful the radio item wasn’t about how Retrogamers are sad t*ssers. Till next time....

6th November 1999

THE FIRST RANT - Well, for fans of the magazine, this is my chance to write about stuff on a more regular basis. For those unaware of my usual musings, I am a game junky. Ask me if games to me are like drugs, and i’ll say yes. If I don’t get a quick fix of Goldeneye at least once a week, I go all wobbly. Of course that’s not to say i’m the greatest gamer of all time. It seems that however many hours you spend learning moves on Tekken, or finding all the hidden extras in Silent Hill, someone has always done it already, or faster or better than you. I suppose, in esscence, that’s the very nature of gaming. I may have started Retrogames thanks to my passion for prehistoric gaming, but don’t think I don’t stay up to date with modern formats. Not that I have a choice, being a game junky I am always desperate to dabble in new kinds of experiences. Be it Wonderswan and Dreamcast, or Intellivision and Vectrex, I need it. This rant, which I hope to update regularly, will not only focus on what I think of new games and machines, but also which classic machines are currently warranting my attentions. Here in the UK there is really only one mainstream games magazine which gives you a reliable rating for new video games. That magazine is Edge by future publishing, and my American collector friends tell me that they regard Edge’s sister magazine, Next Generation, in the same way. Unfortunately, these magazines still rely on one or two people’s opinions for a review. That is fine, but should be taken into account. One example is the latest Rare classic, Jet Force Gemini. Edge give it 9/10 and rate it as the best game to come out on the system this year. Next Gen give it 3/10 and say it’s over complicated and too big. I’d say that the truth lies somewhere in the middle, sure GFG is the best game this year, but there isn’t much competition. It’s graphics are great, there are tons of features and bunches of different things to collect, and the two player simultaneous mission play is something gamers have been crying out for for years. However, the control method is far from intuitive, and the camera becomes very annoying when your battling against a horde of aliens. How can you get your sight on a monster which the camera seems determined to avoid, thanks to a dip in the scenery?? One thing which is mighty is the sound. If you have a surround system, then you’ll be seriously amazed by what is coming out of the humble cartridge. Sadly, sound doesn’t make a game awsome, just better. Atmosphereric enhancements seem to be lost when it comes to struggling with the controls. I will be honest, I haven’t finished the game, I’ve got about half way through, and frankly, i’m bored. That’s not to say I regret buying it, there’s so little to buy on the N64 at the moment, that any game is a blessing. However, compared to Rare’s awsome Banjo Kazooie, I doubt i’ll go back and do every last challenge. People shouted about the camera in Banjo, but it didn’t detract from the Gameplay, mainly because the gameplay was so good. GFG doesn’t have the same luxury. Great aesthetics do not make a great game.

Well, that was my first rant, and it wasn’t very Retro was it!!! I don’t know many collectors that don’t keep an eye on the current scene. Hopefully you will tune in for my next one, cos there is so much left to cover, like why is Um Jamma Lammy still not out in the UK?, why has Sega waited till the end of November to launch Soul Calibre, when it’s been finished for ages?, Is the Handheld NeoGeo worth buying? and why doesn’t anyone release some decent games for the Playstation? Till next time. ..