Black Ace
08-04-2002, 07:34 PM
XenGamers
By Colin Wahlert
Back when I was a kid, life used to be so simple. All the nutrition you ever needed could be found in a peanut butter and jelly sandwich with chocolate milk. The boogey-man in the closet could be tamed with a cool proton gun that shot lightning. And if you wanted to play Nintendo, you bought the gray console; if you wanted to play Sega, you bought the black one. But today, things just ain't so easy. Big businesses are falling like dominoes under the weight of their own corruption. The WWF predicts the Earth's resources will be tapped within 50 years, and the other WWF is now the WWE. If you want to play Nintendo, your console is going to be any color but gray, and if you want to play Sega... whoa nelly.
After the Genesis went down in a blaze of expensive peripherals, I guess it was naive to think that Sega would always be there to sink ridiculous amounts of cash every year into a console just for the hardcore gamers. But when it finally did make the big change to third-party, who would've expected a mitosis into ten separate independent developers, each favoring a separate console? And though asking a Sega fan which Sega games s/he likes best is like asking a monkey how he likes his bananas, that's the state of the things that we're stuck with. We can no longer confidently walk into a game store and say, "Give me that console that nobody wants."
Sega fans, it's time to decide who you love best. This column will present the most important facts about the Sega teams: the games they've made in the past, and the games/consoles they're working on today. Whether you like your bananas split around ice cream or sliced over frosted flakes, well, that's up to you.
Developer:Amusement Vision
Past: Daytona USA, Virtua Striker, Spikeout
Current: Super Monkey Ball (NGC), Virtua Striker 3 (NGC)
Future: Super Monkey Ball 2 (NGC), F-Zero (NGC), Spikeout Extreme (Xbox)
Amusement Vision is led by AM2 veteran graphic designer Toshihiro Nagoshi, who was also briefly in charge of AM11. Clearly the team with the most Nintendo support, it helped launch GameCube with the excellent and innovative Super Monkey Ball, then quickly followed with one of the first of way too many GameCube soccer titles. Currently working on a Super Monkey sequel, AV was also contracted by Nintendo to continue the F-Zero franchise in both arcades and the home. But before you claim victory over this Sega spawn, Nintendo fans, look out for Spikeout's appearance on Xbox. Dividing its sickeningly cute monkey rolling games and its sickeningly violent street brawling games between two consoles is a threatening sign that AV buys into the whole "GameCube = Grade School" stigma.
Developer: Hitmaker
Past: Sega Rally Championship, Virtual On, Last Bronx, Crazy Taxi
Current: Crazy Taxi (NGC)
Future: Power Smash 2 (PS2), Crazy Taxi 3 High Roller (Xbox)
If it weren't for a few bright spots in this developer's past, I'd be tempted to suggest the name "One Hit Wonder" instead. Hitmaker struck pay dirt with Crazy Taxi, an addictive game that featured simple controls and a priest who exclaimed "You're one hell of a driver!" And via the Capcom theory of game design, it's been ported to every major console available (it came to GameCube a full four years after its original arcade release) and is already piling up the sequels. Hitmaker's pre-taxi days as "AM3" had more variety, but not the most success. While the venerable Sega Rally earned a place in the hearts of many Saturn gamers, Virtual On's "Twin Stick" control format proved too daunting for most casual arcade goers and too expensive for the home. Some of you may remember Last Bronx as Sega's last big fighter for Saturn... that was horribly upstaged by the home release of the original Dead or Alive. Hitmaker's most recent arcade release is "Maze of the Kings," a Tomb Raider-themed light gun shooter that's strictly average. For Sega's sake, let's hope this developer does something to deserve its ambitious name soon.
Developer:Overworks
Past: Phantasy Star (offline), Super Shinobi, Sakura Taisen, Skies of Arcadia
Current: Skies of Arcadia (NGC, PS2)
Future: Shinobi (PS2), Sakura Taisen 5 (PS2)
Probably best known for the classic Shinobi series in the West, Overworks is one of Sega's biggest developers for the Japanese market. Its Sakura Taisen series is perhaps the cleverest combination since the Oreo Cookie: crunchy fighting robots on the outside, creamy, sexy, anime girls on the inside. No wonder it was greatly responsible for keeping Saturn afloat in Japan, and has even spread to China via translated PC versions. Specializing in RPGs and strategy, Overworks helped create the original Phantasy Star titles, as well as Dragon Force and Iron Storm (two Saturn titles localized for America by Working Designs). Their prowess was recently showcased on Dreamcast in the form of Skies of Arcadia, a gem of an RPG that GameCube and PS2 owners should really look into now that it's being ported around. For the future, Overworks has signed on pretty securely with Sony: Sakura Taisen is a big win for PlayStation 2 in Japan, and the newly resurrected Shinobi should be a hit worldwide with PS2 gamers who love ninjas but detest pre-rendered backgrounds.
Developer: Sega-AM2
Past: Hang-on, Outrun, Afterburner, Virtua Fighter, Virtua Cop, Shenmue
Current: Virtua Fighter 4 (PS2), Aerodancing 4 (PS2), Beach Spikers (NGC)
Future: Virtua Cop Re-birth (PS2), Ferrari F355 Challenge (PS2), Shenmue 2 (Xbox), Virtua Fighter Quest (NGC), OutRun 2 (Xbox)
Sega's long-time and most industrious arcade developer, Sega-AM2, is the only team famous enough to carry its old "Amusement Machine" moniker after the big split. Usually going toe-to-toe with longtime Sony bedfellow Namco, AM2 was the mommy that Saturn owners ran home to when PSX gamers made fun of them on the playground. Under its new structure, though, AM2 is spreading a little magic around for everyone. At the moment, PlayStation seems to be getting all the attention, but this is due more to Sega's "we need to start making money fast" policy than to an AM2 exclusivity preference. Before long there will be ample provisions for Xbox as well, and GameCube is lined up to get the strangest project since Shenmue. What in a goat's eye is "Virtua Fighter Quest?" Can VF fans resist buying a GameCube to get an in-depth look at the sordid lives of Akira, Pai, Jacky, and the rest? Can Virtua Fighter's storyline be adapted to make any sense outside of the fighting game format? Will Sarah say "even good guys blow it?"
By Colin Wahlert
Back when I was a kid, life used to be so simple. All the nutrition you ever needed could be found in a peanut butter and jelly sandwich with chocolate milk. The boogey-man in the closet could be tamed with a cool proton gun that shot lightning. And if you wanted to play Nintendo, you bought the gray console; if you wanted to play Sega, you bought the black one. But today, things just ain't so easy. Big businesses are falling like dominoes under the weight of their own corruption. The WWF predicts the Earth's resources will be tapped within 50 years, and the other WWF is now the WWE. If you want to play Nintendo, your console is going to be any color but gray, and if you want to play Sega... whoa nelly.
After the Genesis went down in a blaze of expensive peripherals, I guess it was naive to think that Sega would always be there to sink ridiculous amounts of cash every year into a console just for the hardcore gamers. But when it finally did make the big change to third-party, who would've expected a mitosis into ten separate independent developers, each favoring a separate console? And though asking a Sega fan which Sega games s/he likes best is like asking a monkey how he likes his bananas, that's the state of the things that we're stuck with. We can no longer confidently walk into a game store and say, "Give me that console that nobody wants."
Sega fans, it's time to decide who you love best. This column will present the most important facts about the Sega teams: the games they've made in the past, and the games/consoles they're working on today. Whether you like your bananas split around ice cream or sliced over frosted flakes, well, that's up to you.
Developer:Amusement Vision
Past: Daytona USA, Virtua Striker, Spikeout
Current: Super Monkey Ball (NGC), Virtua Striker 3 (NGC)
Future: Super Monkey Ball 2 (NGC), F-Zero (NGC), Spikeout Extreme (Xbox)
Amusement Vision is led by AM2 veteran graphic designer Toshihiro Nagoshi, who was also briefly in charge of AM11. Clearly the team with the most Nintendo support, it helped launch GameCube with the excellent and innovative Super Monkey Ball, then quickly followed with one of the first of way too many GameCube soccer titles. Currently working on a Super Monkey sequel, AV was also contracted by Nintendo to continue the F-Zero franchise in both arcades and the home. But before you claim victory over this Sega spawn, Nintendo fans, look out for Spikeout's appearance on Xbox. Dividing its sickeningly cute monkey rolling games and its sickeningly violent street brawling games between two consoles is a threatening sign that AV buys into the whole "GameCube = Grade School" stigma.
Developer: Hitmaker
Past: Sega Rally Championship, Virtual On, Last Bronx, Crazy Taxi
Current: Crazy Taxi (NGC)
Future: Power Smash 2 (PS2), Crazy Taxi 3 High Roller (Xbox)
If it weren't for a few bright spots in this developer's past, I'd be tempted to suggest the name "One Hit Wonder" instead. Hitmaker struck pay dirt with Crazy Taxi, an addictive game that featured simple controls and a priest who exclaimed "You're one hell of a driver!" And via the Capcom theory of game design, it's been ported to every major console available (it came to GameCube a full four years after its original arcade release) and is already piling up the sequels. Hitmaker's pre-taxi days as "AM3" had more variety, but not the most success. While the venerable Sega Rally earned a place in the hearts of many Saturn gamers, Virtual On's "Twin Stick" control format proved too daunting for most casual arcade goers and too expensive for the home. Some of you may remember Last Bronx as Sega's last big fighter for Saturn... that was horribly upstaged by the home release of the original Dead or Alive. Hitmaker's most recent arcade release is "Maze of the Kings," a Tomb Raider-themed light gun shooter that's strictly average. For Sega's sake, let's hope this developer does something to deserve its ambitious name soon.
Developer:Overworks
Past: Phantasy Star (offline), Super Shinobi, Sakura Taisen, Skies of Arcadia
Current: Skies of Arcadia (NGC, PS2)
Future: Shinobi (PS2), Sakura Taisen 5 (PS2)
Probably best known for the classic Shinobi series in the West, Overworks is one of Sega's biggest developers for the Japanese market. Its Sakura Taisen series is perhaps the cleverest combination since the Oreo Cookie: crunchy fighting robots on the outside, creamy, sexy, anime girls on the inside. No wonder it was greatly responsible for keeping Saturn afloat in Japan, and has even spread to China via translated PC versions. Specializing in RPGs and strategy, Overworks helped create the original Phantasy Star titles, as well as Dragon Force and Iron Storm (two Saturn titles localized for America by Working Designs). Their prowess was recently showcased on Dreamcast in the form of Skies of Arcadia, a gem of an RPG that GameCube and PS2 owners should really look into now that it's being ported around. For the future, Overworks has signed on pretty securely with Sony: Sakura Taisen is a big win for PlayStation 2 in Japan, and the newly resurrected Shinobi should be a hit worldwide with PS2 gamers who love ninjas but detest pre-rendered backgrounds.
Developer: Sega-AM2
Past: Hang-on, Outrun, Afterburner, Virtua Fighter, Virtua Cop, Shenmue
Current: Virtua Fighter 4 (PS2), Aerodancing 4 (PS2), Beach Spikers (NGC)
Future: Virtua Cop Re-birth (PS2), Ferrari F355 Challenge (PS2), Shenmue 2 (Xbox), Virtua Fighter Quest (NGC), OutRun 2 (Xbox)
Sega's long-time and most industrious arcade developer, Sega-AM2, is the only team famous enough to carry its old "Amusement Machine" moniker after the big split. Usually going toe-to-toe with longtime Sony bedfellow Namco, AM2 was the mommy that Saturn owners ran home to when PSX gamers made fun of them on the playground. Under its new structure, though, AM2 is spreading a little magic around for everyone. At the moment, PlayStation seems to be getting all the attention, but this is due more to Sega's "we need to start making money fast" policy than to an AM2 exclusivity preference. Before long there will be ample provisions for Xbox as well, and GameCube is lined up to get the strangest project since Shenmue. What in a goat's eye is "Virtua Fighter Quest?" Can VF fans resist buying a GameCube to get an in-depth look at the sordid lives of Akira, Pai, Jacky, and the rest? Can Virtua Fighter's storyline be adapted to make any sense outside of the fighting game format? Will Sarah say "even good guys blow it?"