Planet Virtua's Gaming Trends to Avoid

The gaming industry is in a great deal of trouble. If you have been paying attention for the past ten years, you may notice a few recurring incidents in gaming companies and certain game developers that have become a bit unsettling. Thankfully, through trial and error, the current gamers can arm themselves against these foul rogues who wish to pilfer your dead presidents straight from your bank account. There are red flags and signs to look for when dealing with games that look half way decent at first glance. There are also words that you should be on the lookout for. For instance:

Live Service Online Multiplayer

Dedicated servers are finite. A great deal of gamers know this and take this to heart when they are choosing their games. If your game has nothing but online modes, no single player aspects and the need to have a server of some form, then we all know that spending money on it is something of a massive gamble. At this point, what you are paying for is the experience of playing the game because it is either going to go away eventually or you will be walking the plains of a very empty game.

Some servers are dedicated by the company itself and they have the Massively Multiplayer capabilities, more power to them. There are games out there that have become self sufficient like this and some of them are still pretty fun to play. Then there's the other thousand titles out there that went straight belly-up. 

When you look at the graveyard of servers being shut down after barely even two or three years, you need to know something is wrong by this point. Spending 70 Spacebucks on these titles that are blindly putting together these gum and ducttape online hosts is like throwing a rock into a volcano, hoping it lands on a ledge. EverQuest has been open since 1999, but it is the exception rather than the rule. Marvel's Avengers, Anthem, BattleBorne, Fallout 76, Rocksmith, City of Heroes, Gotham City Imposters and the list goes on; they're all either bone dry of players or you literally cannot even join a single game. 

It seems strange that this has become something of a standard in some games' launch. Going full online has so rarely beared good results and yet putting in even the simplest Single Player Mode has given games life far after its release. Creating a game's AI should not be considered an inconvenience when it literally makes the game independent of developers or mods. Hell, Doom 4's multiplayer was so bland that it almost killed the game from the beginning. If it weren't for that game's exemplary Story Mode and continued Arcade Mode, Doom 2016 would be a forgotten mess of a Quake 3 Arena remake. We have Quake Champions for that. 

Even Everquest requires you use mercenaries to group with because there's just not enough people online anymore. This applies to so many games now and spending so much money on such an unstable idea as games that are only online is putting your tuna under the cat's watch. It's only a matter of time.

Chasing Trends and Fads

There are times when two games that are just like one another could mean that they are very similar in quality and it's just more of a good thing. Wolfenstein and Doom weren't ultra violent because it was the trend of the time, but so many other games tried to copy that one trait and think that it made their game awesome. Doom was super violent because it had to do with guns and demons and they needed to make the blood as awesome as the game already was. Mortal Kombat was very much the same because they were going for visceral realism where Street Fighter was a bit more cartoony.

Throughout gaming history, many of the truly great games have come from an original idea or even some games that took inspiration from one game and then took the concept further (see Alone in the Dark's impact on Resident Evil). Where there are games like Overwatch that beat Battleborne or Dante's Inferno, that failed to be God of War, companies apparently don't seem to realize that catching lightning in a bottle is trickier than just throwing money at a product and siccing some random people onto it to make it happen. 

This, along with the afforementioned Online-only gameplay made Destiny crumble and die multiple times throughout its very unstable original run. While the game was finished later (we'll get to that), many players remember sleeping through it and shrugging their shoulders when it was done. What happened? It looked like Halo, didn't it? We got the original developers of Halo to do it, what went wrong? Too much game, not enough effort, in a nutshell.

When Resident Evil reared its head, the sixth generation was marred with zombies, tank controls and shallow storylines involving worldwide catastrophies. When Mario made the conversion to 3D, it was in the best interest for some developers to take that leap but there were so many that had no idea what they were doing. Any programmer will tell you that switching over to a new format takes months if not years of preparation for a new gaming team and that was never an option. Chasing trends means that you need to stay on the cutting edge and if you fall behind, the business world moves on without you and studios didn't want that. 

Studio Involvement

Alarming sales meant that studios would start to step into projects. Stories, character and gameplay began to take a backseat to what was popular at the time and timeless stories were being turned into watered down pop culture slogs or just mindless deconstructions that just made a great game into basic trash. From titles being censored to meet parental demands to outright changing the entire genre of a game already in development, studio involvement started to become something of the norm and it flatout destroyed projects. 

The original Tomb Raider is probably one of the biggest and most obvious franchises to suffer from this. Lara Croft became such a cash cow for the studio that the need for the developers to keep turning out game after game became a point of real concern. They even went so far as to kill Lara Croft at the end of one of the games and sighed with relief when that was finally over. In the same breath, they turned around and the studio came right back and ordered yet another game. So, not only did they need to make a whole other title, but now Lara Croft needed to come back. Thanks to this, Tomb Raider was decimated as the creative energy and the market for the games both ran completely dry before the inevitable reboot in the later 2010's. They were even blamed for the second Tomb Raider film's failure. As if either thing had anything to do with the other.

The problem with studios is that they can only see the business side of things to the point where obvious concepts like character and story are lost to them. It all became about making games as much as possible and as big as possible with bigger graphics and more content. This became such a huge problem and the idea of "Crunch", or the act of creating a game at the speed and frequency to sheer exhaustion, became something of the norm. With studios at their heels, developers were pumping out more bland and dismissive titles with such regularity that many have compared it to working in a sweat shop.

That's not even to mention the titles that were unfinished and decided to finish themselves later. The biggest example of this was Tony Hawk 5 for the PS4. If you want to see what studio over-involvement, burnout, franchise fatigue and overcompensation looks like in gaming, look no further. Tony Hawk Proskater 5 lacked features that even its predecessors possessed in spades and they were all released more or less in their entirety from day one. Here is a game that not only cut every single corner right before release but continued to cut corners even AFTER the game's release into stores. 

Tony Hawk Proskater 5 became the real smoking gun for everything wrong with gaming. While the game was being released, they wanted to give developers more time to keep cranking out hours. So, like smart people, they decided to make the day one patch an 8 gigabyte mega file, literally fixes for the entirety of the game that you are required to download before you can play. No, this is not a joke and no, this did not go well for them. Not only was this a tasteless, senseless gesture from the studio and a wanton show of uncaring egos amid an ocean of exhausted developers, but also didn't even fix it to the point where it was fun or even slightly enjoyable. Downloading it at all is a gamble now because the data is often reported to either glitch out or simply not load. The game itself is rated among the worst ever made.

Annual Releases

If creating one large game in a ridiculously short amount of time is bad enough, then creating one game every single year should be enough to make your brain rip in twain. This is an entire vortex of nothing but developing military shooters such as Battlefield or Call of Duty games. Count how many titles the two games alone have had, along with their spinoffs. The numbers get insane. Battlefield 4 is one of the earliest examples of unfinished AAA "modern shooters" games that were unfinished and released anyway to meet presales. Games such as The Sims, Assassins Creed, Madden keep coming out with such constant additions and expansions to their games. It keeps adding more and more expenses to the players. When gamers started to buy into this, the developers added on more and more DLC and microtransactions. Subscription costs and loot boxes began to crowd the market and all of it spelled greed. 

The most obvious case of this was not even a military shooter or even really an official sport, as many will remember the classic gem by the title, WWE 2K20. Even with an interesting plot of two friends becoming amateur wrestlers wanting to go pro, this title screwed up literally everything. The problem was that their original developers saw the annual trend of creating video games a very soulless and thankless experience and they wanted to create something different. This meant that 2K Games needed a new development team, they needed to fit this into the same schedule, they needed to fit the entire game together with assets and experience they didn't have, and all of it needed to be done with even less of the time because they were already behind schedule. 

It is kind of lucky that we even got a game and not a section of a CD that will eventually become a full disc. The game came out as nothing but a gigantic glitch in a box. The ropes shook mercilessly, putting stares in the ring would make everything go crazy and sink into the ring, some models had no skin and there were too many times the wrestlers played puppet strings and moved their opponents without touching. The game was not even close to finished and Vince told them that was their problem and not his. Deals were burned to the ground, refunds were a massacre and it was not a fun day for anyone except youtubers. They had a hayday.

And this isn't even bad enough for the fans who were actually duped into buying it because no review copies were released and presales were met with no comment what-so-ever. The result speaks for itself. Companies have been seen to do seemingly ANYTHING to get their money when they want it and nothing so paltry as "fanbase enjoyment" or "integrity" are going to get in the way. They even start charging you for things after you buy the game.

Microtransactions and "Time Savers"

They are trying to say that you can manufacture the experience by putting a number on the screen and have someone pay money to make that number go up. Looter Shooters, MMORPG's, they even put Loot Crates in fighting games and first person shooters! A lot of these games can be near impossible to progress in without spending some type of money or putting countless hours into the grind in order to need more downloads and more content. This made games a great deal of money until morality came into play and many people spoke out. Star Wars Battlefront 2 broke the camel's back in 2017 and since then, other gaming trends have reared their ugly heads but this should serve as a very good reminder of just how bad it can get. Kids were spending their parents' money without asking and spending thousands of dollars of their own money with no discouragement. Thankfully, an outcry of gamers and parents created enormous backlash for companies and there was even questionable legality at play.

It eventually got so bad that Ghost Recon Breakpoint, with an already ridiculous game store, sold game features called "Time Savers". You bought these things that made it to where you didn't even need to play the game, you just jumped ahead in experience and it was like you played the game, but you didn't! It's already been said by 2000 gamers, but I'm still going to say it: Why bother when you can just not pay any money and not play the game in the first place? You'll save the money and that Time Saver can be infinite! It's almost like time actually exists for free!

If you haven't noticed, not a lot has been said about the current Mortal Kombat games on this site. WB has been very guilty of the microtransactions for a long time and the idea that it's all cosmetic and doesn't affect gameplay doesn't help a lot. They're still the ones who brought out Injustice 2: Gods Among Us and Shadow of War. The idea of letting these people run a "virtual console" like Stadia and be given such control over your assets seems rather absurd.

Nothing good can come of encouraging shady business practices like these. If you want to see games improve, stop buying into the hype trains that come out. We need to stop blindly pre-ordering games that haven't even gotten finished because the experience can change at any point. They obviously don't need to discuss such a detail before they get your money. Wait for the reviews to come out online. One huge difference between the before times and now is that there are so many avenues to keep yourself informed of a title's pros and cons. Take advantage of this, it's basically free. It is important to not settle for mediocre garbage, unfinished games and blatant lies from corporations that will say literally ANYTHING to sell their product, turn around and do it all over again. Don't be afraid to want better quality and make sure they work for your hard earned cash. Virtua Ponder.

Mortal Kombat Gold - Limping into 3D

 If there was an award for most awkward conversion into 3D, it would probably go to Bubsy 3D, but Mortal Kombat would be one of the big runners up. Around the turn of the century, the market for games started to become a little chaotic as systems and gaming power started to go on the rise. Arcade cabinets started to become larger, started costing 1 Spacebuck a pop instead of 2 bits and home consoles started to come on the rise. This was a big problem for both Street Fighter and Mortal Kombat, as both were having some serious problems meeting expectations on the 3D front. 

While Street Fighter approached the Dreamcast with a dismal outlook of a 2D fighter, Mortal Kombat came at it with Mortal Kombat 4. While some will come out and say that, even though sales were not great for Street Fighter III, the overall game was still far better. You won't get any argument here, but at the same time, it didn't matter as both titles were seen as lowpoints in their respective franchises. 

One thing that people will cling to on this game are the ending cutscenes and yes, they are as magical as legend tells. We'll get to those, but right now, we need to talk a little bit about the game itself. While it isn't look back on very fondly, it seems there is a great many people who immediately cast it aside as garbage and that seems extremely unfair for a number of reasons. 

Barring the difficulty of 3D conversion in the first place, the graphics look terrible and the character designs have to be some of the worst in the entire franchise. There's really no defending any of the graphical choices in this game on any scale, it's obvious that they rushed these polygons to an absurd level. Can this be considered gritty 2000's graphics camp? Absolutely, for multiple reasons. 

Thanks to the terrible graphics and even worse voice acting, the endings for this game have taken on something of a cult following all their own. Even people who didn't like the game on the arcade or the Dreamcast will admit that these cutscenes are some of the best cheese in the business. Seriously, it was very clear that they had entirely too much fun with these. There are clearly cut corners, horrific voice clips, terrible sound and some of the most tacked on backgrounds imaginable (sometimes literally) in just about every single scene. The pacing of these are laughable, the voicing is very tone deaf and some scenes are nothing but blatant exposition of people speaking at each other in important tones. Do yourself a favor and watch every single one of them, they are hilarious! 

Then there are the things that seem to go overlooked. While the controls and fighting mechanics aren't stellar, nor do they bring a great deal of new things to the table, they are not bad at all. Yes, sometimes the physics can get wonky and there are glitches. It's the 2000's in a new 3D title, if you didn't expect this, you're mad! This is also the unfortunate version of the game that came with everyone getting weapons. Yes, the weapons mechanics can be seen as something of another blemish on an already bruised up face. Their implimentation was clumsy and a lot of the time you would take out your weapon, only to have it knocked from your hands again. That doesn't take away the fact that these fights and the matches themselves are still a lot of fun. There are still fatalities and there are even some really cool stage fatalities! 

The stages are some of the best parts of the game, believe it or not. Not only are there some stages that are built after classic stages such as the forest with all of the faces and the acid pit, but the stage fatalities are quite common for the AI. Anyone will tell you that MK opponents that do fatalities are what we look for here on Planet Virtua. The blood is plentiful in this game, and while the graphics are very crude, even for the time, it shows that they concentrated more on the fighting rather than cosmetics. 

It's still a choppy game, don't get the wrong idea from this review. It's a niche game for a small audience, but there are a lot worse options out there. The Dreamcast controls may be a little on the floaty side but it was clear that they learned a great deal just by making this game. From here on, the 3D era of Mortal Kombat would grow. Even though they had some steps back like the Sub-Zero game for the N64 or Special Forces for the Playstation, Deadly Alliance and Deception would at least push them through to Armageddon with a trilogy of games that are still looked back on somewhat fondly. They weren't the best send off to the reboot, but they worked for what they were. 

MK4 was transitional, plain and simple. As trial and error goes, it really could have been far worse. The Gold edition was also something of a grand sending off for the game as well, given that you have 6 whole new combatants at your disposal.  Two of these characters are the new main badguys, Quanchi and Shinnok. While Shinnok did little to impress fans in lieu of Shaokahn, Quanchi proved to be one of MK's favorite villains. He's a sorcerer like Shang Tsung, but it seems he has more ties to powers that aid a wider range of overlords. He also was responsible for deeds such as the killing of Scorpion's family and took the souls of several of Earth Realm's top fighters upon their death, bring them under his command. 

This was something of a main focus of the new character designs and while a lot of the characters would be put by the wayside in future installments, MK4 still served its purpose as the first Mortal Kombat 3D title. While it has its faults and downfalls, there is still a solid core of the franchise within its DNA that keeps it from being a total waste of time and without merit. Dreamcast enthusiasts and classic players still hold this title to some esteem, in spite of its flaws. For those who enjoy it for the camp graphics and cheap 3D showmanship, it can be fun to pop in and go a few rounds. When no one is looking, though, it's fun to pull a 180 and pop in some Paw Patrol every once--wait where are you going? 

Why do I like 32-Bit Graphics?

 Many people will roll their eyes. Many more people will complain that the pixelated grass is green. Why would anyone prefer such crude, formless polygons over more sleek, luscious curves of modern game graphics? Nostalgia is not a wrong answer, but it is also about a fraction of the answer. There is a lot that comes with the idea that just because it was part of our childhood, we remember the better moments as a result. While this is not necessarily true, it is also a gross generalization. The first gaming console I had was a Nintendo Entertainment System, and then there was a Sega Genesis after that. The Sega Saturn was the third system, not counting the Gameboy or very short-lived Gamegear.

While these might be some of the ugliest graphics by comparison, they also don't get in the way of the enjoyment. Would you believe me when I say that I really love these graphics? You should, because I do. I know I've said that and hinted at it in reviews before, but I'd like to pinpoint it now. There is a lot that people don't understand when we say this sort of thing. Like the Sega Saturn or the Playstation graphics are somehow superior to the graphics we have today. Can that actually be true?

Well, yes, in some ways, they are objectively better than today's graphics. Not that they're better in the aesthetic sense, not when you are looking at it from the standpoint that they are molded strangely and the 3D polygon with the wirework was shoddy. However, it was also a functional set of graphics for the games and they did not require extended periods of development to develop for games. Yes, they took time and hard work, but compared to today's modern game engines and graphics, it wasn't quite so bad.

Now, I'm not going to harp on the subject of modern graphics being unsustainable, I have already covered that. This is more along the terms of these gaming graphics still having a fairly strong following for a reason. There are still so many people that will play games with lower quality graphics and still enjoy them far more than some of these over developed and understrategized games with flimsy mechanics. It also allows to fill in more story, which can always be a good thing. 

Many will attest that Five Nights at Freddy's is extremely enjoyable, and the games were better when they had lower graphics in the beginning. There is a following behind the new FNAF games, but there is also a lot less enthusiasm behind it than there was back in 2014. The graphics did not do that, shoddy development and rushed publication did that. When it was made by one guy with little to no graphics involved, people ate it up. 

The crude beauty of the old graphics that the Saturn presents can be seen as ugly or an eye-sore, but it works for what we need it. There are times, like in Panzer Dragoon, Burning Rangers, Nights Into Dreams, or Guardian Heroes where the graphics have shown through along with astoundingly good gameplay. These are the games we cherish. These are the games they spent their time and hard-earned money on because the work was put in. The fans could tell that the work was put in and the games have been celebrated for it. 

32-Bits can create amazing looking worlds, it's really just a matter of seeing it for the crude gesture toward a story that it is. There is a lot we can learn from the 3D polygons and the landscapes they were able to etch in such a fine set of wirework and figures. Some of these level designs and character designs have inspired great things in others. Nights Into Dreams can be considered something of an artform all its own, as many have taken to making characters in the same fashion. 

Look at Quake! The graphics actually compliment the gothic, HP Lovecraftian era setting. This can also be said about a lot of the old horror games like D, Blood and Nightmare Creatures. Even newer games have pulled off this sinister, yet beautiful quality with such minimal technological advancement in the medium. Early 3D somehow enhanced the effect of horrific entities. 

We can also be honest when we say that many of our generation still love the old cartoons. Well, 32-Bit graphics kind of have that quality as well. When you look at old Scooby Doo from the original series or Gem and the Holograms, the cartoons of that era had a quality that is just so alluring. Like the old matte paintings in the backgrounds of those cartoons, 32-bit games constantly used 3D foregrounds with 2D backgrounds, and the effects are aesthetically pleasing. 

So, all in all, why do I love this? Well, other than nostalgia and some inspiring memories, I really couldn't tell you. They are beautiful in their own way, but if you don't understand that, it's fine. Just so long as you understand that we love them and we will never give them up. Just let us have this for ourselves and remember to drink your water.

Sonic the Hedgehog 2 - The Blue Blur Returns!

 

Here we are, once again! To give a small recap on the history of the Sonic live action movie franchise, this was just supposed to be another garbo video game adaptation vomited out by Hollywood to cash in on a popular character. In fact, the fans were so sure that the the first movie was going to be a failure because of the original Sonic character design. The infamous original design was lambasted by fans and critics alike and the first trailer that featured it was funneled into the same place we put everything we'd like to forget about Sonic. After that, our expectations were in the basement. 

It was surprisingly good, though! The fans and critics liked it? What sort of alternate world do we live in? This was unprecedented! Not only did the director come through for the fans by redesigning Sonic to be closer to his original video game character design, but he also made a movie that showed off fan service and knowledge of the game franchise as a whole! It was a marvel to behold! The first movie was awesome, for certain.

That's all well and good, but we all know that the second movie is very easily where everything could fall apart in the blink of an eye. Well, spoiler alert! (For real, there are spoilers) It was good! Now, was it fantastic? Not so much. It has its highs and lows and its nitpicky moments, but there is still plenty of good stuff that works out in its favor. 

First of all, we still get a great performance from Ben Schwartz and Jim Carrey. They were still great highlights from this movie, but the real shoutout goes to our new characters, played by the ever AMAZING Idres Elba and the sweet sounding Colleen O'Shaughnessey. Adding Knuckles and Tails to this movie really upped the game for it in several ways. Not only do we get more backstory for the Echidnas from the first movie but we also get a better feel for how the Sonic universe will add to these movies, if they so choose to go that way with it. 

What really worked for this movie was a large scope that was not too over-the-top, while also being somewhat over-the-top. The vast landscapes that our heroes traverse and the dangers they face along the way are all kinds of fun to watch. This includes the weird and technically unneeded Syberian dance off scene and no I am not kidding. This movie takes some very strange turns.

One of the stranger turns that it takes is with Rachel (Pretzel Lady's sister) from the first movie. I did not like her character and I was not supposed to like her character. She was especially one-note and not much has changed in this movie. She is still obnoxious and unsubtle, though they did take steps to make her a bit more relatable. Still, her wedding scene in the movie is one of the low points for more reasons than one. 

In fact, most of the humans, as a whole, become rather useless as the movie goes on. Yes, Donut Lord and Pretzel Lady (No, I don't remember their actual names and probably never will) are prominent and serve a purpose here and there, but the writers for the movie seemed like they just tagged them in for the sake of the first movie. They even brought back Wade and his scenes have their funny moments but, again, he falls into that category of superfluous. In fact, there was a scene where the two main human characters are going on vacation where I thought they were pretty much going to go the route of Jason Lee in the Chipmunk sequels. It's not how they go with it, but honestly there are times when it looked like they probably should.

There are plotholes, obviously, all movies have plotholes to some extent. Still, these aren't really extreme, but they were rather noticeable. The ring portals last a lot longer than they did in the first movie and the map just so happened to project the image of Sonic's adoptive owl mother when they needed it with no explanation. That scene in and of itself wasn't great and not just because it was another Wade scene. 

Now, what worked very well for this movie, once again, was Tails and Knuckles. Aside from Idres Elba's amazing voice, Knuckles has a purpose and his mindset it on nothing but that purpose. He is also a great foil with his serious exterior to Sonic's careless nature. Tails is given some great scenes, even when you thought that he was going to be punted from the story, he comes right back in and takes it up several notches. The gadgets he uses are a brilliant combatant to Robotnik's high tech weapons, so he gives Sonic a much better fighting chance against some of the more dangerous mechanical opponents.

This is where the spoilers are going to get very heavy, so be warned!

The greatest part of this movie (how many is that now?) is, by far, the third act! When Robotnik gets the master emerald and we see a god-like entity that creates Robotnik's monstrous mech. That was a bit of fan service that is impossible to overlook. If you've never seen the giant robo-mech, then I call your Sonic fandom into question! The fight they have is amazing. It is very well paced, very suspenseful and doesn't let up until the real final showdown. 

After Sonic, Tails and Knuckles manage to fend off the giant robot and get the master emerald out of Robotnik, the ultimate fangasm moment comes in the form of Super Sonic. It was worth the entire wait from 2020 and now it comes and it does not disappoint! Everything about this scene is humorous, badass, and evokes childhood memories of collecting all of the chaos emeralds in the video games to get that wondrous yellow Sonic we all know and love. I wish they could have made it last a bit longer but that's definitely the subjective fanboy side speaking. 

This movie is not perfect but there is so much to love. There are corny moments, moments where the CGI doesn't really hold up well, and there are a few time-wasters that could have hit the cutting room floor to make room for something else but that is all just foam on an otherwise refreshing drink. If you fancy yourself a Sonic fan, then this movie is definitely worth a shot.

Sega Dreamcast - The Sega Saturn 2

Dreamcast, the next and final step in Sega's evolution, as far as we know it. This is the system that was the swansong, but not by any outward ineptitudes with its game library or selection of high quality games. We're not here to talk about how short lived it was, we're here to talk about how amazing of a continuation this system was for the Saturn and how we can benefit from having both systems in our collections. 

If you are a Sega Saturn fan and have not gotten into the wonders of the Dreamcast library, you are depriving yourself of amazing games. These not only improve on the Saturn ports, but also bring games about that should have been on the system. As small as the Dreamcast library is, it also brought about a wonderful density that allowed for very few bad games. Obviously, there were some pretty nasty titles, but we'll get into that later. 

There are games such as Resident Evil 2 that were marked for a Saturn release, but were pushed back to the Dreamcast. This was either a development problem or the fact that the Saturn did not have the lifespan they were expecting. There were games like Virtual On that had a Dreamcast port that was vastly superior in graphics and controls. These games show such an amazing bump in quality, it's hard not to really admire the hard work behind them. 

Then, there are the games that seemingly came out of nowhere, exclusive to the Dreamcast and blew our minds out of the water! These games could have gone on to become amazing series and games that charmed the pants out of anyone who played them or even looked at them. The sad part is, thanks to Sega's falling out of the console industry, going for games only, a lot of their intellectual properties started to fall into obscurity as a result. 

Crazy Taxi hit arcades in a big way and the Dreamcast port was beyond addictive to play. It didn't matter if the breaking system was awful, that just made for more bombastic, awesome crashes as a result. This game got one sequel and has remained very quiet since then. Skies of Arcadia was an astoundingly beautiful game that dazzled everyone with graphics and open gameplay that was both addictive and beyond fun to play. It got a remake on the Gamecube and then fell right off. 

Jet Set Radio, Power Stone, Ready 2 Rumble, all of these either got minimal to no continuation or recognition in later consoles. Some of them can be found on PC game stores like Steam, but a lot of the time, that's the best we can hope for. Like the Sega Saturn, the Dreamcast has had a very hard time remaining playable by the mass public. If you don't have the original system, a lot of these games are either impossible to find, or require a lot of digging. 

This will be a series of articles celebrating the Sega Saturn's worthy successor and final work of art. It remains a giant among Sega's accomplishments for innovations with console internet gaming and exclusive Sega series games that make it an indispensible time capsule of gaming greatness. So, here's to the Dreamcast and let's give it its due diligence for no other reason than I'm bored and there's a lot of good games I want to talk about. I'd also love to talk about the bad games, because that can be even more fun at times. Does that make me Virtua Evil?

Full Motion Videos Were a Terrible Idea

If you are not in the know of what FMV's are, they are Full Motion Videos, which was titled very poorly. These videos are about as full motion as claymation, and that's no exaggeration. For some reason, back in the early days of gaming, developers figured out that they could record themselves and impliment the footage into video games. Once CD-Roms and 32-Bit systems, such as the Sega Saturn, were powerful enough, they were able to store a ton of these very stiff, awkward videos to "show off" between gameplay.

Then, there were also games that were nothing but Full Motion Videos. Yes, those exist. The Sega Saturn was not as guilty of wearing out the concept as the Sega CD was. Still, games like Double Switch, Myst, or The Horde have some of the worst cut scenes and gameplay footage on the system. The actors they got for these videos were beyond abysmal. The costumes were cheesy, and there were even a few parts that were absolutely digusting. 

If you would like to see one of those games that relies on FMV's and real people cut-outs, check out my review for Corpse Killer and get a glimpse of the idea at its worst. Even when the video was of slightly better quality, and didn't have that ridiculous amount of grain moving across it, it was still so janky and awkward to watch. 32-bits was still not enough. 

This could also be a case of keeping video games to themselves while also keeping films in their own category. Mixing mediums has bore fruit in the past with Mortal Kombat starting the craze of putting in real-life people into the graphics. The difference there is that the game is still fully controlled and the graphics are not "full motion" for... some reason. I don't know the the grimey details. The point is that putting 2D games into 3D games, making video games into movies, and making video game adaptations of movies can definitely work, so long as you go full tilt into that medium. 

Full Motion Video Games was a lot like taking a movie, and turning it 25% into a game and calling it a day. The aiming is often off-center in rail shooters, the controls are often slow and inaccurate and then there's the fact that the gameplay can often be described as very, very boring. 

Now, are all games that bring in Full Motion Video bad? No! There are exceptions to this, of course. From this standpoint, none of them exist on the Sega Saturn. There is always a chance there are hidden titles or titles that I missed, but by all means, if you have a loved FMV game on the Saturn, talk about in the comments. I know you'll talk about it somewhere.

A good FMV game that comes to mind is Wing Commander 3, which can be seen as campy and fun. The Mortal Kombat Sub-Zero game had some of the worst and most amazing FMV's ever. If you have not seen this video, you are missing out. Of course there is room for guilty pleasures and videos that are just so unintentionally hilarious that they deserve another good watch-through. 

There's always room for a good terrible FMV, but the problem is that these are lightning strikes. There is a fine line between enjoyably campy and absolutely cringeworthy, which is often very hard to sit-through. Making an enjoyable FMV game was a case, like any movie, of actors, directing and camera movement that didn't make you want to vomit. All of these elements needed to be just right and that happened once every other blue moon, it seems. 

Thankfully, FMV's have all but been phased out of existence in terms of recent games. All of them seem to be relegated to the fourth and fifth generations of consoles. The Dreamcast either had no FMV games or they were so few in number that a general search brings up nothing. It's always good to play with technology and experiment with mechanics and features. Full Motion Videos seemed to be something of a failed experiment that they just kept trying at with little to no success.

Even the best of the bunch are usually a one-time play-through, then it can be put away. If there are some favorite FMV games out there, by all means. The 7th Guest had its good points but by no means does it save the concept, nor does Phantasmagoria. If you have an argument for the Full Motion games, you're going to bring it to the table, so go right ahead. There are enjoyable ones but the vast majority were subpar to say the least. I may like to repeat my thesis a lot, but that's mostly because I'm almost finished with college. No, I'm not kidding. Virtua Diploma. 

Virtua Sonic #6 - The Sonic Spectrum

To be frank, Sonic has had it pretty rough in the past decade or so. Ever since his massive success on the Sega Genesis in three massively beloved titles, he has been the victim of some very bad luck. Many would attest that it all began with Sonic the Hedgehog on the Xbox 360 (commonly referred to as Sonic ‘06), it actually started further back than that, Sonic ‘06 is just when it really became noticeable. Going back and forth in quality from the decent success of Sonic Generations to the abysmal failure of Sonic Boom: Rise of Lyric, the Sega Mascot has had a dual failure/success rate of gigantic proportions.

One clear example of this is the very recent fanmade super game headed by Christian Whitehead, Sonic Mania. One could say that Sonic Mania is the most success the little blue hedgehog has seen in literally over a decade. That’s not to say there aren’t good recent Sonic games by major developers, but Sonic Mania has seen success that is unparalleled by the likes of Sonic’s most recent game, Sonic Forces. Talk about quality difference of day and night, Sonic Mania has enjoyed the highest ratings even by some of the most skeptical gaming reviews while Sonic Forces has been left in the super speeding dust.

Even with the dream game mechanic of original character creation, Sonic Forces had very little else to offer. With poor level design, questionable controls, and the fact that you play as Sonic through most of the game anyway, onlookers were scratching their heads asking “why create a character in the first place??” Sonic Mania blew all of it out of the water and turned that nostalgia dial to eleven. We were gifted with familiar gameplay and level design with a nice little twist here and there to brighten it up for the new generation of gamers while leaving plenty for older gamers to ogle. Even the seemingly outdated graphics are updated and beautiful in a way that does not impede on the oldstyle 16-bit look. 

Sonic Forces has its fans, but it did have some objectively terrible decisions made for it. Not to mention giving your character a random weapon to work with rather than maybe a general skill it can use would have been far more appeal. As it stands, your character is mostly just an aesthetic to run along obstacles. It's not that Sonic Mania had the best ideas for level design as well, but it was a much more stylistic choice to elongate the game just a bit more. It does make traversing some of the level a bit of a hassle when it comes to the timer. They honestly should have taken that into account.

It’s starting to look pretty clear on what Sonic games should have been doing the entire time. There have been successful titles that go outside the fast-running platforming of his original games, but those have been so few and far in between. Now we have two that are mapped out and marketed very near one another for a comparison that paints a very clear picture. Sonic fans are now hoping and praying that Sega takes some serious notes of this outcome, because it’s clear that even true blue Sonic fans are getting fed up with the treatment that he has been getting as of late. 

In the end, it was a one hit knockout. This contrast really goes to show you that innovation and imagination can do some serious damage against just throwing money at a problem in hopes that it improves. AAA Gaming has been under some serious fire for lack of ideas in the ways of Sonic franchise fatigue, cash grab titles and using nostalgia as a way to lure oldschool gamers into spending their money for games that have little to no effort put into them. This fan game may have been distributed by Sega, but let’s face it, it’s an indie game through and through. Now Sonic fans are hoping that the Sonic Team can learn from this experience, but at the same time, given his very questionable past treatment, there is really no telling what they have in store for our blue radical dude. All we can really do is stay tuned and drink water.

The Virtua Star - Great Star Wars Games

 Happy May the 4th! Since the definitive Star Wars experience is a distant memory and we pine for Disney to give us any good Star Wars content to consume, it's a good time to remember the good times with the good old Star Wars games. The Sega Saturn, sadly, doesn't have any games within the universe, but it is interesting to note the ones that are on Dreamcast. Beyond, that, though, these games range anywhere from the arcade experience, all the way through PC, Consoles, handhelds and all sorts of ports throughout the ages. Ever since there were video games, there was a Star Wars game, it seems. 

While this may not be entirely true, it does date back to the golden age of Atari systems for the home television and even has a banger of a title on the arcade cabinets of old. While the home console ports were nothing really to write home about, the arcade port was definitely an experience, especially for its time. 

When it comes to science fiction, Star Wars is the piece of the pie that I have always taken. The journey of Luke through his turbulent past and finding out who he truly is through sorrow and warfare has always been a great piece of lore for the ages. There were even some Extended Universe bits that still hold true to this day, but I won't bore you with the details. Here starts a lovely little idea for a Star Wars segment on Virtua Neptune. We just hope we don't need to make any deals with a certain Lord of the Darkside.

                                                                            Star Wars The Arcade Game

Released in 1983 for the arcades, this was a wonder that it even exists. Someone must have really wanted to be an astronaut, because they simulated the experience of fighting in an X-wing almost to a T. This is a game that still holds up today as an arcade experience that anyone should try. If you have the opportunity to play this in a simulated X-wing, do not hesitate to do so! This is mind-numbing, wonderful fun killing TIE fighters and listening to that wonderful old pixelated soundtrack.

                                                                            Star Wars Shadows of the Empire

If you owned a Nintendo 64 system, then you more than likely have at least played this very prolific title. Star Wars was riding high in its original Extended Universe and this was the pinnacle of its labors on top of miles upon miles of literature now burned to ash with the snap of George Lucas's fingers. This title is a landmark of those ancient texts, though, and its Hoth battle level as well as its many wonderful cheat codes have been celebrated for years! The game itself is rather mediocre as it is. The controls can be considered rather harsh to deal with in the later levels, but this title is still looked upon fondly for many old school fans of the franchise.

                                                                              Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic

This game deserves its own review. It is another relic of the Extended Universe with Revan's chapter in the Star Wars franchise. This storyline got a lot more screen time than the other ones and parts of it still exist in what passes as Star Wars lore these days. This is an action RPG and features so many amazing traits you can give your "original character". The highly customizable elements and vast exploratory elements of the Star Wars universe make this a staple for any collection. The sequel is also looked upon fondly, though not as much for several reasons that would suffice in their own entire article. 

                                                                            Star Wars Battle Front 2

The run and gun fun for everyone from the good old version of 2009! Did you really think I would count that intruder among our ranks with the horrible microtransactions and crappy story? HA! Nay! This version is simple: Get to your mission and take down as many battle droids as you can while collecting health and armor powerups! It couldn't get any simpler and you have a limited amount of how many troopers you can use. So, like in real life, your reinforcements are limited to just how good you are and how fast you can get missions done. This is just an all around fun mid-2000's romp with levels from the first game already installed! It's just as good as having both. Enjoy and destroy the opposition!!

                                                                        Star Wars Jedi Academy 

Yet another gem among Star Wars games when you weed through all of them. They really have a great number of diverse titles with a good bit of story involved. Go first person with a blaster or go third person with a lightsaber, it doesn't matter, this game is awesome! The story does take a few too many curves here and there but overall, it's an enjoyable experience. The greatest storywise next to Knights of the Old Republic, if we're being honest. While some of the level progressions can get a bit sketchy and hard to follow at times, this game is definitely worth tracking down and playing for the sheer enjoyment of its retro feel with graphics and gameplay. 

Star Wars goes with gaming like peanut butter and chocolate. The titles are vast and wonderful and with this series of articles, I wish to tackle some of the greatest Star Wars games of the eras. There are a lot of titles to go through and I hope you join me on with Planet Virtua throwing its hat into the science fiction universe with this wondrous collection of titles! Hyperdrive set!

Return to Castle Wolfenstein (PC) - Return to Fun

 

One game that has thankfully garnered a cult following over the years, was Return to Castle Wolfenstein. After the breakout success of Castle Wolfenstein in 1981, Id Software got their eye on the franchise and wanted to find out how they could make Wolfenstein into a new game. Thankfully, they let the copyright for the title lapse, so they were given the opportunity to make their dream game! Wolfenstein 3D started a revolution and while we know all about Doom by now, Return to Castle Wolfenstein is a bit of its own entity. 

This fully rendered 3D game could have been a banger Dreamcast title. Honestly, it should have been. Released in 2001, RtCW gave us a new outlook of the castle we were escaping from and let us go off into new environments full of Nazis and very strange creatures of the occult. Gray Matter Studios did what they could to bring about an amazing feel for the World War 2 era shooter, one that would be among some of the best in the genre. It was not only accurate in some respects, but it gave us very strange elements along with it. 

The weapons became far more advanced than historically accurate and that's a staple of the genre to this day. This was not only well implimented here, but also the 2009 underrated FPS classic, Wolfenstein, but that's another story for another day. This time, you've got gas masked men in armor, freaks and horrors beyond terrifyingly imaginable and Nazi guards with guns. This game has everything! 

Among the weapons that we get to use far outside the normal was the flamethrower. While this is commonplace today, this was not the case for 2001 games and before. If you really wanted to see your enemies cook, this was an effective tool to do so. This weapon is very easy to screw up by making it either ineffective or way overpowered. What they did was make it very powerful, but also a necessary weapon against some of the larger enemies.

This was also the case for the Tesla Gun and the Venom Chainguns. While one is very powerful but also dangerous against yourself, the Chainguns eat ammo very, very quickly. The Lightning gun is probably the most overpowered in the game, but there are also enemies with this weapon, so there's your double edge. 

The enemies were very much hyped to great levels this time around. With monsters with no legs and the undead corpses coming out, there's also mechanized soldiers with terrifyingly effective weapons. The mechanized opponents are very much an homage to Wolfenstein 3D's epic final boss fight of Mecha Hitler. Thankfully, these soldiers do not have four chainguns. Unfortunately, they are still able to kill you very quickly if you do not find cover very quickly or kill them first. Either way, they are dangerous!

If you were looking for a time capsule of 2001 gaming, this is quintessential. The backgrounds, the character models, the artillery, just about every single bit of this game is sketched to polygon perfection and the gameplay is something you could ogle for hours while you mow down castle guards with an MP40. Sadly, Tommy Gun ammo is rather rare, and you get the gun rather late in the game. 

This game is not perfect by any means, as fun as it is. There are segments in this game where they take certain concepts way too far. The worst of these concepts? Stealth! The first full stealth segment of the game came with an awesome silenced steam powered submachine gun. That gun has become something of an icon of this game, but so has this level, and the latter is not in a good way. One single look from one single angle in some single way and the alarm goes off, you start over. You need to follow a certain path and shoot certain guards at certain times, or you will set off the alarm. 

Then, there are the snipers. Something that a lot of games get wrong are the snipers. Sniper rifles are made entirely too powerful and getting accurately hit from a long distance can be very difficult to see coming. Can you snipe the sniper first or hide from their view? Yes, you can, but to say that this was a very delicate operation is no joke at all. One hair out of line and you are going to get your brains splattered across several screens. 

No, it is not perfect, obviously, and not all of the elements aged well. Of course, we will not hold that against it. This game is nostalgia in three dimensions. If you love First Person Shooters, we got this in spades right here! You can find this game on Steam and if you can find a working copy, do not hesitate to do so! Their blood shall flow and our knife shall stab!