thanks,

wb

Anthony Responds: One of the most frustrating things when it comes to reviewing a game is the countless number of emails asking the near exact question above. 9.0 is a great score for any game and just deserved for NFL 2K2, but why is it lower than the original NFL 2K when it excels in every department beyond the original?

Obviously, there are higher expectations now especially after we've seen the wonderful magic that Visual Concepts can deliver with their sports titles. That's one part of it but I think a bigger part is simply the fact that two different editors reviewed the titles. Editors will have their varying opinion and it's my opinion that the editor who scored the original NFL 2K scored it a bit too high. By know means is NFL 2K better than NFL 2K2 in my eyes. That is why I much rather have people read the review than relying on the score for a better judgement.

Joshua J.

Anthony Responds: (falls of his chair, rolling on the ground laughing).... Oooooh my, that was funny! Not to mock you Joshua, but the game you're referring to is Super Robot Wars Alpha and the chances of that title coming to the US are as good as Half-Life coming back to life on the Dreamcast. No, I still can't let it go.

Morgan

Anthony Responds: Wow... a reader concerned about my welfare - that's definitely a first. Well, to be frank, it still hasn't been decided yet but since yours truly is a pretty versatile guy, I've already been jumping all over the place doing some Xbox stuff here, some PS2 stuff there, dabbling in the Game Cube, and preparing to work on some strategy guides as well. It's not certain where the last Dreamcast guy will go, but my heart will always be with the Dreamcast... even though it's been ripped out, smashed on, burned to a crisp, and spit on.

But then, in the midst of Gaming at its purist form, the money game started to corrupt what was once so beautiful. It started small. I remember when EA would begin making the Madden series only for the Super Nintendo. I believe the last madden I played for Genesis was 92... Ahh memories! There were many instances of this kind of money and power, but they were relatively small in the long run. Enter SONY.

Sony, an extremely powerful corporation with lots and lots of money pretty much single handedly destroyed my beloved SEGA. When the Saturn was rushed to release, only to beat the release of PS, it hurt SEGA much more than it helped. Kaybee toys wouldn't sell Saturns because SEGA surprised them w/ the early release... a bunch of developer's weren't ready w/ their launch titles, so not all the games promised at launch were available. Sure, they made some mistakes. Everyone does. But I loved my Sega, got my first SEGA when I was 6 at Xmas and wanted to make video games ever since. So yeah, I'm a TRUE Sega fan. SEGA BOY if you will. Anyway, I got a little off the point.

The point is that this really rich company came in... bought exclusive rights to squaresoft {whom I believe has always hated SEGA, what's the deal w/ that anyway?} and pretty much crushed the SEGA SATURN. And there really isn't anything SEGA can do about it. And now Microsoft is getting into the game. The biggest problems with these huge companies that are now infringing upon the console gaming experience is that even if for the first few years they don't turn profit - even if they lose incredible amounts of money migrating into a category where they really don't belong - they can afford to. And if they hang on long enough, and throw enough money into the project, they will eventually crush any competitors until a corporation with as much money as them comes along to challenge them. I HATE SONY for what they've done and I HATE MICROSOFT for what they will do. Yet I must admit, that even though I know that Microsoft will eventually rule this market as well as the OS market, I will take great satisfaction in seeing SONY shot out of the water. And mark my words...it will be slow....it will be painful...but it WILL happen. And I will be forced to buy an Xbox , because even when everyone laughs at the X-BOX {and no one really should since it is incredibly powerful}and Billy Boy Gates takes a huge loss at introducing himself to this market...He still has, what? A few billion in cash lying around in his sock drawer?

Well I should probably stop now. I could go on forever...and I'm sure that there are plenty of people who agree with me 100% on this, but my rant is over. And the only question left to ask is...Why did we allow this?

James M.

Anthony Responds: Simple enough... because we wanted it. Not necessarily you, me, or any of the hardcore gamers that can remember the first time they heard Madden say, "where'd that truck come from?!" after an especially heavy hit in any of the 16-bit Madden football games.

During the dawn of the video game industry, the goal of every major developer was obviously to make money... but rather than relying on marketing dollars and brand names, it was all about making games as entertaining as possible. Limited by the rather simple programming language and hardware at the time, developers had to rely on addictive and exciting play mechanics to engross the player. It was during these innocent times we saw and played many of the most brilliant video games concepts that would be used and re-used. But like any business, industrial growth steps in to make the business even bigger. Normally, this would take many years and during the 16-bit era, we saw small steps of progress that was heading towards that direction of "mainstream gaming". It was inevitable that the video game industry was to become a huge billion-dollar business on par with the movie industry... Sony just accelerated the process. Within only a few years, Sony became the leader of the market by grabbing the attention of the mainstream market and to this end, a lot of respect has to be given to Sony for bringing attention that video games aren't just games anymore. However, by giving the mainstream gamers what they wanted Sega, traditionally delivering to the hardcore audience, had to compete to grab a share of the mainstream gamers that they were starting to reel in with games like Madden on the Genesis.

I don't blame Sony coming in and sweeping the video game industry for this new generation of gamer. I don't mind that Sony made the video game industry grow exponential in only a few short years. The video game industry wanted and needed to grow out of its mold of targeting only the hardcore followers as its consumers if it wanted to become a big time business. But along the way, there have been hefty sacrifices; the greater amount of crap titles, the lack of anything truly original, the reliance on brand names and marketing blitzes, etc. Did we necessarily want this? No. But was this necessary to happen if we wanted the video game industry to grow? Probably. This, however, doesn't make swallowing the fact that Sega has become a third party video game developer for multiple consoles any easier. I'm still having trouble seeing Virtua Fighter on a non-Sega system.

When Sega announced that their system would no longer be, I was like "What???" Actually, I heard it through a close friend and I probably said every 4-letter word you could possibly think of! No way a great system like the Sega Dreamcast was gonna "die!" I honestly [no bull] think that the Dreamcast is the greatest system ever! This is a girl who owns a PS2 and I think, because of the awesome games Dreamcast has, it is better than that! To name a few my favs are Resident Evil Code: Veronica [and BTW that was my FIRST RE game and I've been hooked on them ever since]! Skies of Arcadia, Shenmue, Grandia II, Soul Calibur, Sonic Adventure 2, Soul Reaver, Gauntlet Legends, Space Channel 5...I know I said a few ;) But the list goes on!! I remember back in the Genesis days when I played the first Sonic the Hedgehog! Sigh! :) Sure Sony and Nintendo have great games too; I mean I love Zelda and since I'm a Res Evil fan, I think Sony is cool but how cool was Code Veronica?? I mean that was on SEGA Dreamcast! To me Dreamcast was just as successful if not better than Genesis and the games were just so much better than the contenders! True gamers like myself already know this but people who bashed Dreamcast didn't realize just how innovative that system was. Just think about it: In every genre that system had the best and everything! For those people who are "Dreamcast Haters" or "SEGA Haters" whatever you wanna call it, ask yourselves why? If you want a great RPG, first-person shooter, action, sports, fighting, etc. What more could you ask for??? SEGA Dreamcast had them all with high ratings! Even more importantly, these are quality and fun games! Isn't that what all serious gamers want? I know I DO!

Love your site guys!

Angelgamer

Anthony Responds: Ah, you say serious gamers and that probably translates to hardcore gamers. Hardcore gamers are still here, Angelgamer, but rather than practicing the finer methods of weapon canceling in VOOT, they would rather practice finding the correct lines in Dave Mirra. There are still hardcore gamers but the newer generation is more concerned in playing the mainstream, popular games rather finding those unique treasures that might not necessarily have the name brand recognition but certainly have the depth of gameplay and fantastic visuals to match. I'm not trying to take anything away from the depth of games with recognizes names like a Tony Hawk, or a Metal Gear Solid. Both are super solid games with excellent visuals and I've spent enough time to know there's a lot of depth in both these well-recognized games. Still, there's muh to be said of games like Skies of Arcadia, Grandia II, Ooga Booga... games that really don't have the known names but can be enjoyed by both the most serious and the most casual of gamers.

I'd like to say that the Dreamcast is the best Sega system of all time, but the Genesis has locked me down... especially when you bring up titles like Streets Of Rage, Revenge of Shinobi, Herzog Zwei, Madden '93, and the list goes on. Of course, online play is a big thing for the Dreamcast but let's not forget that the Genesis had online play as well via Xband. As much as I love playing sports games online with my Dreamcast, there's also something to be said about playing Street Fighter online, something we have YET to see.

It really is difficult to want to purchase any more titles for my dearly departed Dreamcast. Although there sure are some good ones to be enjoyed, every dollar I spend on my DC now is one less dollar I have to spend on November 15th.

Sure was fun while it lasted...

Jb

Anthony Responds: I hate you. Even though you might be right, I still hate you.

I had this dream that I was in the IGN office and I asked you why Sega had so few maracas for Sambe De Amigo and you said that it didn't matter because you knew of a website that had 30 sets in stock and they were only $40 each.

Just thought I would share.

Matt K.

Anthony Responds: Matt, not that I'm flattered at all - I am. But um, maybe you should start going out and dating chicks.

On a final note, I want to leave everyone with this final anecdote. Six days ago I went into the local EBX here. I was accompanying my friend who just happened to be a jaded PS2 owner. Y'see he was going back to college and he wanted to buy some good to take with him. After looking through the selection for a while, he got a little frustrated that he couldn't find anything worth his money. Now, I should note that the PS2 games are, by no means, bad. It's just that a lot of those games are far more to the eyes than they are to "the gamer's crave". I liked Onimusha the first time I played through it. I played through it again and I haven't touched it since. Anyway, going back to the story, my friend Joe goes up to the EBX salesperson, a chubby, bespectacled fanboy who had never been on a date that didn't end in his parent's basement (that's to say he had no taste) and simply says, "I wish I hadn't sold my dreamcast because I can't find any games that I like for the PS2." This, my friends, opened the gates of hell, and this EBX fool began to tell us off in front of all the little kids and their soccer moms and said, "What? We work so hard for this system, telling people day in and day out to buy it and you come in here to talk bad about it! We're dedicated to this system because we want our customers to have 'top of the line' consoles, and you're gonna say those things here!! When you come in here like that you laugh in all of our faces and when you speak against the PS2, you speak against all of us here." I paraphrased a bit there but, needless to say, this scared the f***k out of me because I never imagined someone could be so over zealous about a game console, let alone that an entire staff of EBX eployees could share those sentiments. He then went on to advise us to leave before he turned his back to us and walked off. Surprisingly, none of the other employees were willing to come to our defense or even our assistance for that matter and my first impulse was to grab pig boy by his collar (I'm a pretty big guy) and give him a thrashing that would echo through the halls of every SCEA for an eternity, but I didn't.

Anthony Responds: I enjoyed your lengthy letter and while I agree with much of the letter, I'd like to point out a few things. First off, when Sega began launching the Dreamcast, they were coming off the rather unsuccessful Saturn and while I think many of us hoped that the Dreamcast would be the next great console, a rather larger portion was already critical of the Sega Dreamcast after seeing what Sega did with the Saturn. Secondly, while I do agree that it would've been nice to see another Namco title on the same level as Soul Calibur, Namco isn't a company that likes to take risks in the US market and Soul Calibur was a nice gift to the Dreamcast. Still, when it comes to running a video game company, one has to keep their eyes on where to put their cards on the table and, given the history of the Saturn, Namco was probably holding their deck to see if the Dreamcast would be a success. That's very common for any third party developer and certainly we've seen that with the Xbox as several third party companies are taking a "wait and see" attitude before jumping in and dedicating time to the development of some serious Xbox titles.

While there's no singular reason why the Dreamcast failed, I have to disagree with your opinion that it wasn't Sega's fault. Surely, the marketing campaign wasn't quite what it should've been and there were some key titles that got a bit too much attention and marketing concentration (i.e. Space Channel 5) than deserved. But in the end, much had to do with the name brand power of the Sony PlayStation and strong marketing blitzes by Sony to solidify their dominance of the market. Not to take anything away from the PS2, as it is an admirable system ... but it sure wasn't the launch titles that brought droves of buyers but rather the history that the PlayStation was a winner and thus the PS2 would do the same.

You see, one thing I've noticed when it comes to fanboys - being a fanboy myself - is the insistence that YOUR system is definitely the best. We can be given all the facts, all the stats and what not, but you cannot prove a fanboy wrong when it comes to defending their system. This said, this is one of my reasons why so many bought the PS2, when there was little to play when it came to the launch titles, compared to buying a Dreamcast that was well into its 2nd year of software titles. As you stated above, the Dreamcast never got a chance even after launch: the complaints of certain games, the lack of any online games for quite some time, lackluster sales after launch, etc. Given the track record of Sega's last system, who would want to buy a losing system - who would want to be considered a loser - when you could buy the PlayStation 2 that was pretty much guaranteed to be a success, given the winning status of the PlayStation? Everybody wants to be a winner, Screw Bag, and no one wants to be considered a loser. Everyone wants to be popular, no one wants to be the outcast. That's the feeling I get when I see the new generation of mainstream gamers and perhaps that why Sega never had a chance after the Saturn.

Lastly, that's no way to talk about Tal Blevins! Considering how little we get paid here in IGN (I take Twinkies peoples!), Tal is just trying to make an extra buck at EBX so leave him alone!

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