Monthly Review; Star Wars Episode I RACER (Dreamcast)

I’m far from being a person who enjoys racing games. On the contrary, I tend to stay away from racing games. All the ones I’ve enjoyed in the genre without any reservations and continue to return to them time after time can be count with one hand. These games are F-Zero GX, OutRun, Super Hang-On! Burnout 3 and Star Wars Episode I Racer.

While I was intending to do a review on Holy Diver on the Famicom, I decided to push it back due to the Star Wars The Force Awakens teaser (where the hell is the moniker Episode VII?) and review Episode I Racer now that I managed to fix my Dreamcast on its 16th anniversary. That, and I need to spend some more quality time with Holy Diver.

VOOB VOOB VOOB VOOB

First of all, for transparency I will say that playing Episode I Racer has been somewhat nostalgic experience, despite my first try at it being on the N64. It was a snowy day in sometime very early 2000’s, and I was visiting some family friends with my mother, and they had a spanking new N64, which of course we played. They didn’t have much on the game department, but I can vividly remember the sense of speed it gave me.

Forward some years later to mid-2000’s, and I found Star Wars Racer Arcade machine in an amusement park. The controls were rather insane, but something I would love to play again and again; you had two levers of control, just like from the movie and by moving them back and forth you controlled the craft on-screen. The one I played the game on was a single player cabinet with part of Skywalker’s pod as the seat, the Deluxe model. The game both looked, sounded and played extremely well, but alas I only the chance to play it for one whole day. Playing arcade games like this have certain excitement in there, a feeling and experience no home game could ever wish to replicate without special controls. My memories of it are rather strong. Later on I would learn that Racer Arcade was no a version of Episode I Racer, but a separate arcade game developed by SEGA with the Star Wars license.

At the time, it felt a lot bigger than what it looks like

Having experienced what was essentially the original version and the SEGA’s pumped arcade version, I initially went into the Dreamcast version of Episode I Racer in somewhat high hopes. See, I never played the Dreamcast version and for some form of mis/luck I completely had missed any sort of info on it.

So yes, I hate to admit it, but the Dreamcast version of Episode I Racer disappointed me. I had no real expectations for it, but somehow the game feels a bit hollow in the end.

Well, let’s get to the controls.

For all intents and purposes, the controls do their job just fine. A accelerates and X brakes, no surprises here. However, I can but shake the feeling that the Dremcast controller’s triggers could’ve been utilised in this a bit better, but that’s a moot point now. I automatically tend to use the triggers as I would in F-Zero GX due to muscle memory, but only the R Trigger is used to make the pod skid. B and Y are used to flip the repulsorlift engine upwards from either side, a thing barely has any use outside few key moments. However, while you’re skidding without acceleration, I do like how the pod just continues with its direction and how satisfying it is to feel the pull from the engines when you begin to accelerate again. It’s not an instant change where the pod is heading, but fast enough to make it feel more alive. This may be dependent on the pod’s acceleration, and if it is, then its implemented pretty damn well.

The game likes to abuse the thumb stick, as Boost Mode is entered by pressing it forwards, until the speed-o-meter hits max speed, which after releasing and quickly re-pressing the accelerator engages the mode. In this mode, the temperature of the engines keeps rising and the mode needs to be disengaged before they explode. Even without entering the Boost Mode, keeping the thumb stick forwards allows you to reach a bit higher max speed. Pressing the thumb stick back allows you to turn easier.

This is pretty involved method of controls, to be honest. It requires the player to think through where he wants to relinquish better steering in order to enter Boost Mode. However, despite this the Boost Mode is not the most intuitive method of super acceleration. Certainly its different from other games that often give you a button to do it, but being all too different is not necessarily a better option. There could have been a good compromise between more friendlier way of control and the risk/reward of keeping the thumb stick forwards in order to enter the mode. The thumb stick sees a lot of back and forth moving action in this game, and I’m afraid I may need to buy a separate, dedicated controller for this game just to be safe. I may be a bit paranoid, but you never know.

The pods don’t have too much difference in how they act and control, to a large extent. Their largest differences come from their repulorsolift engine sizes and different max speeds. Some of the pods in the game have incredibly high maximum speed compared e.g. Skywalker’s own junkyard built machine and I’m afraid sometimes that simply unbalances the game quite a bit. Then again, racing games and balance have rarely joined together in harmony.

The game does have an edge over the N64 in that I greatly prefer the Dreamcast controller over the N64’s spaceship one. It’s a subjective thing, and I simply find better comfort in control of the thumb stick on Dreamcast than I do on N64. This is in comparison to F-Zero X, mind you. Whether or not I will get N64 version for comparisons sake sometime in the future is an open question. Copies are cheap, especially the US ones.

From controls we get to track design, which more or less divides opinions. Generally speaking, they’re decent. Some are extremely good and have an excellent flow to it, rewarding both highly technical and bold racing, while others just are sort of bullshit turns that will make you crash unless you just learn the track first. I should say that I value flowing tracks in a racing game, and by that I mean the elements the track has have a some sort of logic behind them that allows a smooth, non-stop speed. Of course, after knowing any track by heart in any game will allow the player to have a constant flow in any of the racing games, but I digress.

The AI is decent, so to say. Episode I Racer doesn’t seem to be a rubberband AI, as you can go far in front of the pack or be left behind by the leader. However, the AI seems to be know the best possible lanes and will abuse them. This is balanced somewhat that the AI doesn’t use the Boost Mode all that often, or not that the player would see. Later races it’s not too uncommon to see you going in front of the pack, and with one slight loss of speed with some sort of collision, you AI will catch you outright and often pass you. Then it’s a fight to get to the pole position again, as the sizes of the vehicles can fill the whole track at times. At times it also feels like the AI knows which engine has gone to red and rams it to explode it. If so, then the computer is a cheating bastard. The player has no way of knowing at what level the computers’ engines are. Ramming in the game is awkward, awful and seems to only damage the player, thus not worth it at all. AI is also generic in that sense that no other pod racer is no more aggressive than the other, thou you’d expect Sebulba to use his flamethrowers and fellow racers as much as possible.

The tracks allow some variety of paths taken and I welcome this sort of additions every time. These changes may not be speedier in most cases, but it keeps the same track from becoming all too boring and sometimes they have elements that other players find more suitable to their play style than what the other route could’ve been. There’s some somewhat interesting bits thrown in there as well, like Oovo IV’s Vengeance, where a part of the track is done in zero G, but avoiding huge lumps of rocks floating in there is absolutely horrible. Some of the tracks are remixed in later races, and while this is just using the existing map with some routes locked and unlocked, it still makes it feel fresh.

There is a problem with the rehashed tracks that the multiple paths can’t really help, and that’s when the tracks are just lousy in the visual department. Malastare 100 comes right to my mind as a failure in terms of visuals with its bland as hell visuals, especially where there’s supposed to be something like a bog with green vapours rising from it. Nothing really stands out in a positive way, even thou the intent they had was somewhat nice. However, far too many planets suffers from having industrials as part of their theme somehow in form of vehicles or machines. It’s Star Wars racing, and you could create far more illustrious worlds with the same hardware than this.

That’s the crux in this game; it is painfully obvious how the Dreamcast version is a direct, fast port of the N64 version. There’s nothing to take use of the more powerful hardware, as the game is rather ugly even by 2000 Dreamcast standards. Every asset has been ported from the N64 version, which means textures and polygons are rather ugly in comparison other Dreamcast game of the time. The HUD simply looks awful. The PC version seems to have the edge over the Dreamcast version by a mile in this regard, as the games has vector graphics over whatever piece of garbage they ported from the N64 assets.

Now, despite all that, the game looks sharp via VGA, which I tend to use as a standard with my Dreamcast. As such, the game does look sharp and every positive and negative tidbit on the screen gets a boost. Comparing to PC version via Youtube, there’s not much difference between the two outside PC version having far sharper HUD and slight touches here and there. Music quality may be better, but you really want to put something more fitting in the background. It can be argued whether or not it’s good to make this game look sharp on either PC or Dreamcast, as it mainly shows the flaws one couldn’t really see on N64.

The sounds department suffers from the exact same problem as the visuals, so the same applies here. Everything sounds exactly like you’d expect the N64 sound like. It doesn’t help there’s no really any fitting music. Sure, it’s Star Wars and you have to have that John Williams styled orchestral score in there, but reusing essentially one and the same song in each race is jarring the moment you leave the training course on Tatooine. The yelling the characters have in the game add absolutely nothing of worth, and I’m afraid most of them just sound badly acted. Doing this would keep you from hearing the beeping of the engines, which would force you to keep an eye on the speed-o-meter due to the lack of audio cues.

In the end, because the Dreamcast version of Episode I Racer is a lazy port of the N64 game, there’s no really a reason to call it bad. Sure, the GD format adds standard lenght loading times in there, but a lazy port doesn’t mean this one is a bad port. On the contrary, the game does run well and I have met not a single problem while playing through the game during. If soundless Youtube comparison is to be believed, the Dreamcast versions seems to run smoother, but that should be of not surprise.

That’s from the hollow feeling comes from. It’s a game that’s by all means a good one, perhaps even great, and by license game standards even stellar, but knowing this is a port of a game released earlier on both N64, Windows PC and on the damn Macintosh and then finally released on the Dreamcast without any considerations of the better hardware, it just feels like the game is neglected. I assume the Windows, N64 and Mac versions were developed around the same time and Dreamcast was mostly an afterthought, but I’m not too eager to find this out.

If we were to take the Racer Arcade into notion, I can’t help but with that SEGA had the rights to port their own game to Dreamcast. From all of the versions that used Episode I as its basis, SEGA’s Racer Arcade is without a doubt the best one. This may be because SEGA has a long history as an arcade game provider, or because they just know how to handle racing games that well. I am in the crowd who regards F-Zero GX as the best in the series. Nevertheless, I implore you to give Racer Arcade a try. As it is an arcade only game, you may never be able to play it, and even if MAME would be able to perfectly emulate the Hikaru hardware, you would never have the true way of playing the game with the levers.

Oh the memories! I wish we had one of those still around here. And no, that’s not me.

In short, Episode I Racer is a fun game that is held back on the Dreamcast due to its roots on N64. It could have been so much more than its earlier versions.

Looking back at the niche providers

One thing I didn’t plan during the last console generation was to buy one of the many Xbox 360’s the stores had on their shelves. In the end I never did, but as fate weaved her web I did obtain a 360 from my brother at the cost of moving him and fixing the console. Things kinda go that way sometimes.

The question afterwards was what games would I play on it? The 360 had very little titles that I would have wanted, and vast majority of the titles I saw were shared with the PS3. Games like Lords of Shadow were one of the first titles I turned my eyes on, but I soon grew very tired of seeing dozens copies of same game on two different shelves. The Wii shelf always looked more fresh with more unique titles that drew attention. I remember seeing more people in Wii aisles than the two competitors’ sections As such, the unique games that the 360 had raised their heads over the gray mass of multiplats.

But that’s where I met a point why I would keep my 360 in a good shape and go my way to prevent the Red Ring of Death. It turned out that the 360 had a large share of Shooting games and CAVE continued to provide more as all the way up until DoDonPachi SaiDaiOuJou. Next to this you have ports of Ikaruga, Rez and Radiant Silvergun, all of which are more or less portrayed the best of the Shooting games genre. I do admit, that all these three are ports of past systems, so the point goes slightly off. Just let’s discuss the machine in its respective generation for the moment.

What is the 360 most known for? First Person Shooters by far. Halo’s Master Chief is essentially and without a doubt Microsoft’s Mario. We can argue whether or not it is a good thing for a console to be recognized as the home of a genre that is most at home with PC.

History seems to remember some of the systems that lost based on their certain flavour in their library of games. I’m specifically speaking of NEC’s PC-Engine/ TurboGrafix-16, SEGA Saturn and Dreamcast. PC-Engine was known, even at the time, as the system that got all the best Shooting games. Hudson’s Soldier series found its home here and one of the best Caravan-style Shooters can be found on the system. Personal favourite would be Soldier Blade.

Man that first stage music sounds nice

In similar essence, both Saturn and Dreamcast continued on the same ideology that the Mega Drive did, that is to have the best arcade ports. Saturn, by all accounts, was the system for the Fighting and Shooting games by far with nearly arcade perfect ports of King of Fighters, Street Fighter Alpha and many Shooting games. Same goes for Dreamcast, which shared many architectural elements with the SEGA NAOMI arcade system, which made porting of NAOMI games to Dreamcast damn easy. This is why games like Marvel VS Capcom 2 were essentially arcade perfect much like CAPCOM’s previous arcade ports on the Saturn.

Sadly, Saturn and Dreamcast were at the era where the arcades began to wither and die out. A system can’t float around with games that do not draw attention to themselves to begin with. The paradigm shift, where consoles steadily became dumbed down computers where at full force at the time, and this also affected arcades. The rising cost of development was also an issue, and even more so with arcade games and their machines.

Where I’m going with this is that the Xbox 360 pretty much continued with this same path during the Seventh console generation. As mentioned, most people know the 360 for Halo and the shooting console. This is pretty apt naming for the system, as we noted how Japanese developers began to put their Shooting games on the system. In certain circles, the 360 became to be known as the system for random Japanese games, like Beautiful Katamari, Culdcept Saga, Deathsmiles, Earth Defence Force 2017, Espgaluga II, Infinite Undiscovery, Escathos, Lost Odyssey, Senko no Ronde and DoDonPachi Daifukkatsu/ Resurrection plus slew of others that don’t really need mentioning. What circles see the 360 is mostly the hardcore ones, as the common folks don’t really pay attention to these. It’s all in the Halo.

But for yours truly, the 360 allows me to put some dosh into new Shooting games that you can’t play anywhere else outside arcades. DoDonPachi Resurrection, Akai Katana and Deathsmiles were localised here in West, whereas DoDonPachi SaiDaiOuJou, Escathos and few other shooting games were completely region free and thus very import friendly.

I will completely admit that the moment 360 gets relatively easy softmod method to unlock the region, I will be on it like a hungry cougar. Much like the PS3, the 360 has its variety of niche games, mainly shooting games, that I want to play. Unlike with PS3, the region locking on the 360 is miserable fact and a number of Japanese only games enforce it to the full extent. Those, and I’d like to give that Muv-Luv Twin Pack a go just for the kicks of it.

It looks like the losing console always caters the smallest of niches and has only few games that are genuinely great all around. I’m afraid what will happen in a console generation where consoles have games that only cater these small niches rather than going for the Blue Ocean market and expanding and impacting outside the small sub-culture of general pop-culture. For some time it seemed that the Eight console generation would go to that direction, but then I realized that my assumption was pulled out of my ass seeing how early it is to say anything about how this current generation will end up to be like. However, it seems like the traditional shooting game genre will be seeing less and less high calibre games, as the production of them has been decreasing in a steady pace. Perhaps we need a paradigm shift in the genre to make it relevant again. The only question here is What should it be?

It’s the digital era still, hooray for Trashbin!

CAPCOM has pulled down Ultimate Marvel VS CAPCOM 3 and MvC2 from the PSN and XBLA. No real reason has been given, but we all know it by heart already; CAPCOM doesn’t have the money to pay the license fees anymore. The good question, which will most likely be left unanswered for all time, is that how high were the licensing fees in the end?

Since MvC3 was released in 2011, and even before it, Marvel has been making their fair share of dosh with their movie franchise and licensing fees next to them. As such, I can see a possibility where the fees got more expensive. I don’t believe it was just about the rights to use Marvel license in a game, as Marvel VS Origins is still staying online. Marvel’s coming out with the Guardians of the Galaxy movie too, and it might be that somebody wanted exclusive rights to all of its characters, including Rocket Rackoon.

Then again, you have companies trying to find out better sources of revenue all the time, and MvC3 has outlived its hype and usability as a steady source of income. Of course, CAPCOM botched the whole thing by announcing the Ultimate version three months after the initial release of the vanilla version, so that was a loads of shitting in the customers’ soup there already. That, and not adding Mega Man X as a playable character even thou he was the most voted character in a fan-poll, from which other characters managed to get in.

As MvC3 dropped itself from the radar, Marvel most likely just wanted to move on to better projects and I can see CAPCOM doing the same thing. There’s no use in updating and patching a game that only a small community within a small community uses. Now, here’s something no fan wants to hear, but somebody needs to say it aloud; fighting games are a small thing and the amount of people who are playing them are miniscule in numbers compared to the games that actually pull good profits. Balancing between games with insane amount of technicalities and simple ones is no easy deal, and I have no qualms with CAPCOM in stopping the MvC3 support, as I do understand any companies’  need to make profit and stay afloat, but I don’t necessarily like the things they do… like with Mega Man Legends 3.

However, this causes an issue. If you didn’t buy the DLC before the date it all was pulled down, you’re never going to get them from anywhere, anymore, ever. They’re gone to bitspace, and we need to wait for hackers to find more reliable ways in modifying the consoles and their firmwares in order to inject these DLCs back, or as it was with SFxT, unlock the on-disc DLC. This is a huge problem that we have witnessed before, where  elements of games are just put away because there is no more ways to get them because they’re digital or tied to a service. Same goes with digital-only games, as they just vanish if somebody somewhere didn’t manage to save them. The download System for Super Famicom in Japan saw some games that are in digital form only, and we’re never going to see these games in any other form because of the fact that only handful of people have their service carts saved up with that particular games, but even then when the battery dies on those cartridges, only dumped ROMs exist and the actual game ceases to be.

I own a copy of MvC2 for the Dreamcast, and it’s the Japanese version. People who know of it most likely wondered aloud  Why the fuck you bought the Japanese version? The reason for this is that the game uses point based system, where you gain points and use them to buy characters. There’s three types of points; D-Points that are racked up by playing the game on the Dreamcast, the N-Points that were gained from Online play, and the V-Points which were garnered from arcade machine with your Dreamcast’s VMU plugged in. As such, some character require N- and V-Points to be unlocked, which is impossibility without the online and arcade machine. For this game I got myself a third-party VMU that allowed me to download and upload saves.

The problem is, that if I ever lose that particular save and its many copies I have on my fifteen different VMUs, I can’t unlock those characters anymore without making a special kind of effort that I shouldn’t be doing in the first place. MvC2’s online service has been long dead with SEGA’s online service, and finding MvC2 machine with the VMU slot can be a challenge. The program I used to use to transfer saves between my computer and the VMU unit is also far too old to run on old computer and it needs a printer port too. Even in 2008 I had to use my mother’s older computer from her garage to transfer few special saves I found flying online, because things just went by the DC and its technology.

It would have been very sporting of CAPCOM to put all the DLC free for the last two days rather than just lower their prices. I admit, I got the Jill Valentine and Shuma-Gorath DLC because I want to have the access to these characters. But all the extra colours and such were the worst kind of stuff they can do; worthless extra pieces of a whole puzzle.  You have the complete puzzle already, why you need to new pieces to make it larger? Why couldn’t these pieces already be part of the puzzle?

I am disappointed how companies run their digital business and how they can say when they pull shit down without a moment’s notice. I don’t know anybody who wants to give the controls of their games, movies, films and whatever to the people they bought the stuff from, but I do know far too many who willingly ignore the fact that these companies are essentially controlling everything they have bought digitally, like Valve does.

The question we need to ask is how much are you willing to let the companies decide over the stuff you own? I say none, but too many don’t want to even hear the question, let alone answer it.

Happy Birthday, Dreamcast

While Dreamcast is not the best console out there, it’s still holds a place in game culture. While it was more successful that the Sega Saturn the Dreamcast was overlooked most of the customer base due to many of the consoles faults, and because the PlayStation 2 was coming just by the corner.
However, Dreamcast is still “alive.” Few new games have been steadily released during the last decade for the system, like Trigger Heart Excelica, Trizeal and Radilgy. The console is the haven of STG, or Shooting games, old and new. Perhaps I’ll play some Third Strike: Street Fighter III today… or Kimi ga Nozomu Eien.