The SEGA Generation
- Thread starter EternalMadness1997
- Start date
Yep! I'm outlining 2005 right now, I'm probably gonna stop being lazy with the writing of the posts!
Let me know of anything really ought to be mentioned in 2005!
Obviously though, given this is a Sega timeline (or, well, was one), one of the more pressing matters regarding '05 is that it's one year closer to....'06.
2001 for the arcade release, 2002 for the Neptune, and 2004 for its final update.
Yeah Implemented it, just notice something lacked...and was that...when 3tb was at launch, they would be waiting for the real sequel in NAOMI/Neptune hardware.
The less would be minor games we missed..but that one was a big one.
2005 Part I: "Broadcast Yourself as the Next Gen Arrives"
Welcome to 2005 part 1! This part covers the a bit of missed 2004 world events and also goes from January 2005 to May 2005. Part II will be covering the rest of the year from June to December.
RESIDENT EVIL 4
January, 2005
Ever since it debuted to the gaming world in 1996, the genre-defining Resident Evil series has - like most gaming series, had its ups and downs. Yet in spite of those downs, it’s always remained at the forefront of the modern survival-horror genre.
Now, that might make you think we’re about to say Resident Evil 4 is a rather bad game. Actually, the opposite is true. We think Resident Evil 4 is not only a fantastic start to ‘05 in the field of gaming, but also perhaps one of the best entries to the series so far. To sum up the game in but a few words: inspired, state-of-the-art cinematic presentation, exciting white-knuckle action and a lengthy adventure chock-full of hidden secrets and bonus extras. Honestly, we can’t imagine anyone who wouldn’t be hooked on first playthrough with this game, a game of which we have to say is quite possibly the best survival-horror game of all time released thus far.
“Excellent game. Made me jump right back into the series, absolutely no issues, not any that I can think of anyway!” - Samantha Chrisley, 2005, ScrewAttack forums.
“My first Resident Evil game, because I'm still pretty young, and honestly I loved it. It got me hooked on not only games, but horror games specifically. Will never forget, and never regret.” - Ronin Wakayama, 2005, GameSpy User Review.
“Summer of '05. I spent the whole first few weeks after the last day of school focusing on one hundred percenting RE4. No regrets.” - Samuel Morris, 2005, GameSpot User Review.
“Up to 2005, best game of the series.” - Oscar Jackson, 2005, IGN User Review.
CES ‘05: NOKIA & MICROSOFT; OF FUMBLES & BIG PROMISES
January, 2005
The Consumer Electronics Show, 2005.
Long gone are the years when the show was also known for its involvement in the gaming industry, seeing as how E3 had been a thing for the past 10 years. Instead, this Las Vegas show was a look at both the present and the future of, well, consumer electronics. Really exactly what it says on the tin.
However, instead of focusing on all of the various gadgets and gizmos shown off at this event we’re primarily going to focus on two of the key highlights: Microsoft and Nokia.
Microsoft’s showing, performed by Bill Gates himself no less, was a tad on the embarrassing side. To cut right to the chase, their operating system actually crashed complete with blue screen and all right in the middle of the man’s own presentation. Quite the happy little accident that gained a few good chuckles and likely a large dose of embarrassment on the part of Gates himself. Now considering how huge Microsoft has become in the world of computers and our growing internet, it’s doubtful that this will have any real impact on Microsoft’s bottom line. At least, I sure hope not because I personally use a Windows PC and don’t really feel like changing to a Mac or Linux system.
Then, we have Nokia’s.
Now, Nokia has been known as the company that succeeds across the Atlantic but yet seems to struggle to really make any break in the market when it comes to America, but that is at least in one primary exception - phones. Specifically of the cellular variety. In addition to their standard fare, Nokia announced what they deemed to be the ‘future’ of cellular phones. With intent to be released around next year or in 2007, this ‘Future’ is unlike many of the promises you read about in books and magazines actually honestly right around the corner it seems. From what it sounds, they are intending to combine the markets of both gaming and, well, telecommunications. How much this will relate to their game systems is not yet known, but they were much better at marketing this time around. They really kept the audience guessing what it would be like, giving us enough of an idea that we could see their basic vision, but leaving enough out so that it wasn’t entirely spoiled. However, perhaps they literally were just pitching a concept to us - very hard to know honestly.
SNAKES
January, 2005
When it comes to marketing in America and in Asia, one can’t say that Nokia isn’t trying.
The Finnish cell phone giant who has also been a video game giant since 2001 has just recently released their latest rendition of a game who anyone who owns one of their phones likely either has and/or knows about. That being the humble game of Snake. What’s the ‘05 rendition called? Well, Snakes. Yes, going plural this time around.
It’s also for the Nokia Neo this time around, downloadable to your system via the Nokia Network, as well as available on most upcoming Nokia phone platforms from what we could tell. Considering it’s not anywhere close to what a full retail game is we think this is a pretty good deal personally.
And that’s an accurate statement considering that you actually do have multiplayer this time around. Yes, multiplayer.
Anyway, if you remember correctly you will recall that Snake is a basic phone game where you play as a line that can only make 90 degree turns - a line which gets bigger with each dot that it consumes. It was your doom if you barreled into either the corner of the screen or even your own tail - total game over. A basic game, but excellent for cells and wasting some time.
Now here comes the 2K5 update:
First off the graphics have been tremendously increased since the first installment - you can now actually tell that what you’re playing as actually is some kind of snake. As you consume power diamonds, which are conveniently placed in straight lines or on an easy curvature, your tail extends. There is an always-present time limit, so you must use boosts and brakes to complete these paths of power pellets. In addition to swallowing these blue diamonds, which indeed increases the length of your snake, you can also pick up letters to spell NGAGE and extra lives. Grabbing these extras often require you to navigate carefully designed systems of breakaway walls that shave life off of your snake.
Later levels take the game off the square grid and replace it with hexagonal spaces that make turning a real challenge. But it's a good challenge. You must learn to use a "hard turn" button to really swing your snake around and line up with a diamond path.
However, the single player is but one half of the game. The real heart and soul of Snakes is the previously mentioned multiplayer segment. As a game that is available for either download and/or for cell phones, getting it’s multiplayer to work right is a little tricky but essentially you can use “Send Game” to your friends on the phone and connect to others via a server if you’re playing this on the Neo itself. The multiplayer, played over a Bluetooth connection, has proven to be much more chaotic than the actual single player game is. After all, it’s a game where you have to gobble up dots to grow - and multiplayer adds slamming into the other snakes. It does make for surprisingly good fun though.
Overall, it’s a solid upgrade for such an older title. It’s not something that anyone’s going to go absolutely crazy over but for a quick playing phone games or something to just waste some small bits of time on it’s totally worth the incredibly inexpensive price.
- IGN, Review, 2005
PIE ANNOUNCED AS FIRAXIS BUYER
January 26, 2005
In November of last year, video game developer Firaxis - best known as the creators of Sid Meier's Civilization series as well as most other Sid Meier's games in general - had been put up for sale by their then current owner Infogrames. They were sold to a then top secret buyer, however this month the buyer has been revealed to be none other than Panasonic Interactive Entertainment. Formerly known as The 3DO Company or just '3DO', PIE has made a name for themselves in the industry of third party video game development and is so far Panasonic (Matsushita)'s only venture outside the realm of standard consumer electronics.
PIE spent at least $22.3 million on purchasing Firaxis, which is the company's first major acquisition since their purchasing of Crystal Dynamics in the later 1990's (1997). President & CEO of PIE, Laura De La Cruz, has stated that she is optimistic for the future of Firaxis under her company. This acquisition gives her company control over most Sid Meier's brands including Civilization, and also gives them control over all Firaxis development teams & resources.
While this certainly is not the biggest purchase in gaming's still young history, it certainly is going to be a big deal for those fans of the franchises and properties involved here. We can't be sure exactly how much is going to change here, but we know that things will be changing - as they always are.
- EGM, 2005
YOUTUBE: THE LATEST INTERNET SENSATION
February, 2005
The internet has just received the latest installment of websites, and this one is known only as YouTube.
What is YouTube? Well, it’s a site for you to broadcast yourself. Yes, you can have your own channel! A video sharing website, it’s essentially a website where as of right now it’s very difficult to really say there’s necessarily much you can’t do on the website - aside from the arguably ‘goes without saying’ stuff you might be thinking or worrying about.
Seeing as how the site has just been founded it obviously has a very small amount of users, and doesn’t really have any content posted quite yet - however it’s founders (comprised of many former PayPal employees), are all very optimistic about the future of their fledgling platform! After all, one can’t expect to become Friendster or MySpace overnight.
What do we personally see for YouTube?
Well, as of right now nothing in particular to be honest. We’ll all have to just wait and see where things go, but it is a little hard for us to personally picture much out of a ‘video sharing’ platform. We might just be waiting for MySpace to add the same thing to itself.
- AOL news, 2005
THE STATE OF MYSPACE
February, 2005
The year is 2005, and by now it seems that MySpace is up on the top of the internet’s food chain.
Or at least the ‘social media’ food chain, anyway.
Since its establishment in 2003, along with similar website Friendster, MySpace has been taking over the world. By now, it’s on the verge of becoming the largest, most visited and most used website in this current year of 2K5. As the internet continues to grow and expand, perhaps it’s only fitting that MySpace takes up the mantle as the king of the internet, the social site where we all can go to connect with people we know and people whom we haven’t gotten to know yet.
Honestly if you’re not on MySpace yet, I would definitely suggest making yourself an account before you’re left behind in the dust!
- AOL news, 2005
IS RARE GOING UP OR GOING DOWN?
February, 2005
Rare.
Rareware.
The kings of the later SNES and the whole of the N64 era, Nintendo’s greatest modern era development team. The Nintendo answer to STI, so to speak. However, this may now be a thing of the past as many of RARE’s more recent video game outings have yet to really wow the gaming masses as they once were able to.
Established during 1985 and purchased by Nintendo rather quietly in 2001, Rare is known for many games ranging from mainstream hits like Donkey Kong Country & Banjo Kazooie to cult classics like Conker’s Bad Fur Day and Battletoads. With 85 as it’s starting year in the industry, it can be said that they’ve “seen it all” so far, seeing as how that’s year that the NES itself first began to really be a thing people knew and cared about; and loved.
Their more recent games, Star Fox Adventures and Star Fox Assault - the latter being released during these past few weeks, are the main culprits.
In 2002, Star Fox Adventures was released after having been turned into a Star Fox game instead of Dinosaur Planet. While not considered an outright horrible game, many players were amazed with the graphics while miffed about the relative lack of actual arwing piloting - that being a staple of Star Fox gameplay after all. Essentially, it didn’t receive the acclaim that Rare games were accustomed to receiving. However, it was still good enough to be on the Nintendo GameCube, so it certainly was that bad of a Nintendo outing.
Then comes Star Fox Assault. Released this past week, Star Fox Assault is the sequel to Star Fox Adventures and the latest Rare game - one of two that they plan to release this year according to what they have told gaming press. Perhaps they didn’t focus on this title as much as they honestly should have, at least if they cared about it restoring their history of critical acclaim.
Now, keep in mind, the game is still receiving ‘above average’ reviews overall and certainly has elements that are an improvement over Adventures. However, some of the control can sloppy in places - and the design can get a little overly simplistic at times as well. However, the on-foot controls are virtually the same as it was in Star Fox Adventures. Nevertheless, it so far is the least well received Star Fox title to date. A sad fate for a game developed by Rare.
However, we do still have a certain other game coming up later this year, so perhaps we’ll just have to wait and see how much of a decline this actually is. Some are after all blaming Nintendo’s alleged ‘meddling’ in regards to these recent ‘shortcomings’ for the Star Fox series. Though it’s only really apparent with Adventures, we’re not sure if anything like that happened with Assault or not.
Nevertheless, hopefully they get back on track soon!
- IGN, 2005
THE PLUTO VS THE DS: HANDHELD CONSOLE WAR
March, 2005
Ever since the release of the Nintendo Gameboy, handheld portable gaming has taken the world by storm - only expanding a by now incredibly enormous gaming industry. Since then, as handheld systems have come and gone - advancing right alongside their larger home console counterparts, there are still some constants about the side market which have managed to remain true throughout its entire history.
Namely, that Nintendo remains number one.
That’s right, ever since it effectively established the market from the ether Nintendo has been practically unchallenged.
The Sega Game Gear? Came and went.
The Atari Lynx? Crashed and Burned.
The Tiger Game.com? Basically a joke.
None of these systems held much of a candle against the Nintendo GameBoy series. The Game Gear came close, but ultimately it had no cigar. Nowadays the GameBoy series has given way to the Nintendo DS and it’s double screens, and Nintendo is more than ready to continue it’s seemingly eternal reign over all handhelds.
That is, unless Sony has any say in the matter.
Enter the Sony Pluto, the Game Gear’s long awaited successor. Though no longer under the Sega banner, Sony is quick to remind those nostalgic for the old days their entire gaming division is after all what Sega has long since become.
Though it doesn’t have double screens, it does have a pretty attractive design and plenty of impressive looking games on it.
However, now that both of them are finally actually both out and competing against one another - which one is winning? Is the Nintendo DS following through on the expectations of continued dominance, or is the Pluto a rising star actually threatening the status quo? Well, at this early stage it’s a little hard to say - but from what we can tell things are a little more optimistic for Sony than it was for the Game Gear however that still isn’t really looking like it’s saying a whole lot.
For starters, their games.
For both of these systems we have mostly their launch titles to go off of. For the Nintendo DS we had Super Mario 64 DS as it’s first obligatory Mario title, and the Pluto responded with Sonic XL as it’s first obligatory Sonic title.
For the most part, the rest of the DS’ library has been simple shovelware titles you would expect from the system, barring the recently released Kirby title as well as Rayman DS and a compilation of Atari arcade classics. For the Pluto it’s unfortunately largely been roughly the same situation. However, the future looks bright for both systems.
For instance, Sony is looking into getting much more Sonic games developed for the system - in fact Tom Kalinske himself has assured us that he is “putting his foot down” on making sure there is a “healthy” stream of Sonic content for the Pluto, likely in an attempt to use Sony’s much larger resources (compared to Sega) in order to combat Mario’s massively larger and much more steadier stream of regularly released titles. Speaking of which, many Mario titles are expected to be released for the Nintendo DS, along with the next generation of Pokemon titles which we also should be expecting quite soon.
Well, that and the upcoming release of Nintendogs. Which our opinion is that it’s by far the cutest and most precious game to be released to the world thus far. Definitely want it.
We also are looking forward to, for this year, Mario & Luigi: Partners in Time as well as Mario Kart DS, with Super Princess Peach also being a revolutionary title we’re looking forward too as well! That’s right, an actual game focusing on Princess Peach instead of Mario, finally serving as the heroine instead of the damsel in distress consistently kidnapped! We’re also expecting an appearance from Wario, Metroid and virtually every other Nintendo franchise at some stage of the DS’ lifespan.
For the Pluto, we’ve seen advertisements this year for various Sonic games too. Sony has announced that Fujiwara will be working on Pluto Sonic games in place of Sonic Team/STI, and that these games will be including their own revamped Sonic RPG series, in addition to even a few more games inspired by the Chao as well as even Shadow and Knuckles. Indeed, later this year Shadow is supposedly going to be getting his own game exclusively for the Pluto handheld system!
While it’s hard to imagine that the Pluto is seriously going to be a competitor to the Nintendo DS, all we can really do is stay tuned to see what the ultimate outcome will be.
- GamePro, 2005
SONY ESTABLISHES ANIPLEX USA
March, 2005
Brand new anime news from Sony!
Little known to many anime fans, or perhaps not, but Sony does in fact own anime/music producer & distributor Aniplex - best known at this current time for their work on the anime adaptation of Fullmetal Alchemist.
Well, as it turns out they are now officially colonizing our western shores as they are officially establishing Aniplex USA!
- Unknown Anime news tabloid, 2005
SONY CUTS TIES WITH 4KIDS: THE END OF SONIC X
March, 2005
This week has been a big deal for both anime and cartoons alike it seems! First, Sony establishes Aniplex USA - and now, it has also been made public that Sony is no longer allowing 4Kids to distribute their anime content in the immediate future. Now, what this means for 4Kids viewers is that not only will future Sony-based anime not be produced by or for them, but it also means that Sonic X is coming to an abrupt end on the channel, after it had been enjoying many reruns in America even a fair while since the original Japanese version ended both airing and production. We were unable to get any comment from 4Kids at any point as to why it opted to continue the reruns for so long.
As for what this means for the anime community, there really isn’t much to say actually - there really aren’t that many bits of anime content related to Sony (read: basically Sega) properties. There’s the Sonic OVA from ‘96-’99, the two Sonic films from ‘98 and ‘01 and the Virtua Fighter OVA film, but there’s not really a whole lot else besides those things as of yet - though anything Aniplex owns can technically be considered Sony material that could have potentially ended up on 4Kids at one point.
In shortened terms, it looks like 4KidsTV won’t be getting any Shenmue anime dub anytime soon.
However, the show must go on - 4Kids still fully intends on going forward with continuing their dubs of other Japanese animated entertainment with or without Sony or Sonic. After all, they already lost their control over the Pokemon dubs, this same year in fact! However, they still have Yu-gi-OH!, One Piece, Mew Mew Power, Winx Club and much more either already running or otherwise up and coming, so in all honesty they should be just fine for many years in the upcoming future! Very fine indeed!
- Unknown Anime news tabloid, 2005
“Winx Club is not an anime.” - Anonymous comment on the online version of the article from a private individual residing in the U.S. State of Wyoming.
SONY & TIME WARNER,’BIG DEAL’ COMING SOON:
March, 2005
Just a few weeks after the news that not only did Sony create Aniplex USA but that they also cut ties with prolific anime dubbers 4Kids Entertainment of FoxBox & 4KidsTV fame comes yet another bit of television related news relating to the Sony corporation. This time, however, the other player is apparently none other than media giant Time Warner - the one and only.
Indeed, evidently a Sony insider has revealed to the media that there is a brewing business ‘arrangement’ going on between the two conglomerates, though no details as to what this arrangement could be was actually been given to us or any news outlet for that matter. It was implied though that Sony’s most iconic American representative, Tom Kalinske, is doing much of the negotiating. However, given that Time Warner is known for not only being the beings behind Warner Bros. but also television names such as Cartoon Network, Adult Swim, The WB, and TBS we can at least make an educated guess that this brewing deal may have something to do with the television industry. At least, that’s what we’re thinking anyway. Perhaps this has something to do with video games though, since Sony is the other party.
We definitely intend on staying tuned to see where these apparent business talks go!
- Unknown Anime news tabloid, 2005
60 MINUTES TALKS ABOUT GAMES; GAMERS TAKE OFFENSE
March, 2005
“Can A Video Game Lead to Murder?” - Title of the CBS ‘60 Minutes’ segment first ever aired in early March 2005, which featured Jack Thompson as a guest speaker.
“The segment highlights the murder of three police officers at the hands of a young man, with Thompson asserting that Grand Theft Auto had ‘trained’ him to do this. Yes, he’s asserting that Rockstar is training us all to be mass shooters and murderers, apparently. Now yes Grand Theft Auto likely had some role in shaping him as a person but to just flat out ignore anything such as potential child abuse or mental illness is just ridiculous. Then again how else would Thompson push his usual bile?” - Unknown IGN forum user from Boston MA, 2005
“Jack Thompson is full of gas and hot air.” - Unknown GameSpot user from London UK, 2005
GAME DEVELOPERS CONFERENCE ‘05 HIGHLIGHTS:
March, 2005
Yet another annual day for gamers everywhere has arrived. Not E3, no, that’s still a few more months away. Instead, we’re looking at 2005’s Game Developers’ Conference. It’s really sort of like a scaled-down E3 though, in all fairness. Basically a preview of what we’re going to be talking about come May.
First off, the games shown off.
For Nintendo we received showings of their upcoming Nintendogs for the DS and their very much anticipated GameCube outing in the form of Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess. We also got some Donkey Kong, Pokemon and even some Yoshi titles to name a few. They had the most games shown off at the conference, which was actually rather refreshing to see.
Nokia was also a major contributor to showings during the conference too, though a lot of their games were to be third party releases. They did talk about their upcoming system, the Nokia Neo-GX however, which had already been revealed in Europe since New Years Day. Though no games for that future piece of tech were yet shown off, unfortunately. An adaptation of Scarface, Stubbs the Zombie, an actual game about 50 Cent and some others were shown off at the conference.
Sony’s performance was mostly focused on the Sony Pluto. They showed off some of their Sonic games planned for it, and talked about improvements they wanted to make to their online services, but hey at least Tom Kalinske himself was their main representative - proving that he does indeed still work for them! They did show some Neptune games, but none of the ones they really showed content for were ones really worth getting uppity about.
The big takeaway from the conference though were the speeches delivered by the key representatives of the contemporary big three. Satoru Iwata, Ikka Raiskinen and Tom Kalinske all had messages to say to all of us - and honestly, they all delivered them rather well.
Iwata’s speech, ‘Heart of a Gamer’ was honestly one of the most engaging speeches I’ve heard from this industry. It really did seem like it came from a place deep within the man, and it really did bring out what it really means to be a Gamer; reminding us all at the end of the day what Nintendo really is all about.
Seeing Kalinske again was a real treat too. Though his speech wasn’t as sentimental as Iwata’s was, he still had a realness in his keynote as well. Called ‘Gaming with Attitude’, he seemed to reminiscence about how much the industry has changed since he landed his job at Sega all those years back, and also where things are headed in the future. This did not culminate in a price or console reveal though.
Mr. Raiskinen’s speech ‘The Future of Games’ was alright I suppose, his keynote also asserted a theme of what was coming in the future for Nokia’s role in the video game industry. There was as such, a little bit of talk about the next generation system in there. There wasn’t really much to it, but I still don’t consider his speech to be bad. In fact, he was clearly rather confident in Nokia’s future.
As a whole, a rather decent preview of what’s coming for us this year.
- GamePro, 2005 excerpt
DEVIL MAY CRY 3: DANTE’S AWAKENING
March, 2005
Get ready for some action that's so good it's liable to make you gnash your teeth and possibly smash your controller. Devil May Cry 3 is an appropriate about-face for the most memorable of Capcom's more recent franchises, one that started with a bang back in 2001 but flubbed its second outing two years ago. Now Devil May Cry is back, once again featuring the irreverent, inhumanly strong half-demon Dante in the starring role, and it easily presents the series' most challenging adventure yet. Devil May Cry 3 packs in a deep, outstanding combat system, plenty of spectacular story sequences, and lots of flair. Unfortunately, it's unbelievably, unreasonably difficult at first. Think of the most punishing game you played in the last several years. Now, imagine the second or third level of this game being even harder than that. Overcoming Devil May Cry 3's near-vertical learning curve could prove extremely frustrating, to the point where some players will justifiably give up after repeatedly failing the first few missions. That's really too bad, because anyone who perseveres long enough to learn the ropes will probably agree that Devil May Cry 3 is one of the best Neptune action adventure games since the original.
“Following the let down that was Devil May Cry 2, this is an excellent return to form for the series! If you wanna be a true DMC fan, get. this. game." - Martin Wilson, GameSpot, 2005
“It's extremely hard for me though, like jesus christ! I feel like I literally can't progress at all no matter how many times I try to practice up! Challenge is a good thing for any real game or gamer, but honestly this one takes things a little far in my opinion. Aside from that though, it's an absolutely amazing title and worth full price.” - Craig Henry, IGN, 2005
“Extremely hard at least in the North American version, however almost literally everything else is solid quality gaming. Still extremely recommended.” - Christian Vince, EGM, 2005
MORTAL KOMBAT: DECEPTION
March, 2005
The latest in Midway's influential and long-running fighting game series, Mortal Kombat: Deception, picks up where 2002's Mortal Kombat: Deadly Alliance left off by featuring lots of new and returning fighters, a variety of surprising new modes of play, and, perhaps best of all, the ability to play online. The strangest part about Deception is how it includes several completely off-the-wall modes, the likes of which you'd never expect from a fighting game. These include the single-player konquest mode, which is a story-driven adventure; puzzle kombat, a competitive Tetris-style puzzle game that's an unabashed homage to Capcom's Super Puzzle Fighter II Turbo; and chess kombat, which is inspired by the classic computer game Archon. The konquest mode is disappointingly bland, while these other two modes are at least amusing. However, the core one-on-one fighting action--whether you play it offline or online--is easily the best part of the game. Like its predecessor, the fighting in Mortal Kombat: Deception is gory, intense, and quite complex, meaning it captures much of what's made MK an institution among fighting games.
“Fatality” - Various anonymous internet comments, 2005-2006
“For those who are into Mortal Kombat over Virtua Fighter or Tekken, this is an excellent game to return to the series with. Definitely don't skip out on this one.” - GamePro, 2005
“This reinvigorated my love for MK” - Jefferey Luong, 2005, EGM
“I still personally prefer Virtua Fighter” - Kyle Wiener, Sega fan web forum, 2005
SOLITUDE
March, 2005
Of the current iteration of gaming’s ‘Big Three’, Nokia hasn’t been known as the best. Of course, they’ve only risen to the spot after 3DO bit the dust so perhaps it’s simply them having not yet shaken off the ‘Freshman’ label. However, there’s not going to be so ‘new’ forever, especially with the next generation nearing with every second that passes. Despite that fact though, Nokia is not giving up on trying it’s best to appeal to the little people who actually are supposed to buy their products.
Case in point for this evening, Solitude.
What is solitude? It’s a relatively rare species, a first-party title made and published by Nokia’s own internal game development teams meaning it’s one of this year’s newer IP’s - and even we think it’s arguably shaping up to be a new franchise of sorts! With gaming being in a craze of First Person Shooters ever since the start of this current gaming generation, for me at least it’s refreshing to see a game that’s actually a survival horror-esque game that’s not Resident Evil or Silent Hill. However, this game is thankfully not only not those games in terms of title but in terms of gameplay as well - a true survival horror noir type game, one which will leave you both hooked and trembling for the entire duration of your gaming sessions. The Neo’s powerful graphical capabilities certainly help, after all. The game takes place in what I assume is Finland itself, during the winter time no less. This means the Neo gets to show off it’s wonderful world of snow physics - and also means that outside of spending time indoors you’re not going to move precisely fast. However, this is a horror themed noir style game complete with uncovering the mystery behind the opening tragedy of what was initially believed to be an animal attack turning into a murder mystery that only seems to get even crazier as the plot marches on, culminating in an ending that is reminiscent of what you’d find in a Stephen King book. With the atmosphere being largely snow-drenched forests complete with tall trees and all encompassing fog everywhere - you really do get a sense that the title is in fact rather accurate.
“Mystifying, Stunning, Frightening.” - Nokia magazine, 2005
“#1 Neo Seller, definite must-have” - Eurogamer, 2005
“This game is one of the best games to play with the lights off, in the middle of your room, and absolutely alone. Make sure to keep a blanket on or near you to hide under because you probably will need it once in a while!" - Christian Fyler, 2005, GamePro
“The best modern horror game released thus far. If you're into horror, this is an absolute must have and a definitive reason for you to get yourself a Neo!” - Cody Sampson, 2005, IGN
“Every minute of the campaign is going to keep you on the edge of your feet, and when the scares come you will quickly transition from that into jumping. And then, you will be locked firmly in intense gaming action, requiring total focus on getting the objectives done. Excellent, must-have title. Totally recommended.” - Thomas Harper, 2005, EGM
“Until this game came out, I was skeptical of Nokia's capabilities. Now that's it out, I'm on their side.” - Houston Samuel, 2005, GameSpot
"European Top Seller!" - Eurogamer, 2005
SUPER MONKEY BALL DELUXE
March, 2005
The turn of the century did not only see the birth of a new era of gaming consoles, it also saw what appeared to be the birth of a reignition of the creative juices that first saw the rise of Sega’s great franchises. Super Monkey Ball stood out from the rest of Sega (now Sony)'s games library. Forget high-speed space battles or wandering around 1980’s Japan, gamers who were willing to take a chance on this strange new title found for themselves taking part in an incredible and nerve-wracking challenge in the form of navigating ball-encased monkeys across abstractly constructed checker platforms floating in infinity. Being Sony products, the Super Monkey Ball series is strictly Neptune (and/or Pluto) exclusive - and Deluxe is no exception to that rule. What sets Deluxe apart from the previous games in the series then? Well, to put it shortly it brings together the content from both of the previous games and combines them into one seamless, fantastic package. If you somehow missed this charming little corner of Sony’s would-have-been Sega library, then this is an excellent way to catch up on what you’ve missed out on - especially since not only does it include said content, but it even tosses in some extra content not in either previous game, to really make sure it’s worth a returning player or general newcomer’s while. We definitely advise giving this game a shot!
“Wholesome family fun for all ages” - GamePro, 2005
“An entertaining piece of gaming that will introduce your '05 kids to the series' past as well as offer just enough content to engage present day returnees! Hours of fun for all ages!” - EGM, 2005
GOD OF WAR: MEET KRATOS, SONY’S NEWEST ICON
March, 2005
The time has come, to take the fight to the Gods. The Old Gods.
Indeed, Sony (that's us!) has given us yet another gift this year from their internal development studio teams, this time in the form of God of War - a game that introduces us to Kratos and his struggle with the powerful deities of Ancient Greece. We’re talking Zeus, Athena, Hades, Apollo - the whole chabang and more (as not only the gods, but the related selection of beasts & monsters show up as well). But most importantly of all, in typical Sony fashion everything about this game’s graphics, presentation and gameplay oozes the fact that it is high quality gaming content.
Where can we start? Well about with the man, the myth, the legend himself - Kratos. Kratos is far removed from being anything close to Sonic the Hedgehog, let’s put it like that.
With an emphasis on both exploration and absolutely thrashing your enemies with Kratos' sheer power, all with true Greek tragedy story-telling as the game has about three-to-four acts in which the story is told. Did we also mention that Kratos is equipped with two sword-like chain weapons with which he can not only slash his enemies but also pull them close to him for even better pumblings - let alone his brutal multi-hit combos. All programmed exquisitely, might we add.
How to describe this game in but a few words?
Clash of the Titans meets Heavy Metal.
Enough said
- Sony Magazine, review excerpt.
“Brutal. Epic. Gripping. Best Game for the Neptune so far.” - John Goode, 2005, IGN User Review
“Everything about this game I just plain love, for lack of a better word. I can't describe how much sheer awesomeness is wrapped up in this disc-shaped package. I can't see myself not playing this game for at least the rest of the year - unless Sony somehow gives us something even more awesome, at least.” - David Chopra, 2005, GameSpot User Review
“This game introduced me to Kratos. Kratos introduced me to what being badass really felt like." - Alexander Lopez, 2005, GamePro Magazine
“This is the game I'll be playing for the next few months.” - Felix Oscar, 2005, Unknown Web Forum
“This is the kind of game that you will feel should have existed before, but at the same you will agree came out at the perfect time.” - Gregory Wilchuck, 2005, Sony Magazine
“This is the future of gaming, and it's great.” - Elliot Popper, 2005, EGM
THE MATRIX ONLINE
March, 2005
Welp, it seems that everything really is going online these days! First it was announced that Shenmue was going online, and now it seems that The Matrix has beaten that to the punch! That’s right, you can now go online in the world of the Matrix! The implications of this can’t really be discussed much here of course, but just know that as far as we are aware there is still currently no need to worry about taking any pills with this game. At least, we hope not.
Regardless, published by Warner Bros. Interactive while developed by Monolith The Matrix Online is the latest in the craze of MMORpg games in the same vein as World of Warcraft or Runescape, except it puts you in both the world and story of The Matrix films. That’s right, you get to experience a direct continuation of the films as if you actually are in it’s simulated universe. You can play as your own character too, experiencing the continuation of the Matrix franchise through a being of your own virtual creation. All of the characters you recognize from each of the movies are present, from Neo and Morpheus to even those running the simulations. It’s a real world of cyber warfare out there, ready to be explored.
If you are a fan of the Matrix, we’d argue this is virtually required for to hook yourself up to. Remember, we’re only telling you the truth - nothing more.
“Take the Red Pill. Play the Game.” -
“While I still can't say I'm super excited about paying monthly for the full force of a game's features, I can say that these games sure do seem to be something of the future for the industry if World of Warcraft is any indication.” -
“What if this game isn't a game, but is actually reality?” -
LEGO STAR WARS
April, 2005
A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away….
It’s a space opera we’ve been obsessed with since it first came out decades ago, and now it’s being introduced to us in a whole new way.
In what new way?
Thanks to Traveller’s Tales, in the form of Lego! That’s right, Lego! Lego Star Wars, and it’s multi-platform too!
This light-hearted, comedic and lego based approach to the Star Wars saga breathes new life to an aging yet still kicking franchise in ways we honestly would not have even thought of! And honestly, even though it is marketed primarily for the demographic that will get the most kicks out of Legos, it honestly still has things in it that will make people of all audiences like it once in a while! It’s full of extra content, such as unlockable levels, characters and all sorts of other extras - the only thing stopping you from exploring the lego side of the force is yourself!
“Very unexpectedly good game.” - James Gregory, 2005, EGM
“My kid spends most of his days playing this game now, and he seems to really like it so it has no complaints from me. ” - Catherine Morgan, 2005, Unknown Kids Magazine
“Good old fashioned fun for all ages, even if mostly the children.” - Eli Johnson, 2005, Nintendo Power
“An excellent game to introduce your youngest kids to if you want them to be initiated into what Star Wars is all about.” - Daniel Young, 2005, Star Wars fan forum
"I don't like it, I find it a watered down kiddy version of my favorite movie franchise. This is basically just Star Wars for babies." - Craig Wihelm, 2005, Star Wars fan forum
PSYCHONAUTS
April, 2005
Psychonauts is a quirky, offbeat game set in a special summer camp for clairvoyant kids, in which a group of psychic children end up in a wacky adventure filled with brain-stealing hijinks, psychic secret agents, and a little romance on top of everything else. It's rooted in the sorts of 3D platforming sensibilities we've all come to know over the years. But there's a spin to the game--its psychic theme--which adds some cool puzzle-solving to the usual platform-jumping and swinging associated with the genre. Psychonauts also bears the unmistakable mark of designer Tim Schafer (known for classic adventure games Grim Fandango, Full Throttle, and Day of the Tentacle), thanks to a hilarious array of peculiar characters and a story that never fails to entertain. Psychonauts doesn't reinvent the platformer, but it still delivers an experience that feels wholly original in every aspect of its execution.
“This is the most underrated game I have ever played. Why didn't this get popular? Are people just insane?” - Fiona Wong, 2006, YouTube Comment
“It's an honest tragedy that this amazing platformer never caught on. The mere concept was interesting. The gameplay was top-notch. The style reminded me of some of my favorite movies. Everything was so amazing, yet it looks to be little more than a cult classic. Sad.” - George Deaumont, 2007, YouTube Comment
“This game should be #1 seller!” - Ulysses Wilson, 2005, GamePro magazine
“The game certainly is good, but you can't expect a game like this to come around literally every year I suppose.” - Kyle Rodger, IGN User Review, 2005
JADE EMPIRE
April, 2005
Ever since they first made that Star Wars game series way back when, BioWare has become the grand champion of RPG’s. Baldur’s Gate, Neverwinter Nights and Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic have all become household names in the realm of RPG players all across this planet of ours. As such, one can imagine and understand the eager when they announced that they have yet again graced us with another entry in their resume of excellent RPG’s. And honestly, it’s worth checking out! For one, it finally takes place in an honestly original setting. Jade Empire as it’s called takes place in what is essentially for all intents and purposes, Imperial China. Inspired by Chinese mythology, this world is far removed from the medieval Dragon’s Age or the great Galaxy of Star Wars; however Jade Empire is still undoubtedly similar to it’s predecessors regardless, still having that classic BioWare touch that makes it unmistakably one of their pieces. With a complex storyline, distinctly BioWare quality standards, amazing characters and absolutely impressive presentation as well as tremendous replay value we really can’t see a reason why you wouldn’t want to pick this game up and give it a try!
“I was hooked on this game from day one of playing it. So immersed in it's setting and with it's characters that I couldn't stop playing it every day 'til I finished it. Definitely worth checking out, definitely recommended.” - Harold Wilson, 2005, IGN User Review
“Excellent game. I really liked the way they used Chinese mythology to form such an interesting world. I wonder if they'll ever make a sequel?” - Kevin Marcano, 2005, GameSpot User Review
“Top tier game!" - Lars Kastopolos, GamePro, 2005
“BioWare is excellent for making games that immerse you in their story and their world-building. While I don't necessarily think Jade Empire is their best title so far, I'm just more into Sci-Fi, I definitely see the appeal of it and can imagine it is indeed a decent quality game with a very unique concept. We really do need originality in this world of increasing first person shooters. Luckily when it comes to games, there's always a market for virtually everything. We're one of the few markets where even revisiting obsolete tech can still be viable.” - Naomi Carter, IGN User Review, 2005
E3 2005
E3 2005, the tenth E3. As if to commemorate that fact, E3 ‘05 proved to be arguably just as explosive as the first E3 (‘95) had been - and much like it, proved to be an explosion of gaming news and feature a plethora of both hardware and software for young gamer eyes to feast on. Taking place in Los Angeles during the heated months of May, E3 ‘05 would see the unveiling of the next generation of gaming systems from The Big Three - Nokia, Nintendo and Sony. As part of E3 tradition, all three of them held pre-show conferences to announce the big titles they were cooking up behind closed doors. The Sony Solaris and Nokia Neo-GX were unveiled first on Monday, while Nintendo’s “Revolution” was revealed the following day.
The Nokia presentation was actually an improvement from their previous showings, though it was still weak compared to its competition. For one, the Neo-GX had been revealed not long prior to the show, and Nokia quite frankly did not shut up about it being the best video game system “ever”. Seeding leaks out, commissioning infomercials, the works. This went for both Europe and America, with them being very aggressive to turn around the argument that they were doing poorly in America. They were pulling out all of the stops that they could afford to, and some people were a bit sick of it. Their console simply had so much to live up to in the way of promises, and most of what was revealed at E3 was nothing that was much new besides some gameplay footage. That said, it was still a worthy successor to the Neo, boasting an impressive set of technical specifications. Battlefield 2, though it was for the original Neo was also looking impressive. Sony on the other hand, played things right.
While Nokia’s unveiling was not bad by any means, Sony’s was simply better. For months, Sony was silent on the subject of a next generation console. All that had been leaked was unrelated news - something about another Sonic movie and a Shenmue thing, which at E3 was confirmed to actually be an upcoming Mini-series, not actually an anime adaptation. At E3 however, Sony revived some of Sega’s 90’s attitudes and went on the attack - against Nokia. Clearly intent on responding to Nokia’s challenges before it’s momentum really got started, Sony made sure it’s presentation also pulled out all the stops. The Sony Solaris itself made its debut to the gaming world, touting impressive specifications while it’s gaming software demos (including an extremely early build of that aforementioned Sonic game) were just as impressive. In fact, the majority of Sony’s pre-show was dedicated to the Solaris, with most of the current generation stuff being left to the show floor - something which nobody expected. Sony had no restraint from bragging that the Neo-GX outputted 1080i and 720 HD, while the Solaris trumped it with dual 1080p signals.
Speaking of what Sony had on the main show floor, they had more Pluto games lined up - Sonic Rush, a game based around Shadow the Hedgehog; and for the Neptune they were intending more Sonic spin-off games and even a game named after and based on Knuckles the Echidna. We were also getting Pluto ports of the Sakura Wars series, and it seemed like the entire series was going to move on to being handheld RPGs rather than home consoles. There also was the reveal that Sony was partnering with third party developer Fujiwara games for the continued development of Sonic-inspired handheld games for the Sony Pluto, with Sonic RPG titles and other spin-offs being predominantly on the table.
There was also talk of upcoming game titles: Yakuza (which would go on to produce yet another largely successful franchise) and Shenmue Online were prominent. God of War, being their newest IP, was also a major talking point though regarding potential sequels.
Then came Nintendo the following day, revealing the “Revolution” - though it would eventually be renamed to the Wii. Though still a prototype, it was shown off. Albeit, in a jet black color which would be rare for the final design. Nintendo boasted that it finally had a built-in DVD player rather than having that feature be a separate add-on. They also stressed its ability to play GameCube games, and the ability to download a vast array of Nintendo software past, present and future via Wi-Fi. They also of course committed that a new Super Smash Bros. game would in fact be made for the system. Unfortunately, it was stressed that Sony and Nintendo still hated each other enough to ensure Sonic would not be part of it.
On the current generation front, the GameCube had Legend of Zelda: The Twilight Princess, and also the Gameboy Micro.
PC Games didn’t get lost in the shuffle either. Spore, Fear and Civilization IV all looked like promising editions to the PC. While there were many sequels, spin-offs and franchise games to go around both on PC and console, for PC things did seem promising in the way of really excellent titles - Company of Heroes, Call of Duty 2, D&D Online, The Witcher and Half-Life 2: Lost Coast were all on the list of subjects spoken of the most beyond the three I first mentioned up an’ above.
Speaking of Spore, Will Wright himself was present and discussing the same spiel about it non-stop, as people flowed into the closed doors of said presentation like rednecks at a yard sale.
E3 2005 was also something of a time to reflect on how much gaming has changed. Many faces from the past were either gone entirely or changed dramatically. 3DO was now PIE and no longer made consoles. Sega was completely absorbed into Sony, with the Sega name itself being in the process of slowly fading away as time continued to pass. Nokia was still relatively new on the scene, and had taken over SNK. Atari was still around, but no longer had any hardware and was still a shadow of its former self. Really only Nintendo and some of the bigger name third party companies still seemed to remain relatively the same since that fateful day back in 1995.
And as with all things, the changes were only going to keep coming.
- IGN, 2012
SONYPOLIS GREECE: STATE OF THE PARK
May, 2005
Last year, Sony went full ham on their entrance into the arena of theme parks - establishing Sonypolis in Athens, Greece. What is Sonypolis? Think SegaWorld or Joypolis except also basically Disneyland. In its opening year, it was actually rather successful - garnering plenty of visitors on account of the olympics that went on not long after it’s grand opening. The recently established parks division of Sony also talked about opening more locations across the globe in the future, making us for a moment think that Sony was spending quite a little too much time on parks instead of, well, games.
Well, the numbers are in and the park is doing ...just fine.
Indeed, evidently the regular attendants are certainly high but not a lot of people are making the trip to Greece just to see Sonypolis. Most still want to see what Greece is best known for - the ancient ruins and their history. Those living in Greece make up most of the actual park attendance, but evidently there is a bit of national pride to the park. A little. Or at least, we assume so.
This has caused many of the planned locations to already be scrapped and/or scaled down from what we’ve been told - due to not getting as much income from Sonypolis as had originally been hoped. Perhaps if SegaWorld Sydney hadn’t burned down, or SegaWorld London not shut down, they would have a little extra.
Nevertheless, they have confirmed that Sonypolis Rio (Rio De Janeiro, Brazil) and Sonypolis Rome (Rome, Italy) are still going to be happening. But they are not going to be as “Disneyland” as the original in Athens due to the billions of dollars it costs to both construct and maintain such a thing. It should be stated that the original park in Greece cost 3-4 if not 5, billion dollars according to Sony's claim. It has yet to fully make back that large investment. Sonypolis Rio and Sonypolis Rome are estimated to be at the least "only" a few hundred million dollars and at most only 1-2 billion. In addition there will be less noise pollution - because yes a few Athenians have started complaining about the park being relatively close to actual city living and working areas.
Evidently some attractions have already been removed from the original Athens location too, due to not being able to pay for their maintenance. Some of Athens’ citizenry also state that the park is too expensive for them to visit, never mind that the area around it also has become rather rapidly known for congested traffic.
However, Sony’s Parks division is reportedly still optimistic about the future - it’s head honcho stated that they are “positive” that it’s simply a “slow year for the park”, citing that “the greek economy is doing rather well” as a key reason for why he believes it is a decent investment for Sony to continue operating in Athens.
- Los Angeles times
“Spoiler Alert: Sony starting a park business in Greece turned out to be a massive mistake and waste of money.” - Anonymous YouTube commentor, 2009. The video in question was a late 2008 upload of a 2004 Sonypolis Greece commercial.
WHAT HAPPENED TO THE SEGA LOGO?
May, 2005
“Is it just me, or is Sony progressively getting rid of the Sega logo as time goes on? In SA2 they still had it there, but now they’ve just basically stopped using it.” - IGN Forum Post, 2005
“Sega is dead” - IGN Forum response, 2005
“Literally the only two things still keeping the Sega name are STI and SegaNet. They probably won’t keep their names for long once the next gen hits though.” - IGN Forum response, 2005
“Honestly this was probably Sony’s plan from the start.” - IGN Forum response, 2005
MIKE POLLOCK WILL BE VOICING EGGMAN NOW
May, 2005
SONIC NEXT-GEN MOVIE & GAME, SHENMUE MINI-SERIES + ONLINE & MORE
May, 2005
Recently it has been announced, at E3 no less, that Sony will indeed be producing a Sonic title to go along with their next generation system - the Sony Solaris. This will be their first platform not co-produced with another party due to their purchase of Sega in 2001, so this will certainly be a big deal for the corporate juggernaut. So far we don’t really have a lot of information to go on other than a few leaked concept art from the game - though reportedly the leaked images are already considered to be ‘outdated’ by Sony officials - and their security has apparently been ‘tightened’ as well to avoid further leaks.
These leaks also revealed what appeared to be concept art of a Shenmue title, however these have turned out not to be for the next Shenmue title - which has been confirmed for the Solaris as well, but instead was actually intended for a Shenmue t.v. mini-series set to begin airing in Japan around this October. Sony is apparently intending to really put it’s foot down on jumping into it’s homeland’s television since we assume this could be them starting to produce Japanese shows for all of their (formerly Sega) franchises. We here in the West hope this isn’t getting in the way of them making the next Spider-man movie, which honestly despite that joke no it probably isn’t.
However, we haven’t heard of Shenmue Online in quite a while. We heard a little about it at E3 this year, but not really a whole lot considering it still hasn’t been released - even with The Matrix Online being out and about these days. Perhaps it’s waiting for Next Gen? Then again, we have heard that fan response hasn’t actually been keen on the idea of the MMORpg - perhaps that is why we have heard so next to nothing about it.
As a whole with God of War rocking the gaming world and Yakuza, Shenmue 3, Next Gen Sonic, more Pluto games and even more sequels to many other Sega classics on the way we are definitely keeping our eyes on Sony for this incoming console generation!
SONY WATCH: HOW LIKELY IS SONY TO BUY MARVEL?
May, 2005
- Forum Discussion, unknown Forum, 2005
RESIDENT EVIL 4
January, 2005
Ever since it debuted to the gaming world in 1996, the genre-defining Resident Evil series has - like most gaming series, had its ups and downs. Yet in spite of those downs, it’s always remained at the forefront of the modern survival-horror genre.
Now, that might make you think we’re about to say Resident Evil 4 is a rather bad game. Actually, the opposite is true. We think Resident Evil 4 is not only a fantastic start to ‘05 in the field of gaming, but also perhaps one of the best entries to the series so far. To sum up the game in but a few words: inspired, state-of-the-art cinematic presentation, exciting white-knuckle action and a lengthy adventure chock-full of hidden secrets and bonus extras. Honestly, we can’t imagine anyone who wouldn’t be hooked on first playthrough with this game, a game of which we have to say is quite possibly the best survival-horror game of all time released thus far.
- GameSpot; Review Excerpt.
- Resident Evil 4 was first released on the Nintendo GameCube, but also received a release for the Sony Neptune in October of the same year.
“Excellent game. Made me jump right back into the series, absolutely no issues, not any that I can think of anyway!” - Samantha Chrisley, 2005, ScrewAttack forums.
“My first Resident Evil game, because I'm still pretty young, and honestly I loved it. It got me hooked on not only games, but horror games specifically. Will never forget, and never regret.” - Ronin Wakayama, 2005, GameSpy User Review.
“Summer of '05. I spent the whole first few weeks after the last day of school focusing on one hundred percenting RE4. No regrets.” - Samuel Morris, 2005, GameSpot User Review.
“Up to 2005, best game of the series.” - Oscar Jackson, 2005, IGN User Review.
- Discussion from a Sonic the Hedgehog web forum, 2005
CES ‘05: NOKIA & MICROSOFT; OF FUMBLES & BIG PROMISES
January, 2005
The Consumer Electronics Show, 2005.
Long gone are the years when the show was also known for its involvement in the gaming industry, seeing as how E3 had been a thing for the past 10 years. Instead, this Las Vegas show was a look at both the present and the future of, well, consumer electronics. Really exactly what it says on the tin.
However, instead of focusing on all of the various gadgets and gizmos shown off at this event we’re primarily going to focus on two of the key highlights: Microsoft and Nokia.
Microsoft’s showing, performed by Bill Gates himself no less, was a tad on the embarrassing side. To cut right to the chase, their operating system actually crashed complete with blue screen and all right in the middle of the man’s own presentation. Quite the happy little accident that gained a few good chuckles and likely a large dose of embarrassment on the part of Gates himself. Now considering how huge Microsoft has become in the world of computers and our growing internet, it’s doubtful that this will have any real impact on Microsoft’s bottom line. At least, I sure hope not because I personally use a Windows PC and don’t really feel like changing to a Mac or Linux system.
Then, we have Nokia’s.
Now, Nokia has been known as the company that succeeds across the Atlantic but yet seems to struggle to really make any break in the market when it comes to America, but that is at least in one primary exception - phones. Specifically of the cellular variety. In addition to their standard fare, Nokia announced what they deemed to be the ‘future’ of cellular phones. With intent to be released around next year or in 2007, this ‘Future’ is unlike many of the promises you read about in books and magazines actually honestly right around the corner it seems. From what it sounds, they are intending to combine the markets of both gaming and, well, telecommunications. How much this will relate to their game systems is not yet known, but they were much better at marketing this time around. They really kept the audience guessing what it would be like, giving us enough of an idea that we could see their basic vision, but leaving enough out so that it wasn’t entirely spoiled. However, perhaps they literally were just pitching a concept to us - very hard to know honestly.
- Magazine excerpt
SNAKES
January, 2005
When it comes to marketing in America and in Asia, one can’t say that Nokia isn’t trying.
The Finnish cell phone giant who has also been a video game giant since 2001 has just recently released their latest rendition of a game who anyone who owns one of their phones likely either has and/or knows about. That being the humble game of Snake. What’s the ‘05 rendition called? Well, Snakes. Yes, going plural this time around.
It’s also for the Nokia Neo this time around, downloadable to your system via the Nokia Network, as well as available on most upcoming Nokia phone platforms from what we could tell. Considering it’s not anywhere close to what a full retail game is we think this is a pretty good deal personally.
And that’s an accurate statement considering that you actually do have multiplayer this time around. Yes, multiplayer.
Anyway, if you remember correctly you will recall that Snake is a basic phone game where you play as a line that can only make 90 degree turns - a line which gets bigger with each dot that it consumes. It was your doom if you barreled into either the corner of the screen or even your own tail - total game over. A basic game, but excellent for cells and wasting some time.
Now here comes the 2K5 update:
First off the graphics have been tremendously increased since the first installment - you can now actually tell that what you’re playing as actually is some kind of snake. As you consume power diamonds, which are conveniently placed in straight lines or on an easy curvature, your tail extends. There is an always-present time limit, so you must use boosts and brakes to complete these paths of power pellets. In addition to swallowing these blue diamonds, which indeed increases the length of your snake, you can also pick up letters to spell NGAGE and extra lives. Grabbing these extras often require you to navigate carefully designed systems of breakaway walls that shave life off of your snake.
Later levels take the game off the square grid and replace it with hexagonal spaces that make turning a real challenge. But it's a good challenge. You must learn to use a "hard turn" button to really swing your snake around and line up with a diamond path.
However, the single player is but one half of the game. The real heart and soul of Snakes is the previously mentioned multiplayer segment. As a game that is available for either download and/or for cell phones, getting it’s multiplayer to work right is a little tricky but essentially you can use “Send Game” to your friends on the phone and connect to others via a server if you’re playing this on the Neo itself. The multiplayer, played over a Bluetooth connection, has proven to be much more chaotic than the actual single player game is. After all, it’s a game where you have to gobble up dots to grow - and multiplayer adds slamming into the other snakes. It does make for surprisingly good fun though.
Overall, it’s a solid upgrade for such an older title. It’s not something that anyone’s going to go absolutely crazy over but for a quick playing phone games or something to just waste some small bits of time on it’s totally worth the incredibly inexpensive price.
- IGN, Review, 2005
PIE ANNOUNCED AS FIRAXIS BUYER
January 26, 2005
In November of last year, video game developer Firaxis - best known as the creators of Sid Meier's Civilization series as well as most other Sid Meier's games in general - had been put up for sale by their then current owner Infogrames. They were sold to a then top secret buyer, however this month the buyer has been revealed to be none other than Panasonic Interactive Entertainment. Formerly known as The 3DO Company or just '3DO', PIE has made a name for themselves in the industry of third party video game development and is so far Panasonic (Matsushita)'s only venture outside the realm of standard consumer electronics.
PIE spent at least $22.3 million on purchasing Firaxis, which is the company's first major acquisition since their purchasing of Crystal Dynamics in the later 1990's (1997). President & CEO of PIE, Laura De La Cruz, has stated that she is optimistic for the future of Firaxis under her company. This acquisition gives her company control over most Sid Meier's brands including Civilization, and also gives them control over all Firaxis development teams & resources.
While this certainly is not the biggest purchase in gaming's still young history, it certainly is going to be a big deal for those fans of the franchises and properties involved here. We can't be sure exactly how much is going to change here, but we know that things will be changing - as they always are.
- EGM, 2005
YOUTUBE: THE LATEST INTERNET SENSATION
February, 2005
The internet has just received the latest installment of websites, and this one is known only as YouTube.
What is YouTube? Well, it’s a site for you to broadcast yourself. Yes, you can have your own channel! A video sharing website, it’s essentially a website where as of right now it’s very difficult to really say there’s necessarily much you can’t do on the website - aside from the arguably ‘goes without saying’ stuff you might be thinking or worrying about.
Seeing as how the site has just been founded it obviously has a very small amount of users, and doesn’t really have any content posted quite yet - however it’s founders (comprised of many former PayPal employees), are all very optimistic about the future of their fledgling platform! After all, one can’t expect to become Friendster or MySpace overnight.
What do we personally see for YouTube?
Well, as of right now nothing in particular to be honest. We’ll all have to just wait and see where things go, but it is a little hard for us to personally picture much out of a ‘video sharing’ platform. We might just be waiting for MySpace to add the same thing to itself.
- AOL news, 2005
THE STATE OF MYSPACE
February, 2005
The year is 2005, and by now it seems that MySpace is up on the top of the internet’s food chain.
Or at least the ‘social media’ food chain, anyway.
Since its establishment in 2003, along with similar website Friendster, MySpace has been taking over the world. By now, it’s on the verge of becoming the largest, most visited and most used website in this current year of 2K5. As the internet continues to grow and expand, perhaps it’s only fitting that MySpace takes up the mantle as the king of the internet, the social site where we all can go to connect with people we know and people whom we haven’t gotten to know yet.
Honestly if you’re not on MySpace yet, I would definitely suggest making yourself an account before you’re left behind in the dust!
- AOL news, 2005
IS RARE GOING UP OR GOING DOWN?
February, 2005
Rare.
Rareware.
The kings of the later SNES and the whole of the N64 era, Nintendo’s greatest modern era development team. The Nintendo answer to STI, so to speak. However, this may now be a thing of the past as many of RARE’s more recent video game outings have yet to really wow the gaming masses as they once were able to.
Established during 1985 and purchased by Nintendo rather quietly in 2001, Rare is known for many games ranging from mainstream hits like Donkey Kong Country & Banjo Kazooie to cult classics like Conker’s Bad Fur Day and Battletoads. With 85 as it’s starting year in the industry, it can be said that they’ve “seen it all” so far, seeing as how that’s year that the NES itself first began to really be a thing people knew and cared about; and loved.
Their more recent games, Star Fox Adventures and Star Fox Assault - the latter being released during these past few weeks, are the main culprits.
In 2002, Star Fox Adventures was released after having been turned into a Star Fox game instead of Dinosaur Planet. While not considered an outright horrible game, many players were amazed with the graphics while miffed about the relative lack of actual arwing piloting - that being a staple of Star Fox gameplay after all. Essentially, it didn’t receive the acclaim that Rare games were accustomed to receiving. However, it was still good enough to be on the Nintendo GameCube, so it certainly was that bad of a Nintendo outing.
Then comes Star Fox Assault. Released this past week, Star Fox Assault is the sequel to Star Fox Adventures and the latest Rare game - one of two that they plan to release this year according to what they have told gaming press. Perhaps they didn’t focus on this title as much as they honestly should have, at least if they cared about it restoring their history of critical acclaim.
Now, keep in mind, the game is still receiving ‘above average’ reviews overall and certainly has elements that are an improvement over Adventures. However, some of the control can sloppy in places - and the design can get a little overly simplistic at times as well. However, the on-foot controls are virtually the same as it was in Star Fox Adventures. Nevertheless, it so far is the least well received Star Fox title to date. A sad fate for a game developed by Rare.
However, we do still have a certain other game coming up later this year, so perhaps we’ll just have to wait and see how much of a decline this actually is. Some are after all blaming Nintendo’s alleged ‘meddling’ in regards to these recent ‘shortcomings’ for the Star Fox series. Though it’s only really apparent with Adventures, we’re not sure if anything like that happened with Assault or not.
Nevertheless, hopefully they get back on track soon!
- IGN, 2005
THE PLUTO VS THE DS: HANDHELD CONSOLE WAR
March, 2005
Ever since the release of the Nintendo Gameboy, handheld portable gaming has taken the world by storm - only expanding a by now incredibly enormous gaming industry. Since then, as handheld systems have come and gone - advancing right alongside their larger home console counterparts, there are still some constants about the side market which have managed to remain true throughout its entire history.
Namely, that Nintendo remains number one.
That’s right, ever since it effectively established the market from the ether Nintendo has been practically unchallenged.
The Sega Game Gear? Came and went.
The Atari Lynx? Crashed and Burned.
The Tiger Game.com? Basically a joke.
None of these systems held much of a candle against the Nintendo GameBoy series. The Game Gear came close, but ultimately it had no cigar. Nowadays the GameBoy series has given way to the Nintendo DS and it’s double screens, and Nintendo is more than ready to continue it’s seemingly eternal reign over all handhelds.
That is, unless Sony has any say in the matter.
Enter the Sony Pluto, the Game Gear’s long awaited successor. Though no longer under the Sega banner, Sony is quick to remind those nostalgic for the old days their entire gaming division is after all what Sega has long since become.
Though it doesn’t have double screens, it does have a pretty attractive design and plenty of impressive looking games on it.
However, now that both of them are finally actually both out and competing against one another - which one is winning? Is the Nintendo DS following through on the expectations of continued dominance, or is the Pluto a rising star actually threatening the status quo? Well, at this early stage it’s a little hard to say - but from what we can tell things are a little more optimistic for Sony than it was for the Game Gear however that still isn’t really looking like it’s saying a whole lot.
For starters, their games.
For both of these systems we have mostly their launch titles to go off of. For the Nintendo DS we had Super Mario 64 DS as it’s first obligatory Mario title, and the Pluto responded with Sonic XL as it’s first obligatory Sonic title.
For the most part, the rest of the DS’ library has been simple shovelware titles you would expect from the system, barring the recently released Kirby title as well as Rayman DS and a compilation of Atari arcade classics. For the Pluto it’s unfortunately largely been roughly the same situation. However, the future looks bright for both systems.
For instance, Sony is looking into getting much more Sonic games developed for the system - in fact Tom Kalinske himself has assured us that he is “putting his foot down” on making sure there is a “healthy” stream of Sonic content for the Pluto, likely in an attempt to use Sony’s much larger resources (compared to Sega) in order to combat Mario’s massively larger and much more steadier stream of regularly released titles. Speaking of which, many Mario titles are expected to be released for the Nintendo DS, along with the next generation of Pokemon titles which we also should be expecting quite soon.
Well, that and the upcoming release of Nintendogs. Which our opinion is that it’s by far the cutest and most precious game to be released to the world thus far. Definitely want it.
We also are looking forward to, for this year, Mario & Luigi: Partners in Time as well as Mario Kart DS, with Super Princess Peach also being a revolutionary title we’re looking forward too as well! That’s right, an actual game focusing on Princess Peach instead of Mario, finally serving as the heroine instead of the damsel in distress consistently kidnapped! We’re also expecting an appearance from Wario, Metroid and virtually every other Nintendo franchise at some stage of the DS’ lifespan.
For the Pluto, we’ve seen advertisements this year for various Sonic games too. Sony has announced that Fujiwara will be working on Pluto Sonic games in place of Sonic Team/STI, and that these games will be including their own revamped Sonic RPG series, in addition to even a few more games inspired by the Chao as well as even Shadow and Knuckles. Indeed, later this year Shadow is supposedly going to be getting his own game exclusively for the Pluto handheld system!
While it’s hard to imagine that the Pluto is seriously going to be a competitor to the Nintendo DS, all we can really do is stay tuned to see what the ultimate outcome will be.
- GamePro, 2005
SONY ESTABLISHES ANIPLEX USA
March, 2005
Brand new anime news from Sony!
Little known to many anime fans, or perhaps not, but Sony does in fact own anime/music producer & distributor Aniplex - best known at this current time for their work on the anime adaptation of Fullmetal Alchemist.
Well, as it turns out they are now officially colonizing our western shores as they are officially establishing Aniplex USA!
- Unknown Anime news tabloid, 2005
SONY CUTS TIES WITH 4KIDS: THE END OF SONIC X
March, 2005
This week has been a big deal for both anime and cartoons alike it seems! First, Sony establishes Aniplex USA - and now, it has also been made public that Sony is no longer allowing 4Kids to distribute their anime content in the immediate future. Now, what this means for 4Kids viewers is that not only will future Sony-based anime not be produced by or for them, but it also means that Sonic X is coming to an abrupt end on the channel, after it had been enjoying many reruns in America even a fair while since the original Japanese version ended both airing and production. We were unable to get any comment from 4Kids at any point as to why it opted to continue the reruns for so long.
As for what this means for the anime community, there really isn’t much to say actually - there really aren’t that many bits of anime content related to Sony (read: basically Sega) properties. There’s the Sonic OVA from ‘96-’99, the two Sonic films from ‘98 and ‘01 and the Virtua Fighter OVA film, but there’s not really a whole lot else besides those things as of yet - though anything Aniplex owns can technically be considered Sony material that could have potentially ended up on 4Kids at one point.
In shortened terms, it looks like 4KidsTV won’t be getting any Shenmue anime dub anytime soon.
However, the show must go on - 4Kids still fully intends on going forward with continuing their dubs of other Japanese animated entertainment with or without Sony or Sonic. After all, they already lost their control over the Pokemon dubs, this same year in fact! However, they still have Yu-gi-OH!, One Piece, Mew Mew Power, Winx Club and much more either already running or otherwise up and coming, so in all honesty they should be just fine for many years in the upcoming future! Very fine indeed!
- Unknown Anime news tabloid, 2005
“Winx Club is not an anime.” - Anonymous comment on the online version of the article from a private individual residing in the U.S. State of Wyoming.
SONY & TIME WARNER,’BIG DEAL’ COMING SOON:
March, 2005
Just a few weeks after the news that not only did Sony create Aniplex USA but that they also cut ties with prolific anime dubbers 4Kids Entertainment of FoxBox & 4KidsTV fame comes yet another bit of television related news relating to the Sony corporation. This time, however, the other player is apparently none other than media giant Time Warner - the one and only.
Indeed, evidently a Sony insider has revealed to the media that there is a brewing business ‘arrangement’ going on between the two conglomerates, though no details as to what this arrangement could be was actually been given to us or any news outlet for that matter. It was implied though that Sony’s most iconic American representative, Tom Kalinske, is doing much of the negotiating. However, given that Time Warner is known for not only being the beings behind Warner Bros. but also television names such as Cartoon Network, Adult Swim, The WB, and TBS we can at least make an educated guess that this brewing deal may have something to do with the television industry. At least, that’s what we’re thinking anyway. Perhaps this has something to do with video games though, since Sony is the other party.
We definitely intend on staying tuned to see where these apparent business talks go!
- Unknown Anime news tabloid, 2005
60 MINUTES TALKS ABOUT GAMES; GAMERS TAKE OFFENSE
March, 2005
“Can A Video Game Lead to Murder?” - Title of the CBS ‘60 Minutes’ segment first ever aired in early March 2005, which featured Jack Thompson as a guest speaker.
“The segment highlights the murder of three police officers at the hands of a young man, with Thompson asserting that Grand Theft Auto had ‘trained’ him to do this. Yes, he’s asserting that Rockstar is training us all to be mass shooters and murderers, apparently. Now yes Grand Theft Auto likely had some role in shaping him as a person but to just flat out ignore anything such as potential child abuse or mental illness is just ridiculous. Then again how else would Thompson push his usual bile?” - Unknown IGN forum user from Boston MA, 2005
“Jack Thompson is full of gas and hot air.” - Unknown GameSpot user from London UK, 2005
GAME DEVELOPERS CONFERENCE ‘05 HIGHLIGHTS:
March, 2005
Yet another annual day for gamers everywhere has arrived. Not E3, no, that’s still a few more months away. Instead, we’re looking at 2005’s Game Developers’ Conference. It’s really sort of like a scaled-down E3 though, in all fairness. Basically a preview of what we’re going to be talking about come May.
First off, the games shown off.
For Nintendo we received showings of their upcoming Nintendogs for the DS and their very much anticipated GameCube outing in the form of Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess. We also got some Donkey Kong, Pokemon and even some Yoshi titles to name a few. They had the most games shown off at the conference, which was actually rather refreshing to see.
Nokia was also a major contributor to showings during the conference too, though a lot of their games were to be third party releases. They did talk about their upcoming system, the Nokia Neo-GX however, which had already been revealed in Europe since New Years Day. Though no games for that future piece of tech were yet shown off, unfortunately. An adaptation of Scarface, Stubbs the Zombie, an actual game about 50 Cent and some others were shown off at the conference.
Sony’s performance was mostly focused on the Sony Pluto. They showed off some of their Sonic games planned for it, and talked about improvements they wanted to make to their online services, but hey at least Tom Kalinske himself was their main representative - proving that he does indeed still work for them! They did show some Neptune games, but none of the ones they really showed content for were ones really worth getting uppity about.
The big takeaway from the conference though were the speeches delivered by the key representatives of the contemporary big three. Satoru Iwata, Ikka Raiskinen and Tom Kalinske all had messages to say to all of us - and honestly, they all delivered them rather well.
Iwata’s speech, ‘Heart of a Gamer’ was honestly one of the most engaging speeches I’ve heard from this industry. It really did seem like it came from a place deep within the man, and it really did bring out what it really means to be a Gamer; reminding us all at the end of the day what Nintendo really is all about.
Seeing Kalinske again was a real treat too. Though his speech wasn’t as sentimental as Iwata’s was, he still had a realness in his keynote as well. Called ‘Gaming with Attitude’, he seemed to reminiscence about how much the industry has changed since he landed his job at Sega all those years back, and also where things are headed in the future. This did not culminate in a price or console reveal though.
Mr. Raiskinen’s speech ‘The Future of Games’ was alright I suppose, his keynote also asserted a theme of what was coming in the future for Nokia’s role in the video game industry. There was as such, a little bit of talk about the next generation system in there. There wasn’t really much to it, but I still don’t consider his speech to be bad. In fact, he was clearly rather confident in Nokia’s future.
As a whole, a rather decent preview of what’s coming for us this year.
- GamePro, 2005 excerpt
DEVIL MAY CRY 3: DANTE’S AWAKENING
March, 2005
Get ready for some action that's so good it's liable to make you gnash your teeth and possibly smash your controller. Devil May Cry 3 is an appropriate about-face for the most memorable of Capcom's more recent franchises, one that started with a bang back in 2001 but flubbed its second outing two years ago. Now Devil May Cry is back, once again featuring the irreverent, inhumanly strong half-demon Dante in the starring role, and it easily presents the series' most challenging adventure yet. Devil May Cry 3 packs in a deep, outstanding combat system, plenty of spectacular story sequences, and lots of flair. Unfortunately, it's unbelievably, unreasonably difficult at first. Think of the most punishing game you played in the last several years. Now, imagine the second or third level of this game being even harder than that. Overcoming Devil May Cry 3's near-vertical learning curve could prove extremely frustrating, to the point where some players will justifiably give up after repeatedly failing the first few missions. That's really too bad, because anyone who perseveres long enough to learn the ropes will probably agree that Devil May Cry 3 is one of the best Neptune action adventure games since the original.
- GameSpot, review excerpt
“Following the let down that was Devil May Cry 2, this is an excellent return to form for the series! If you wanna be a true DMC fan, get. this. game." - Martin Wilson, GameSpot, 2005
“It's extremely hard for me though, like jesus christ! I feel like I literally can't progress at all no matter how many times I try to practice up! Challenge is a good thing for any real game or gamer, but honestly this one takes things a little far in my opinion. Aside from that though, it's an absolutely amazing title and worth full price.” - Craig Henry, IGN, 2005
“Extremely hard at least in the North American version, however almost literally everything else is solid quality gaming. Still extremely recommended.” - Christian Vince, EGM, 2005
MORTAL KOMBAT: DECEPTION
March, 2005
The latest in Midway's influential and long-running fighting game series, Mortal Kombat: Deception, picks up where 2002's Mortal Kombat: Deadly Alliance left off by featuring lots of new and returning fighters, a variety of surprising new modes of play, and, perhaps best of all, the ability to play online. The strangest part about Deception is how it includes several completely off-the-wall modes, the likes of which you'd never expect from a fighting game. These include the single-player konquest mode, which is a story-driven adventure; puzzle kombat, a competitive Tetris-style puzzle game that's an unabashed homage to Capcom's Super Puzzle Fighter II Turbo; and chess kombat, which is inspired by the classic computer game Archon. The konquest mode is disappointingly bland, while these other two modes are at least amusing. However, the core one-on-one fighting action--whether you play it offline or online--is easily the best part of the game. Like its predecessor, the fighting in Mortal Kombat: Deception is gory, intense, and quite complex, meaning it captures much of what's made MK an institution among fighting games.
- GameSpot, review excerpt.
“Fatality” - Various anonymous internet comments, 2005-2006
“For those who are into Mortal Kombat over Virtua Fighter or Tekken, this is an excellent game to return to the series with. Definitely don't skip out on this one.” - GamePro, 2005
“This reinvigorated my love for MK” - Jefferey Luong, 2005, EGM
“I still personally prefer Virtua Fighter” - Kyle Wiener, Sega fan web forum, 2005
SOLITUDE
March, 2005
Of the current iteration of gaming’s ‘Big Three’, Nokia hasn’t been known as the best. Of course, they’ve only risen to the spot after 3DO bit the dust so perhaps it’s simply them having not yet shaken off the ‘Freshman’ label. However, there’s not going to be so ‘new’ forever, especially with the next generation nearing with every second that passes. Despite that fact though, Nokia is not giving up on trying it’s best to appeal to the little people who actually are supposed to buy their products.
Case in point for this evening, Solitude.
What is solitude? It’s a relatively rare species, a first-party title made and published by Nokia’s own internal game development teams meaning it’s one of this year’s newer IP’s - and even we think it’s arguably shaping up to be a new franchise of sorts! With gaming being in a craze of First Person Shooters ever since the start of this current gaming generation, for me at least it’s refreshing to see a game that’s actually a survival horror-esque game that’s not Resident Evil or Silent Hill. However, this game is thankfully not only not those games in terms of title but in terms of gameplay as well - a true survival horror noir type game, one which will leave you both hooked and trembling for the entire duration of your gaming sessions. The Neo’s powerful graphical capabilities certainly help, after all. The game takes place in what I assume is Finland itself, during the winter time no less. This means the Neo gets to show off it’s wonderful world of snow physics - and also means that outside of spending time indoors you’re not going to move precisely fast. However, this is a horror themed noir style game complete with uncovering the mystery behind the opening tragedy of what was initially believed to be an animal attack turning into a murder mystery that only seems to get even crazier as the plot marches on, culminating in an ending that is reminiscent of what you’d find in a Stephen King book. With the atmosphere being largely snow-drenched forests complete with tall trees and all encompassing fog everywhere - you really do get a sense that the title is in fact rather accurate.
- GameSpot, review excerpt
“Mystifying, Stunning, Frightening.” - Nokia magazine, 2005
“#1 Neo Seller, definite must-have” - Eurogamer, 2005
“This game is one of the best games to play with the lights off, in the middle of your room, and absolutely alone. Make sure to keep a blanket on or near you to hide under because you probably will need it once in a while!" - Christian Fyler, 2005, GamePro
“The best modern horror game released thus far. If you're into horror, this is an absolute must have and a definitive reason for you to get yourself a Neo!” - Cody Sampson, 2005, IGN
“Every minute of the campaign is going to keep you on the edge of your feet, and when the scares come you will quickly transition from that into jumping. And then, you will be locked firmly in intense gaming action, requiring total focus on getting the objectives done. Excellent, must-have title. Totally recommended.” - Thomas Harper, 2005, EGM
“Until this game came out, I was skeptical of Nokia's capabilities. Now that's it out, I'm on their side.” - Houston Samuel, 2005, GameSpot
"European Top Seller!" - Eurogamer, 2005
SUPER MONKEY BALL DELUXE
March, 2005
The turn of the century did not only see the birth of a new era of gaming consoles, it also saw what appeared to be the birth of a reignition of the creative juices that first saw the rise of Sega’s great franchises. Super Monkey Ball stood out from the rest of Sega (now Sony)'s games library. Forget high-speed space battles or wandering around 1980’s Japan, gamers who were willing to take a chance on this strange new title found for themselves taking part in an incredible and nerve-wracking challenge in the form of navigating ball-encased monkeys across abstractly constructed checker platforms floating in infinity. Being Sony products, the Super Monkey Ball series is strictly Neptune (and/or Pluto) exclusive - and Deluxe is no exception to that rule. What sets Deluxe apart from the previous games in the series then? Well, to put it shortly it brings together the content from both of the previous games and combines them into one seamless, fantastic package. If you somehow missed this charming little corner of Sony’s would-have-been Sega library, then this is an excellent way to catch up on what you’ve missed out on - especially since not only does it include said content, but it even tosses in some extra content not in either previous game, to really make sure it’s worth a returning player or general newcomer’s while. We definitely advise giving this game a shot!
- GameSpot, review excerpt.
“Wholesome family fun for all ages” - GamePro, 2005
“An entertaining piece of gaming that will introduce your '05 kids to the series' past as well as offer just enough content to engage present day returnees! Hours of fun for all ages!” - EGM, 2005
GOD OF WAR: MEET KRATOS, SONY’S NEWEST ICON
March, 2005
The time has come, to take the fight to the Gods. The Old Gods.
Indeed, Sony (that's us!) has given us yet another gift this year from their internal development studio teams, this time in the form of God of War - a game that introduces us to Kratos and his struggle with the powerful deities of Ancient Greece. We’re talking Zeus, Athena, Hades, Apollo - the whole chabang and more (as not only the gods, but the related selection of beasts & monsters show up as well). But most importantly of all, in typical Sony fashion everything about this game’s graphics, presentation and gameplay oozes the fact that it is high quality gaming content.
Where can we start? Well about with the man, the myth, the legend himself - Kratos. Kratos is far removed from being anything close to Sonic the Hedgehog, let’s put it like that.
With an emphasis on both exploration and absolutely thrashing your enemies with Kratos' sheer power, all with true Greek tragedy story-telling as the game has about three-to-four acts in which the story is told. Did we also mention that Kratos is equipped with two sword-like chain weapons with which he can not only slash his enemies but also pull them close to him for even better pumblings - let alone his brutal multi-hit combos. All programmed exquisitely, might we add.
How to describe this game in but a few words?
Clash of the Titans meets Heavy Metal.
Enough said
- Sony Magazine, review excerpt.
“Brutal. Epic. Gripping. Best Game for the Neptune so far.” - John Goode, 2005, IGN User Review
“Everything about this game I just plain love, for lack of a better word. I can't describe how much sheer awesomeness is wrapped up in this disc-shaped package. I can't see myself not playing this game for at least the rest of the year - unless Sony somehow gives us something even more awesome, at least.” - David Chopra, 2005, GameSpot User Review
“This game introduced me to Kratos. Kratos introduced me to what being badass really felt like." - Alexander Lopez, 2005, GamePro Magazine
“This is the game I'll be playing for the next few months.” - Felix Oscar, 2005, Unknown Web Forum
“This is the kind of game that you will feel should have existed before, but at the same you will agree came out at the perfect time.” - Gregory Wilchuck, 2005, Sony Magazine
“This is the future of gaming, and it's great.” - Elliot Popper, 2005, EGM
THE MATRIX ONLINE
March, 2005
Welp, it seems that everything really is going online these days! First it was announced that Shenmue was going online, and now it seems that The Matrix has beaten that to the punch! That’s right, you can now go online in the world of the Matrix! The implications of this can’t really be discussed much here of course, but just know that as far as we are aware there is still currently no need to worry about taking any pills with this game. At least, we hope not.
Regardless, published by Warner Bros. Interactive while developed by Monolith The Matrix Online is the latest in the craze of MMORpg games in the same vein as World of Warcraft or Runescape, except it puts you in both the world and story of The Matrix films. That’s right, you get to experience a direct continuation of the films as if you actually are in it’s simulated universe. You can play as your own character too, experiencing the continuation of the Matrix franchise through a being of your own virtual creation. All of the characters you recognize from each of the movies are present, from Neo and Morpheus to even those running the simulations. It’s a real world of cyber warfare out there, ready to be explored.
If you are a fan of the Matrix, we’d argue this is virtually required for to hook yourself up to. Remember, we’re only telling you the truth - nothing more.
- GamePro Magazine excerpt, 2005
“Take the Red Pill. Play the Game.” -
“While I still can't say I'm super excited about paying monthly for the full force of a game's features, I can say that these games sure do seem to be something of the future for the industry if World of Warcraft is any indication.” -
“What if this game isn't a game, but is actually reality?” -
LEGO STAR WARS
April, 2005
A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away….
It’s a space opera we’ve been obsessed with since it first came out decades ago, and now it’s being introduced to us in a whole new way.
In what new way?
Thanks to Traveller’s Tales, in the form of Lego! That’s right, Lego! Lego Star Wars, and it’s multi-platform too!
This light-hearted, comedic and lego based approach to the Star Wars saga breathes new life to an aging yet still kicking franchise in ways we honestly would not have even thought of! And honestly, even though it is marketed primarily for the demographic that will get the most kicks out of Legos, it honestly still has things in it that will make people of all audiences like it once in a while! It’s full of extra content, such as unlockable levels, characters and all sorts of other extras - the only thing stopping you from exploring the lego side of the force is yourself!
- GamePro magazine excerpt, 2005.
“Very unexpectedly good game.” - James Gregory, 2005, EGM
“My kid spends most of his days playing this game now, and he seems to really like it so it has no complaints from me. ” - Catherine Morgan, 2005, Unknown Kids Magazine
“Good old fashioned fun for all ages, even if mostly the children.” - Eli Johnson, 2005, Nintendo Power
“An excellent game to introduce your youngest kids to if you want them to be initiated into what Star Wars is all about.” - Daniel Young, 2005, Star Wars fan forum
"I don't like it, I find it a watered down kiddy version of my favorite movie franchise. This is basically just Star Wars for babies." - Craig Wihelm, 2005, Star Wars fan forum
PSYCHONAUTS
April, 2005
Psychonauts is a quirky, offbeat game set in a special summer camp for clairvoyant kids, in which a group of psychic children end up in a wacky adventure filled with brain-stealing hijinks, psychic secret agents, and a little romance on top of everything else. It's rooted in the sorts of 3D platforming sensibilities we've all come to know over the years. But there's a spin to the game--its psychic theme--which adds some cool puzzle-solving to the usual platform-jumping and swinging associated with the genre. Psychonauts also bears the unmistakable mark of designer Tim Schafer (known for classic adventure games Grim Fandango, Full Throttle, and Day of the Tentacle), thanks to a hilarious array of peculiar characters and a story that never fails to entertain. Psychonauts doesn't reinvent the platformer, but it still delivers an experience that feels wholly original in every aspect of its execution.
- GameSpot, review excerpt
“This is the most underrated game I have ever played. Why didn't this get popular? Are people just insane?” - Fiona Wong, 2006, YouTube Comment
“It's an honest tragedy that this amazing platformer never caught on. The mere concept was interesting. The gameplay was top-notch. The style reminded me of some of my favorite movies. Everything was so amazing, yet it looks to be little more than a cult classic. Sad.” - George Deaumont, 2007, YouTube Comment
“This game should be #1 seller!” - Ulysses Wilson, 2005, GamePro magazine
“The game certainly is good, but you can't expect a game like this to come around literally every year I suppose.” - Kyle Rodger, IGN User Review, 2005
JADE EMPIRE
April, 2005
Ever since they first made that Star Wars game series way back when, BioWare has become the grand champion of RPG’s. Baldur’s Gate, Neverwinter Nights and Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic have all become household names in the realm of RPG players all across this planet of ours. As such, one can imagine and understand the eager when they announced that they have yet again graced us with another entry in their resume of excellent RPG’s. And honestly, it’s worth checking out! For one, it finally takes place in an honestly original setting. Jade Empire as it’s called takes place in what is essentially for all intents and purposes, Imperial China. Inspired by Chinese mythology, this world is far removed from the medieval Dragon’s Age or the great Galaxy of Star Wars; however Jade Empire is still undoubtedly similar to it’s predecessors regardless, still having that classic BioWare touch that makes it unmistakably one of their pieces. With a complex storyline, distinctly BioWare quality standards, amazing characters and absolutely impressive presentation as well as tremendous replay value we really can’t see a reason why you wouldn’t want to pick this game up and give it a try!
- GameSpot, review excerpt.
“I was hooked on this game from day one of playing it. So immersed in it's setting and with it's characters that I couldn't stop playing it every day 'til I finished it. Definitely worth checking out, definitely recommended.” - Harold Wilson, 2005, IGN User Review
“Excellent game. I really liked the way they used Chinese mythology to form such an interesting world. I wonder if they'll ever make a sequel?” - Kevin Marcano, 2005, GameSpot User Review
“Top tier game!" - Lars Kastopolos, GamePro, 2005
“BioWare is excellent for making games that immerse you in their story and their world-building. While I don't necessarily think Jade Empire is their best title so far, I'm just more into Sci-Fi, I definitely see the appeal of it and can imagine it is indeed a decent quality game with a very unique concept. We really do need originality in this world of increasing first person shooters. Luckily when it comes to games, there's always a market for virtually everything. We're one of the few markets where even revisiting obsolete tech can still be viable.” - Naomi Carter, IGN User Review, 2005
E3 2005
E3 2005, the tenth E3. As if to commemorate that fact, E3 ‘05 proved to be arguably just as explosive as the first E3 (‘95) had been - and much like it, proved to be an explosion of gaming news and feature a plethora of both hardware and software for young gamer eyes to feast on. Taking place in Los Angeles during the heated months of May, E3 ‘05 would see the unveiling of the next generation of gaming systems from The Big Three - Nokia, Nintendo and Sony. As part of E3 tradition, all three of them held pre-show conferences to announce the big titles they were cooking up behind closed doors. The Sony Solaris and Nokia Neo-GX were unveiled first on Monday, while Nintendo’s “Revolution” was revealed the following day.
The Nokia presentation was actually an improvement from their previous showings, though it was still weak compared to its competition. For one, the Neo-GX had been revealed not long prior to the show, and Nokia quite frankly did not shut up about it being the best video game system “ever”. Seeding leaks out, commissioning infomercials, the works. This went for both Europe and America, with them being very aggressive to turn around the argument that they were doing poorly in America. They were pulling out all of the stops that they could afford to, and some people were a bit sick of it. Their console simply had so much to live up to in the way of promises, and most of what was revealed at E3 was nothing that was much new besides some gameplay footage. That said, it was still a worthy successor to the Neo, boasting an impressive set of technical specifications. Battlefield 2, though it was for the original Neo was also looking impressive. Sony on the other hand, played things right.
While Nokia’s unveiling was not bad by any means, Sony’s was simply better. For months, Sony was silent on the subject of a next generation console. All that had been leaked was unrelated news - something about another Sonic movie and a Shenmue thing, which at E3 was confirmed to actually be an upcoming Mini-series, not actually an anime adaptation. At E3 however, Sony revived some of Sega’s 90’s attitudes and went on the attack - against Nokia. Clearly intent on responding to Nokia’s challenges before it’s momentum really got started, Sony made sure it’s presentation also pulled out all the stops. The Sony Solaris itself made its debut to the gaming world, touting impressive specifications while it’s gaming software demos (including an extremely early build of that aforementioned Sonic game) were just as impressive. In fact, the majority of Sony’s pre-show was dedicated to the Solaris, with most of the current generation stuff being left to the show floor - something which nobody expected. Sony had no restraint from bragging that the Neo-GX outputted 1080i and 720 HD, while the Solaris trumped it with dual 1080p signals.
Speaking of what Sony had on the main show floor, they had more Pluto games lined up - Sonic Rush, a game based around Shadow the Hedgehog; and for the Neptune they were intending more Sonic spin-off games and even a game named after and based on Knuckles the Echidna. We were also getting Pluto ports of the Sakura Wars series, and it seemed like the entire series was going to move on to being handheld RPGs rather than home consoles. There also was the reveal that Sony was partnering with third party developer Fujiwara games for the continued development of Sonic-inspired handheld games for the Sony Pluto, with Sonic RPG titles and other spin-offs being predominantly on the table.
There was also talk of upcoming game titles: Yakuza (which would go on to produce yet another largely successful franchise) and Shenmue Online were prominent. God of War, being their newest IP, was also a major talking point though regarding potential sequels.
Then came Nintendo the following day, revealing the “Revolution” - though it would eventually be renamed to the Wii. Though still a prototype, it was shown off. Albeit, in a jet black color which would be rare for the final design. Nintendo boasted that it finally had a built-in DVD player rather than having that feature be a separate add-on. They also stressed its ability to play GameCube games, and the ability to download a vast array of Nintendo software past, present and future via Wi-Fi. They also of course committed that a new Super Smash Bros. game would in fact be made for the system. Unfortunately, it was stressed that Sony and Nintendo still hated each other enough to ensure Sonic would not be part of it.
On the current generation front, the GameCube had Legend of Zelda: The Twilight Princess, and also the Gameboy Micro.
PC Games didn’t get lost in the shuffle either. Spore, Fear and Civilization IV all looked like promising editions to the PC. While there were many sequels, spin-offs and franchise games to go around both on PC and console, for PC things did seem promising in the way of really excellent titles - Company of Heroes, Call of Duty 2, D&D Online, The Witcher and Half-Life 2: Lost Coast were all on the list of subjects spoken of the most beyond the three I first mentioned up an’ above.
Speaking of Spore, Will Wright himself was present and discussing the same spiel about it non-stop, as people flowed into the closed doors of said presentation like rednecks at a yard sale.
E3 2005 was also something of a time to reflect on how much gaming has changed. Many faces from the past were either gone entirely or changed dramatically. 3DO was now PIE and no longer made consoles. Sega was completely absorbed into Sony, with the Sega name itself being in the process of slowly fading away as time continued to pass. Nokia was still relatively new on the scene, and had taken over SNK. Atari was still around, but no longer had any hardware and was still a shadow of its former self. Really only Nintendo and some of the bigger name third party companies still seemed to remain relatively the same since that fateful day back in 1995.
And as with all things, the changes were only going to keep coming.
- IGN, 2012
SONYPOLIS GREECE: STATE OF THE PARK
May, 2005
Last year, Sony went full ham on their entrance into the arena of theme parks - establishing Sonypolis in Athens, Greece. What is Sonypolis? Think SegaWorld or Joypolis except also basically Disneyland. In its opening year, it was actually rather successful - garnering plenty of visitors on account of the olympics that went on not long after it’s grand opening. The recently established parks division of Sony also talked about opening more locations across the globe in the future, making us for a moment think that Sony was spending quite a little too much time on parks instead of, well, games.
Well, the numbers are in and the park is doing ...just fine.
Indeed, evidently the regular attendants are certainly high but not a lot of people are making the trip to Greece just to see Sonypolis. Most still want to see what Greece is best known for - the ancient ruins and their history. Those living in Greece make up most of the actual park attendance, but evidently there is a bit of national pride to the park. A little. Or at least, we assume so.
This has caused many of the planned locations to already be scrapped and/or scaled down from what we’ve been told - due to not getting as much income from Sonypolis as had originally been hoped. Perhaps if SegaWorld Sydney hadn’t burned down, or SegaWorld London not shut down, they would have a little extra.
Nevertheless, they have confirmed that Sonypolis Rio (Rio De Janeiro, Brazil) and Sonypolis Rome (Rome, Italy) are still going to be happening. But they are not going to be as “Disneyland” as the original in Athens due to the billions of dollars it costs to both construct and maintain such a thing. It should be stated that the original park in Greece cost 3-4 if not 5, billion dollars according to Sony's claim. It has yet to fully make back that large investment. Sonypolis Rio and Sonypolis Rome are estimated to be at the least "only" a few hundred million dollars and at most only 1-2 billion. In addition there will be less noise pollution - because yes a few Athenians have started complaining about the park being relatively close to actual city living and working areas.
Evidently some attractions have already been removed from the original Athens location too, due to not being able to pay for their maintenance. Some of Athens’ citizenry also state that the park is too expensive for them to visit, never mind that the area around it also has become rather rapidly known for congested traffic.
However, Sony’s Parks division is reportedly still optimistic about the future - it’s head honcho stated that they are “positive” that it’s simply a “slow year for the park”, citing that “the greek economy is doing rather well” as a key reason for why he believes it is a decent investment for Sony to continue operating in Athens.
- Los Angeles times
“Spoiler Alert: Sony starting a park business in Greece turned out to be a massive mistake and waste of money.” - Anonymous YouTube commentor, 2009. The video in question was a late 2008 upload of a 2004 Sonypolis Greece commercial.
WHAT HAPPENED TO THE SEGA LOGO?
May, 2005
“Is it just me, or is Sony progressively getting rid of the Sega logo as time goes on? In SA2 they still had it there, but now they’ve just basically stopped using it.” - IGN Forum Post, 2005
“Sega is dead” - IGN Forum response, 2005
“Literally the only two things still keeping the Sega name are STI and SegaNet. They probably won’t keep their names for long once the next gen hits though.” - IGN Forum response, 2005
“Honestly this was probably Sony’s plan from the start.” - IGN Forum response, 2005
MIKE POLLOCK WILL BE VOICING EGGMAN NOW
May, 2005
- Discussion from a Sonic the Hedgehog fan forum.
SONIC NEXT-GEN MOVIE & GAME, SHENMUE MINI-SERIES + ONLINE & MORE
May, 2005
Recently it has been announced, at E3 no less, that Sony will indeed be producing a Sonic title to go along with their next generation system - the Sony Solaris. This will be their first platform not co-produced with another party due to their purchase of Sega in 2001, so this will certainly be a big deal for the corporate juggernaut. So far we don’t really have a lot of information to go on other than a few leaked concept art from the game - though reportedly the leaked images are already considered to be ‘outdated’ by Sony officials - and their security has apparently been ‘tightened’ as well to avoid further leaks.
These leaks also revealed what appeared to be concept art of a Shenmue title, however these have turned out not to be for the next Shenmue title - which has been confirmed for the Solaris as well, but instead was actually intended for a Shenmue t.v. mini-series set to begin airing in Japan around this October. Sony is apparently intending to really put it’s foot down on jumping into it’s homeland’s television since we assume this could be them starting to produce Japanese shows for all of their (formerly Sega) franchises. We here in the West hope this isn’t getting in the way of them making the next Spider-man movie, which honestly despite that joke no it probably isn’t.
However, we haven’t heard of Shenmue Online in quite a while. We heard a little about it at E3 this year, but not really a whole lot considering it still hasn’t been released - even with The Matrix Online being out and about these days. Perhaps it’s waiting for Next Gen? Then again, we have heard that fan response hasn’t actually been keen on the idea of the MMORpg - perhaps that is why we have heard so next to nothing about it.
As a whole with God of War rocking the gaming world and Yakuza, Shenmue 3, Next Gen Sonic, more Pluto games and even more sequels to many other Sega classics on the way we are definitely keeping our eyes on Sony for this incoming console generation!
- GamePro, 2005
SONY WATCH: HOW LIKELY IS SONY TO BUY MARVEL?
May, 2005
- Forum Discussion, unknown Forum, 2005
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The Shenmue mini-series is a good idea and could work well like a different look of the franchise and the MMORPG, hope if it goes to some place ITTL
Well, the MMORPG for Shenmue was apparently very unpopular with the fans....lol
Because was not a game when the franchise was in limbo post dreamcast..here could be similar, they waiting for the next one but don't bite on the MMORPG(With PSO already existing)
(2001 - 2005): The Next Gen Problem
Sorry for the delay with this update, was working on my other timeline I recently posted. Anyway, here's something of a bonus post, as well as a preview of things to come sooner than you think.
“Throughout it’s time under the Sony banner, Sonic Team proved to be the source of great internal conflict for Sony. They had, arguably, been so under SEGA as well; or at least they must have been. They showed a lot of jealousy towards the Technical Institute [STI], in regards to them and Sony’s studios working together on Sonic X-Treme, and then STI again taking the credit for Sonic Adventure 2 despite some Sonic Team members such as Iizuka, Naka and others being allowed some say on that project as well. Yuji Naka in particular was also opposed to a genuine sequel being created for NiGHTS into Dreams, along with the use of it’s engine in other products. In my view, corporate had simply lost all the patience it had about dealing with Sonic Team, and as they [Sony] owned the rights to Sonic, they knew that legally they had the power to simply have the team of their choice produce products for Sonic. It was unfortunate to see Yuji Naka leave, but it was honestly his own personal decision. That said, I do agree with their premise that corporate could have and very well should have informed them [Sonic Team] sooner of the game’s production.” - Anonymous Sony insider, 2007 interview with Sega Retro
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Just curious: does Solitude take inspiration from this famous unsolved Finland case: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lake_Bodom_murders
That case is fairly well-known (IIRC, it's believed to be one of the inspirations for the Friday the 13th series)...
That case is fairly well-known (IIRC, it's believed to be one of the inspirations for the Friday the 13th series)...
It might, Nivek gave me the idea! To tell the truth, it's resemblence to those, likely coincidental, but nice to know
I Based it on a nordic tv show i watch might have been ispired by those...ummm those can inspire other thing too. Solitude was to inspire that feel of despair and who is the monster in the great north...
2005 Part II: A Change of Pace
Trying something new here.
I really just kinda got bored and tried a more "traditional" style in order to bring life into this thread as well as post something.
If you guys like this new style I'll try to continue using it, but the next post is probably going to go back to the usual-ish style (but I might try a hybrid) but I might start dividing posts into sections for each of the Big Three companies.
ALSO: Might go back and edit out political world events so one can lowkey imagine it takes place within my Gore timeline, if you so wish. Fully optional. Both can exist without the other.
So consider this an experiment post, I guess.
2005.
It was hard to believe that it had been that long since the original Sega-Sony Hardware plan had successfully, albeit barely, made it through Hayao Nakayama and the executive board at SEGA. It was hard to believe how skeptical Nakayama had been. How honestly foolish and, pardon the language, ignorant he was of the potential the partnership had at first. Kalinske understood, to an extent, that it was fear of Sony as a competitor that kept SEGA so skeptical - though the irony was that taming the beast accomplished the exact opposite. Though SEGA of Japan gave him a hard time, virtually solely due to it distrusting Kalinske and his American branch of the company, once the money from the Saturn's success rolled in he was able to use Sony as a mediator between SEGA America and SEGA Japan - an invaluable asset. Many of Kalinske's proposals and ideas would not have gone ahead without Sony mediating.
The SEGA Genesis would not have been kept on the market as long as it had. Though, the loss of the Game Gear come '99 was unavoidable once Pokemon had reached the shores of the United States.
Speaking of which, by that point Nakayama himself was out the door at SEGA Japan, and to this day Kalinske wasn't entirely sure what became of him. Not that he had any time to find out, nor that it mattered for that matter. Come 2001, SEGA as a whole soon ceased to exist - Sony absorbed it with a roughly 4 billion purchase. Kalinske fondly remembered hearing the news, and the first words out of his mouth afterwards were "well it sure took them long enough!"
While he laughed at the time, it was largely due to the hindsight. Tom wasn't an idiot, he could tell that the dysfunction within SEGA Japan had long reached a tipping point. The executives weren't idiots by any means, they were simply ineffective. Or perhaps he was being too generous. Still, as much as he had fond memories for the SEGA brand, he couldn't deny that once Sony pulled it into it's own vast empire things had tremendously improved. Even his position improved. Once the transition from SEGA to SSCEE (Sony-Sega Computer Entertainment Enterprises) was complete, he passed the torch of the gaming division to his former right-hand Stephen Race, or "Steve" as he was called. Kalinske was, however, kept on SSCEE's executive board. At least, for a short period. In 2003, he was tapped to become the effective head of Sony Corporation of America. While his rise to the position was not without controversy, given his history of reviving brands and bringing market success especially within North America since the 1980's it was a rise that was difficult to compete with. It was also a promotion he couldn't really refuse. Given that Sony was having a period of declining market shares due to competition, it was obviously felt by his higher-ups that his help was needed.
Despite the fact that his office was now located in New York rather than California, he still used the technology of the rapidly increasing Internet to check in on Steve back in 'Cali' every so often. Of course, he had to do so anyway as it was part of his 'jurisdiction'. Still, he had many other things to be concerned with, being responsible for all things Sony going on in America - a far greater challenge than heading the much simpler company of SEGA.
However, it was a challenge that he took on with confidence. While there certainly were some mistakes, he could see clearly a bright future ahead for Sony. A future which he was partially responsible for engineering in the first place.
Alongside his duties in handling Sony's North American market, there was one thing he had been working on getting started for some time. It started with a single phone call - one to Richard Parsons, the incumbent CEO of Time Warner at the time. Though the public was left in the dark about this, what was actually agreed upon by the two men was a rather simple business deal, the securing of television shows for Sony to distribute on television. At first glance, one would be flabbergasted that Tom was entering such an industry - but the reality was that Sony was already entered into it. Sony's television channels were actually popular, in places outside of the United States at least. 'SET' was especially 'a thing' in India from what he'd heard. Sony channels were present in the United States, though they were hardly anything that was considered relevant.
What Kalinske wanted however, was something that would spark interest within America. He looked over the contracts he signed with Time Warner multiple times, holding it in his hands even as he sat in his office. He made absolutely sure that he didn't miss a single detail. Not a single loophole nor fine print. Not even a fine print within the fine print. He wasn't necessarily shooting for his endeavor to become a serious contender to the likes of the existing cable giants, but making it an expansion of a business Sony was already involved in, he figured, was certainly doable.
He had it all planned out; It was to be a channel primarily marketed at the same demographics that SSCEE and previously SEGA had catered to -- young adults fresh out of high school or of college age, teenagers, and 'tweens' aka 'pre-teens'. Though with Sony's traditional television marketing in mind, he also added a bit of flare in commissioning some programs such as dubs of anime and even some live action series to be created in order to potentially cater to Asian-Americans.
"So when's everything ready to be launched?" Kalinske asked, on the phone with one of the people had placed in charge of setting up the new cable channel, looking at the date on his office's computer -- with OS being Windows XP -- he could tell it was but June. He knew it would take time for all of the commissioned shows to have their first seasons ready, but the year was already have way done. How the time flies.
Still, the person on the other hand could only respond with the honest truth:
"It should be ready by about the end of the year. Some of the shows you ordered are running a bit behind schedule, sir. Budget issues, from what I've heard."
Kalinske wasn't the happiest man in the world about having to wait longer to start his project, but he was able to live with it. He said to the gentleman on the other end:
"Alright. That's understandable. I want them to make sure the shows they're working on come out the best they possible can, so long as they aren't just wasting any time. I'll see what I can do about their budgets, but that'll have to be on a case by case basis."
"Yes sir."
"Alright. Now, anything else that I should know?"
"No sir" the gentleman remarked, "Not to my knowledge."
"Alright then, let's back to our work then shall we?" -- with that, the call was ended not long after. Kalinske turned his attention to other wings of his work load. Namely his email correspondence, which was not dominated by one single thing so much as a plethora of topics ranging from movie deals, updates on projects, progress on anime dubs, progress on film development, budget reports and various other top secret SCA dealings. Kalinske made sure to sort through and check all of them.
It was essentially the majority of his work.
And all of that was only a minor amount of the emails he actually had.
It was going to be yet another rather long work day.
I really just kinda got bored and tried a more "traditional" style in order to bring life into this thread as well as post something.
If you guys like this new style I'll try to continue using it, but the next post is probably going to go back to the usual-ish style (but I might try a hybrid) but I might start dividing posts into sections for each of the Big Three companies.
ALSO: Might go back and edit out political world events so one can lowkey imagine it takes place within my Gore timeline, if you so wish. Fully optional. Both can exist without the other.
So consider this an experiment post, I guess.
KALINSKE'S OFFICE
2005.
It was hard to believe that it had been that long since the original Sega-Sony Hardware plan had successfully, albeit barely, made it through Hayao Nakayama and the executive board at SEGA. It was hard to believe how skeptical Nakayama had been. How honestly foolish and, pardon the language, ignorant he was of the potential the partnership had at first. Kalinske understood, to an extent, that it was fear of Sony as a competitor that kept SEGA so skeptical - though the irony was that taming the beast accomplished the exact opposite. Though SEGA of Japan gave him a hard time, virtually solely due to it distrusting Kalinske and his American branch of the company, once the money from the Saturn's success rolled in he was able to use Sony as a mediator between SEGA America and SEGA Japan - an invaluable asset. Many of Kalinske's proposals and ideas would not have gone ahead without Sony mediating.
The SEGA Genesis would not have been kept on the market as long as it had. Though, the loss of the Game Gear come '99 was unavoidable once Pokemon had reached the shores of the United States.
Speaking of which, by that point Nakayama himself was out the door at SEGA Japan, and to this day Kalinske wasn't entirely sure what became of him. Not that he had any time to find out, nor that it mattered for that matter. Come 2001, SEGA as a whole soon ceased to exist - Sony absorbed it with a roughly 4 billion purchase. Kalinske fondly remembered hearing the news, and the first words out of his mouth afterwards were "well it sure took them long enough!"
While he laughed at the time, it was largely due to the hindsight. Tom wasn't an idiot, he could tell that the dysfunction within SEGA Japan had long reached a tipping point. The executives weren't idiots by any means, they were simply ineffective. Or perhaps he was being too generous. Still, as much as he had fond memories for the SEGA brand, he couldn't deny that once Sony pulled it into it's own vast empire things had tremendously improved. Even his position improved. Once the transition from SEGA to SSCEE (Sony-Sega Computer Entertainment Enterprises) was complete, he passed the torch of the gaming division to his former right-hand Stephen Race, or "Steve" as he was called. Kalinske was, however, kept on SSCEE's executive board. At least, for a short period. In 2003, he was tapped to become the effective head of Sony Corporation of America. While his rise to the position was not without controversy, given his history of reviving brands and bringing market success especially within North America since the 1980's it was a rise that was difficult to compete with. It was also a promotion he couldn't really refuse. Given that Sony was having a period of declining market shares due to competition, it was obviously felt by his higher-ups that his help was needed.
Despite the fact that his office was now located in New York rather than California, he still used the technology of the rapidly increasing Internet to check in on Steve back in 'Cali' every so often. Of course, he had to do so anyway as it was part of his 'jurisdiction'. Still, he had many other things to be concerned with, being responsible for all things Sony going on in America - a far greater challenge than heading the much simpler company of SEGA.
However, it was a challenge that he took on with confidence. While there certainly were some mistakes, he could see clearly a bright future ahead for Sony. A future which he was partially responsible for engineering in the first place.
Alongside his duties in handling Sony's North American market, there was one thing he had been working on getting started for some time. It started with a single phone call - one to Richard Parsons, the incumbent CEO of Time Warner at the time. Though the public was left in the dark about this, what was actually agreed upon by the two men was a rather simple business deal, the securing of television shows for Sony to distribute on television. At first glance, one would be flabbergasted that Tom was entering such an industry - but the reality was that Sony was already entered into it. Sony's television channels were actually popular, in places outside of the United States at least. 'SET' was especially 'a thing' in India from what he'd heard. Sony channels were present in the United States, though they were hardly anything that was considered relevant.
What Kalinske wanted however, was something that would spark interest within America. He looked over the contracts he signed with Time Warner multiple times, holding it in his hands even as he sat in his office. He made absolutely sure that he didn't miss a single detail. Not a single loophole nor fine print. Not even a fine print within the fine print. He wasn't necessarily shooting for his endeavor to become a serious contender to the likes of the existing cable giants, but making it an expansion of a business Sony was already involved in, he figured, was certainly doable.
He had it all planned out; It was to be a channel primarily marketed at the same demographics that SSCEE and previously SEGA had catered to -- young adults fresh out of high school or of college age, teenagers, and 'tweens' aka 'pre-teens'. Though with Sony's traditional television marketing in mind, he also added a bit of flare in commissioning some programs such as dubs of anime and even some live action series to be created in order to potentially cater to Asian-Americans.
"So when's everything ready to be launched?" Kalinske asked, on the phone with one of the people had placed in charge of setting up the new cable channel, looking at the date on his office's computer -- with OS being Windows XP -- he could tell it was but June. He knew it would take time for all of the commissioned shows to have their first seasons ready, but the year was already have way done. How the time flies.
Still, the person on the other hand could only respond with the honest truth:
"It should be ready by about the end of the year. Some of the shows you ordered are running a bit behind schedule, sir. Budget issues, from what I've heard."
Kalinske wasn't the happiest man in the world about having to wait longer to start his project, but he was able to live with it. He said to the gentleman on the other end:
"Alright. That's understandable. I want them to make sure the shows they're working on come out the best they possible can, so long as they aren't just wasting any time. I'll see what I can do about their budgets, but that'll have to be on a case by case basis."
"Yes sir."
"Alright. Now, anything else that I should know?"
"No sir" the gentleman remarked, "Not to my knowledge."
"Alright then, let's back to our work then shall we?" -- with that, the call was ended not long after. Kalinske turned his attention to other wings of his work load. Namely his email correspondence, which was not dominated by one single thing so much as a plethora of topics ranging from movie deals, updates on projects, progress on anime dubs, progress on film development, budget reports and various other top secret SCA dealings. Kalinske made sure to sort through and check all of them.
It was essentially the majority of his work.
It was going to be yet another rather long work day.
I put the space between the X and the D because otherwise this new update makes an emoji happen oof
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