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yourgoodfriendCharles

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HamilTEN Gaming- Kane and Lynch 2: Dog Days

By yourgoodfriendCharles 3 Comments

HamilTEN Gaming: Kane and Lynch 2 This is the first of hopefully many installments of hamilTEN gaming, looking at some of the current gaming experiences you can have for under ten dollars. The games in this series will be played until we decide whether it’s worth buying and at what price. We will be taking a look at Kane and Lynch 2: Dog Days, which was found in a Blockbuster liquidation for 8 dollars. Kane and Lynch is a third person shooter with online/splitscreen cooperative campaign and a very interesting visual presentation. There are other multiplayer modes but on the Xbox 360 it seemed like other players were nonexistent. In Kane and Lynch 2 you play as wife beater mullet guy or less interesting dress shirt guy. They swear a lot and are some type of criminals. The story is mostly a criminal on the run type of thing and involves as much generic gore and crude language as the developers can throw at it. The story and characters are ignorable but the graphics definitely aren’t. Everything is a bit on the generic side but it is coated in tons of digital video filters that make the whole experience look like an episode of cops shot on a cellphone camera. Shockingly the gimmick works and adds a sense of urgency to the shouting and shooting. The gameplay is a loose gears of war style third person shooter. Things feel imprecise but it seems with the perpetual forward motion that the affect was intended. There is really only one path through every encounter and the answer its always shoot and move forward. Some of the non-shooting mechanics such as reviving a fallen partner are not implemented well and can result in some unnecessary restarts. For what the game is the sound is well done. Guns and other effects have a meaty and slightly too loud sound which fits the setting and embedded camera person style graphics. Voice acting is competent although the script leans heavily on the 7 words you don’t say on television. The music is random chaos broken up by a random generic 80’s sounding pop song. Mainly purchased this game due to the price and my interest in the graphical style, both areas the game succeeds with everything else being competent. The competitive multiplayer modes look very interesting, but if no one is around to play them then its not a selling point. The game seems short, I played it for about 3 hours and it seems like I am at least halfway through the campaign. If you are a fan of third person shooters, split screen coop, or visual gimmicks we recommend this game at the ten dollar price point. Thanks for budget gaming with us, we’ll be saving our pennies until we can tell you about some other bargains soon.

3 Comments

Killzone 3- Smooth playing but poorly paced space marine story.

By yourgoodfriendCharles 1 Comments

from my blog:  http://expeditedemotions.blogspot.com/2011/03/killzone-3-nice-playing-fps-on-very.html       
 
I held out for a PS3 until they had a 160 gig unit with a 50 dollar gift card and this recently released game for 300. This is my attempt at a review of the game

"This is it guys." -Commander whatever his face from Killzone 3 on levels 1-End.
Killzone 3 is a strange one. It has been about 24 hours since I beat the game and I still don't know exactly what I played. Part of this is my problem as I did not play Killzone 1 (PS2) Killzone Liberation (PSP) or Killzone 2 (PS3), I think I enjoyed my time with Killzone 3 but I have no intentions of playing any of its predecessors and plan on selling it at first opportunity.

Killzone 3 = Gears of War story + Call of Duty Gameplay + Halo Misc. Stuff

Since this is the formula for how I view the game I will review each element separately.

Killzone 3 is a game about the conflict between ignorant space marines and Russian aliens. Each side is dumb and you won't care about any of them. They also shout every line of dialogue and there is a bunch of back and forth drama from other games that doesn't go anywhere. Despite not playing the previous games I just pretended this was a Gears of War sequel and continued moving my army guy forward down the corridor.

The story is generic and is just an extended wrap up of whatever happened in Killzone 2. It is a tactical retreat that is stretched out into a 10 hour campaign. And it starts and stops about 15 times with someone saying "This is it guys!" "We DID IT!" "OH KNOW THEY ARE BACK!" "ONE LAST TIME MEN!" "WE DID IT!" "I promise each and everyone of you, once this thing is dead we can go home and C-Minus can move on to the next game on his to-play list."

Move your army guy forward down the corridor. That is the gameplay from the Call of Duty series. When the Russian's/Alien's/non-whites put up a fight, just hide behind something and pick them off until the path is clear. Despite all the 'splosions and loud yelling this is a monorail and it moves forward at all times. Tactics include using whatever level appropriate toy they give you to kill the foreigners (jet pack/air strikes/etc..). It plays like a well refined shooter, but its refinement is partially due to the player being on such a short leash. If you are ok with the Call of Duty formula of running through a shooting gallery then this is a pleasant version of that but in space. If you are looking for any type of thought behind the mayhem then you should look else where.

While I never played it the original Killzone was described as a "Halo-Killer." It wasn't, and from what I remember the game was barely playable. But 3 games deep they are on to a competent and loud Playstation exclusive experience. With the game being solid it seems like they threw in a bunch of extra stuff to take another shot at being the next Halo. The game ends with some space stuff which is was something new that was tacked on to Halo Reach. You also have the ability to pick up and remove turrets and other previously stationary weapons which seems very Halo-esque. But what they should have taken from Halo was the open nature of the fighting. Even though you aren't controlling a squad in Halo you feel like you can read the enemies tactics and adjust accordingly. But in Killzone you move forward, get to cover, shoot, move forward, repeat.    
1 Comments

I hate video game media #3: They Hate Video Games

By yourgoodfriendCharles 1 Comments

THE TRILOGY IS COMPLETE:  http://expeditedemotions.blogspot.com/2011/03/i-hate-video-game-media-3-they-hate.html       
 
Final post about game media, you can resume reading blog after this post.

Hate is a strong word. I use incorrectly. I don't think I hate. In this case I care about deeply and get upset when video game media refuses to get with the program on how to cover video games. I understand there is a 24 hour news cycle or whatever and the information beast must be fed, but you are a machine. A machine that hates video games. Am I using hate incorrectly again? Probably but here is why video game media hates video games:
Video game media wants bad things to happen in the video game industry:
Activision laying off 400 or so people was the best thing to happen to most video game reporters since the last crummy thing that  Activision did (getting into a fight with COD developer infinity ward) which was the  bes t thing to happen to most video game reporters since the last crummy thing that EA did (... probably the old regime of business). I get it, I am a writer (eh....  ok no), it is easier to tear something down than build something up, but your website is not titled  JoystiqSAREDRIVENBYCORPORATEGREED.com. I also understand that bad news is easier to find, write about and promote than the small successes that drive 95% of the world.


Video game media values games that do not exist instead of games that do exist
Most of my reasons that the media hates video games are problems with the reader as well. But are the media just giving us what we want or have they weened us on to what's easiest to produce. Video game media will push the heck out of previews and game announcements over reviews (unless the reviews are exclusive or early or something), and I guess that is due to the NEW in news but I look to the gaming media to see where my limited gaming time and monies should be spent, not to look at some gee  wiz thing that has a 50% chance of being canceled or retooled beyond recognition before its release in 18 months.


I'm not saying don't tell me what to look forward to, I'm saying value the recently released and updated stuff as much as what isn't out there. Here is a ratio, release/post release coverage of game X should be equal to or greater than  prerelease or announcement coverage of X. Do I need a 5000 word review of a  DS game? Not really, but how about 3 reviews from reviewers of different backgrounds, old  EGM style but with all of them giving an equal take on the subject.


Oh forget it I'm just jealous that unfunny non-writers at  joystiq and the like get paid to be the vultures of the game industry.
I wish I had their lives.    
1 Comments

I hate video game media #2: Women

By yourgoodfriendCharles 1 Comments

From ye olde blog: http://expeditedemotions.blogspot.com/2011/02/i-hate-video-game-media-2-women.html     
 

Fact: Free time and disposable income are limited.
Fact: Video games can take up a significant portion of one's free time and disposable income.
Fact: Girls can take up a significant portion of one's free time and disposable income.

With free time and disposable income limited many people who are invested in either video games or women can often be unlearned in the other. So when a woman talks about video games she is often talking about stereotypes of video games from 1994.

"Oh my gaw'd they are so violent, I was like, why are we wasting our time at the arcade? You said you would take me to Steketies!" - A woman that I just made up in my head.

And since a woman is confused about what video games are, it is only appropriate that video game media is confused about what to do with humans with the X chromosome. Here is a hastily put together list of what women are to video game media:

Women are my GIRLFRIEND!
If you are writing a review about a game that doesn't involve shooting, it is important to mention what your girlfriend thinks/would think of it. If girlfriend does not exist please make her up or talk about "impressing ladies."

Example: The Wii is an excellent system for my GIRLFRIEND because she pretend the controller is a dwarven shake-weight.

Women are GAMERS TOO!
Just do the job of reviewing the game or previewing the game, or doing the dishes.... we don't need to bring your gender into it. The only turf war that is being waged is inside your own head. The Internet says that women don't play video games because they are the Internet and they hate everything. Your daddy may have told you that you can't be a doctor, and it turns out that's true because now you regurgitate video game press releases for a living.

Women are READING STUFF IN FRONT OF A CAMERA WEARING PROM OUTFITS
I think that anyone who reads any type of news for any type of video production should start off the segment by saying "Hello, My name is _____ and I am talking about _____ and what I say is important because of _____"

Hello, My name is Jessica Chobot and I am talking about video game strategies that aren't really strategies and what I say is important because one time I licked a PSP.

This is coming across as women-hating and it's really not my intention, I just think video game journalism is a joke. How can they cover a rapidly changing industry when they don't even know how to speak to or receive input from women. We here complaints about portrayals of women by the media and its due to the media not knowing how to utilize women period, especially in the video game sector.

Ok I'm done.

1 Comments

I hate video game media #1: Sarcasm/Filler

By yourgoodfriendCharles 1 Comments

this is from my for reals blog:   http://expeditedemotions.blogspot.com/2011/02/i-hate-video-game-media-1-sarcasmfiller.html
 
enjoy. 
 
Someone is getting paid to post this on a popular video game site:

"The latest game console travel case from  manufacturer GAEMS  --  yes, it's really spelled like that, we promise  -- is an unarguably slicker offering than the company's previous products. The pack has room for a 360, 360 S or PS3 Slim console, all the requisite cords and power bricks, a couple of controllers, speakers and a built-in LED monitor -- yet, despite its contents,  the GAEMS case isn't the size of a small houseboat. We've only got one, inconceivably nerdy explanation:  Bag of Holding . Like, it's gotta be, right?

The case will be released sometime in June for $300 -- though you can knock $20 off the price by pre-ordering before April 20.  We wonder if we could pay an extra $20 to get a product that's spelled correctly. Sheeeesh ."


So Joystiq.com got a press release about a system travel case with a built-in lcd monitor and thought it was worthy of a post. Actually their sister site engadget got a press release and their post was used for the basis of another post. Scraping the bottom of the barrel but it's Sunday so we'll ignore that for now.


Here is the actual news in the post.
  • New Travel Case coming out in June
  • Has an LCD Monitor builtin
  • 300 dollars in june or 280 if you preorder
  • works with xbox 360, xbox 360 S or PS3 Slim, NOT PS3 OLD MODELS (not mentioned in story so I will assume it doesn't work with it)
It's looking like not worthy of a story but they need to keep the view count up so they fill it full of garbage to pad it out. Hmmm... what can we throw in here.. Hey its got a silly name, theres at least 3 sentences! If that doesn't work we can try one of the following ways to turn this into something.



1. Has the company made anything in the past? Was that thing a success or failure? Rub their face in it.
2. Tie it into whatever is most popular this second. "This travel game case WITH THE HILARIOUS NAME would be a tiny alternative for playing Marvel VS. Capcom 3, but it would make the grotesquely large supermoves a more manageable size. Tiny screens can only give you tiny epilepsy!"
3. Mention how you and your coworkers get paid to write about video games and regurgitate press releases for a living. "We'll post a couple more times about this product in June when a free unit gets sent to the Joystiq offices at the AOL mothership. We will gather our staff around and bask in the travel cases 9" of LCD glow. I have a coworker from South Africa named Ludwig."
4. Insert Call of Duty or World of Warcraft any where in the article for any reason.
5. Take a quick pass at press release, find something it can't do and make the article about that. "NO WII SUPPORT? WON'T ANYONE MAKE A CASE FOR ME TO WAGGLE AT?!?!??"


Frustrations with video game media is going to be my theme this week unless anything notable happens (it won't) so I understand if you lose interest and stop reading forever. I think SLEEPY CRICKET might have started a livejournal as they have been out of fashion long enough to be considered contrarian so I recommend checking that out.    
1 Comments

Fable 3: The Gamiest Game that Ever Gamed

By yourgoodfriendCharles 1 Comments

The goal tonight is to tell you what I thought of this videogame without making it bitter about my life and having equal to or less than 3 rape jokes. Let's see how I do....


I completed the main quest in Fable 3 last Friday right before I took off on a very long road trip. It was one of the three games I purchased from the Best Buy B2G1 deal they were having a couple weeks ago. I tolerated Fable 1 and enjoyed Fable 2 so I was reasonably excited for the third one despite the iffy reviews it got upon release.

Before I get into the game, due to a pricing mistake or something the cheapest version of the game was the special edition. Normally I avoid these because they are filled with crap, but honestly this is the best packaging I have seen for a videogame. It comes with a kind of real looking Bible-esque case which contains the game and some bonus junk. Will I use any of it ever? Probably not, but its slick and well contained. Unlike that Halo Reach set which is in a pallet sized box for absolutely no reason.

To speak of the game I will be speaking of all 3 Fable games because not much has changed in the series. Fable 3 is Legend of Zelda's ADD British Brother. It is a dumbed down action RPG which substitutes being British for being clever. The story in the series is you aint nothin' then you become something, your actions reflect how you turn out as a character. In Fable 3 you are specifically the son/daughter of the person from Fable 2 and your evil brother kicks you out for being not evil. You then go on random quests enlisting the support of the 7 or so areas of the world. Once everyone has your back you then take back the kingdom from your brother and become the main dude/lady. These are the same beats that the first two games followed and eh... I guess it still works.

Fable 3's only new idea is that after you become King you have a "year" (5 days) to be either a good king or a bad king before you have a final battle to save the kingdom. And by good and bad I mean black and white. One of your decisions is whether or not to turn a orphanage into a whorehouse. I will let you cut through the layers of story to decipher which of these is the good and which is the bad option. The way you play the game even has less to do with anything than the first two games. The only thing it impacts is a couple of story line beats and how dirty your character looks.

The gameplay is serviceable, just as it has been in Fable 1 and 2. Three different types of attacks and no limits to ammo or magic... it gets monotonous and I believe the game designers knew this because your battles are very short. In fact there are probably less than 10 "levels" and the rest are just random encounters with a couple bad guys who teleport out of nowhere. You are normally just running around town buying property and performing variations on fetch quests. Property is your main source of earning money and eventually the only thing that determines whether you "win" the game or not. The game economy can totally be broken by just leaving the game running all night while your income stacks up.... and I'm kind of ok with that.

The game world seems very small and very disconnected by loading screens and unrelated landscapes. There is no over-world, you just warp to random villages scattered throughout the map of your kingdom. If GTA can give us New York City with few loading screens then a far less detailed fantasy setting should be doable without being so choppy.

There is co-op and one great improvement over Fable 3 is not having to share the screen. It was unforgivable in Fable 2 so I'm not sure if not making the same mistake twice is something to be commended.

The largest quirk in the game is the elimination of any menu/map system. All of this has been replaced by an over-world which you warp to by hitting the pause button. Each thing you would want to look at is in a separate room. I believe what the goal was with this is to make it seem more fluid, but it just makes it annoying and crappy like doing stuff in real life. If I want to change my clothes or weapons in real life I have to walk over to my dresser or trunk of my car, but I don't want the game to be like my real life because my real life has a lot of useless crap in it. It's a pretty big pain in the butt and almost kills the game, but those who are set on playing it will get over it.

I enjoyed Fable 2, it took a lot of things from Zelda that I liked and did them at a much faster pace with actual voice acting and pretty graphics. The characters and story were worthless but that made me imagine new story lines around all of the NPC's I murdered/impregnated with my video game seed. But then I played Fable 3 and it was Fable 2 with a weird makeup that I didn't like smeared over it. Everything that was added was at the expense of something I enjoyed in Fable 2. The King stuff came at the expense of any significant levels or boss battles. The awful non-menu came at the expense of something I could easily track my progress with.

But underneath the weird stuff there is the Fable foundation, I fast paced adventure game that lets you go crazy and not care about consequences, despite the games biggest selling point being that you have to deal with consequences (consequences=what your character looks like). If you enjoyed Fable 2 I would check this out if it was on sale, if you haven't played Fable 2 I would play that first/instead.
1 Comments

50 Cent: Blood on the Sand was ahead of its time

By yourgoodfriendCharles 15 Comments

This comes from my blog:  http://expeditedemotions.blogspot.com/2010/10/50-cent-blood-on-sand-was-ahead-of-its.html 
 
   When historians look back at the young medium of electronic videogames, they will no doubt mention a few titles as breakthroughs in innovation for the artform. Super Mario Brothers, Final Fantasy, Bubsy 3D, World of Warcraft and Peggle will be mentioned as titles that pushed the boundaries of what society thought a videogame could be.


I believe 50 Cent: Blood on the Sand for Xbox 360/PS3 should be added to that list.


50 Cent: Blood on the Sand has a button dedicated to swearing or questioning your enemies sexual preferences.
This seems like a frivolous and mean spirited thing for a videogame to have, but think back to other games and how this feature would change the dynamics of the gameplay system. Imagine if the taunt button was available in earlier games.



In the game you only start with a limited amount of taunts, things that aren't any worse than something you would call your neighbor or mother such as the b-word or the b-word with an O sound thrown in the middle of it. As you progress through the game (it takes place in Iraq... more on that later) you find a lot of United States dollars which can be used to purchase language classes for 50 Cent and the rest of G-Unit and that gives them a more diverse pallet of words to choose from. Instead of being locked down to comparing your opponent to a shril or weak woman, you can compare them to a homosexual or use various racial slurs to degrade them.


The increasingly vulgar taunts give the player something to work towards, and this is on top of the


50 Cent: Blood on the Sand is epic in both story and setting.


I will now paste the game summary from Wikipedia.  Beware:  after reading this you will not be able to rest until you play and beat the game on all 3 difficulties.


The game is set in an urban warzone in an unnamed Middle Eastern country, where 50 Cent and G-Unit have been hired to play a rap concert. After the concert the promoter refuses to pay them the US $10-million in cash he promised, but relents after being threatened. However, instead of the cash they were promised, he gives them a diamond-and-pearl encrusted human skull as collateral. This is promptly stolen by a paramilitary group. 50 Cent (with the help of a selected G-Unit partner) decides to get it back at any cost.


So who in an urban warzone is taking time off from defending/attacking to go to a 50 Cent concert? Apparently enough people to be worth 50's 10 million dollar fee. Let's do some math:


10,000,000 (50's fee, not including G-Unit's fee, stage, lighting, security, or promotional costs) / 150 (a generous average cost per ticket)= 66,666.7.  So to break even on 50 Cent's promised payment 66,667 people need to attend one concert in an URBAN WARZONE.


The story goes on from there, your mission is to go from point A to point B killing anyone who isn't a member of G-Unit. You will fight multiple helicopters. You will be betrayed in every single level by the person who sent you on the mission in the first place.


It's thrilling and ripped form the headlines.


Soundtrack is 100% 50 Cent and G-Unit songs.


Only a videogame executive producer like 50 Cent could secure the highly sought after rapper 50 Cent to provide background music for 50 Cent: Blood on the Sand. Your main character (50 Cent) can use the United States currency that he finds in 50 Cent: Blood on the Sand (currency that is not already spent on additional taunts) to buy additional tracks such as:


In Da Club
That less notable song that sounds like In Da Club
AND MORE


If only the creators of The Legend of Zelda would have had the foresight to include generic club rap in their game maybe 50 Cent: Blood on the Sand would only be the greatest game of 2009 instead of the greatest game of all time.


Other amazing features:
Unreal Engine! (so it looks like every other game that looks like Gears of War)
Plays like Gears of War! (so it plays like every other game using the Unreal Engine)
Co-Operative Online Multiplayer! (hope you are ready for some great discussions about world events and human rights because these gamers LOVE to debate)
THE HIT SONG "IN DA CLUB"


50 Cent: Blood on the Sand did not meet the sales expectations that were set by its publisher, and that is a shame because I believe the videogame industry needs to have a spot for subtle games that make the gamer as questions like, "Why are we sending our young people to die for a cause they don't believe in?" and "Who let these hoe's in my room?" Despite Roger Ebert's claims otherwise, I feel that videogames are an art form and there is no better example of that art form than 50 Cent: Blood on the Sand.    
15 Comments

YOU'RE IN THE MOVIES was ahead of its time

By yourgoodfriendCharles 2 Comments

This comes from my blog:  http://expeditedemotions.blogspot.com/2010/11/youre-in-movies-was-ahead-of-its-time.html 

YOU'RE IN THE MOVIES was ahead of its time



I think I am the only person who knows the following 2 secrets about videogames:
1. Call of Duty sucks
2. You're in the Movies is the most innovative game of the past 10 years

I could make a seperate blog dedicated to secret #1, but I think my time would be better served talking about fact #2.

This is You're in the Movies
You can get it right now using our Amazon banner ad for under 20 dollars WITH camera. Some would say the included camera is a piece of junk, but I think the camera knows what it is: A TOY. It is a toy camera used to make YOU'RE IN THE MOVIES the best group game of this console generation. Better than Rock Band, better than Halo X, better than 50 Cent Blood in the Sand.

This is You're in the Movies
 
THERE WAS A VIDEO HERE BUT IT DIDN'T WORK.  I GIVE UP. 

Now imagine if I had friends and wasn't too lazy to get my fat circa 2007 butt off the couch. You do a bunch of awful wii like activities and it takes those movements out of context and makes them into a crummy little movie trailer. Theres like 30 trailers in the game AND if you feel like risking your xbox freezing you can even make your own trailer. Imagine the joy on your friends faces when the wii like games they have been playing for a half hour is turned into a video that you can blackmail them with. I haven't done it yet but I plan on committing a significant portion of my Christmas vacation to making it happen.

You're in the Movies is a buggy and kind of bad game, but it is one of my favorites for a couple of reasons.

1. It knows what it is- When you boot up You're in the Movies you are greeted with awful cinematic. This isn't winking at the audience awful, it is ZARDOZ awful. Fully commited to just going for it from the opening menu to the insanely long load times, to the terrible implementation of the game mechanics. I believe the great poet Popeye once said "I am what I am" and You're in the Movies gameonifies that statement.

2. It will put a smile on your face- No matter whether you are playing or watching, old or young, C-Minus or not C-Minus; You're in the Movies will put you in a better mood. That's what games are supposed to be about.

3. The price was reduced to 20 dollars within a month of it being released- As a video nerd I was interested in You're in the Movies as soon as I heard it was coming out. I then looked at the MSRP of 80 dollars and said gave them the ol' Will Smith but then I went to the store a week later and everyone had come to their senses and sold the game/camera at a loss for 20 dollars. And 20 dollars is what the price stayed at for 3 years.

4. Girls will enjoy it- This is more of an assumption because it does not require any skill. I haven't had a chance to test out this theory because women are either afraid of me or I have successfully made them believe that I am too mature and nonmolestery for videogames.

5. By playing it you will realize that motion gaming is a gimmick and not waste 150 dollars on the Kinnect- except for SLEEPY CRICKET because he is totally going to purchase one so I can play it. KINNECT PRO TIP: you need 6-8" of clear space in front of your TV to properly use the Kinnect, so unless you live in a warehouse or are batman it will not work in your game room.
2 Comments

The SEGA DREAMCAST was ahead of its time

By yourgoodfriendCharles 3 Comments

This comes from my blog, thought I would share it:  http://expeditedemotions.blogspot.com/2010/12/sega-dreamcast-was-ahead-of-its-time.html 
 

The SEGA DREAMCAST was ahead of its time


This post is very nerdy. Not in a Big Bang Theory "Aspergers are so cute" kind of way. But a "who the f cares about some stupid videogame system Charlie? It's posts like this that remind me why you are 27 years old and still living in your mother's basement. Another unrelated perception is that you seem to prowl for women at church events which makes me uncomfortable. I'm going to ignore you from now on and focus my attention on escapist entertainment like awful sitcoms where nerds ignore basic human functions for seasons at a time just to keep the forced star wars and physics jokes coming."-kind of way. Feel free to not read, this blog post will not be on the test.

Many believe that theSega Dreamcast was the final hardware failure from Sega before they came to their senses and became a software publisher for all game platforms. I think that is more accurate to say that the video game industry failed Sega and now they get this mutated half-beast joke of a video game publisher as a resort. Almost anything you enjoy about modern video game consoles and software was pioneered by Sega and mostly ignored by you. Since only 1 person is going to read beyond the title of this blog post I will get onto my reasons why
we as a human race failed the good people at Sega and are doomed to see everything we once loved be destroyed, Sega produced or otherwise.

1. We were too attached to the Electronic Arts of 1999.
I am completely with you that in 1999 Electronic Arts ran this industry on the strength of Madden alone. And the fact that they decided not to make their games for the Dreamcast was probably the killing strike towards
the system in terms of mainstream audiences. I am not a sports guy, but the SPORTS! 2K series was produced to fill the void and it did so fantastically. Most sports people rated them at least comparably to EA's stuff and many said they were a hell of a lot better. I'm sure telling a sports person to change games is like trying to get a junkie to service some other part of the body for drug money, but the switch was worth it. Especially worth it in the first year of the Dreamcast where the other options were on PS1/N64 and looked like  ColecoVision by comparison.

If you are still reading, Mom, please take a moment to find your Playstation 1 and play a game... any game in it. How's that 320x240 resolution look? Unwatchable. Now come to my room and play the Dreamcast for a moment. Still looks pretty good right? Bringing me to my next point.

2. We had learned to love the terrible graphics on PS1/N64 games
I don't know if we were still thrilled to be playing 3D games, but the frame rate, resolution and blurriness of 99% of PS1/N64 games was inexcusable. If I were a game designer I would think that if I couldn't do something on a specific piece of hardware I wouldn't try... but that is sadly not the case. So when the Dreamcast came out and had the same types of games, only this time pretty to look at with decent frame rates, Joe America would say that he already had a pixelly version of that game and dismiss the system entirely.

I will concede that a lot of Dreamcast games were merely uprezed ports of PS1 games, but they were always the absolute best versions. Today every game that sells more than a dozen units has an ULTIMATE COLLECTORS EDITION. Well I consider every Dreamcast game to be the ONLY PLAYABLE VERSION, because it is actually a better version of the game most of my friends were playing.

3. Playstation 2 might come out sometime in the near future
I watch TV, and if you were to turn it on from the years of 1998 to pre9/11 the news would probably be talking about how awesome the PS2 is going to be/is. On top of that you had the DVD factor which I didn't even think would be as much of a thing as it was. But its annoying how every single conversation about the Dreamcast had to begin and end with PS2.

"Well it won't be out for a year or one store shelves for 2 years but the PS2 is going to totally blow the Dreamcast out of the water. Anyway I heard Crazy Taxi was pretty fun. PS2 is definitely going to be the thing that gets me a girlfriend, good grades and a free ride through life. Alright man see you on the bus, how many people have called you gay today? Only 7? That's an improvement."
-Paraphrasing every conversation my friends and I would have in high school

4. No one cares about arcade games
Ok here is one where Sega legitimately was on the wrong. They are an arcade company, so they have a lot of product that is based on people putting quarters in a machine. About this time arcades became irrelevant and the software for them didn't sell the Dreamcast like it sold the Genesis and that dozen Saturn systems that sold from the Grand Rapids KB Toys. Crazy Taxi is awesome but it was a tough value proposition of that game being 15 minutes of fun at a time compared with the 70 hours of depressing Final Fantasy for the same price.

That being said, if Sega gets their head out of their butt, they could use the casual game trend to make every dollar but making their arcade stuff easily available on iPhones and the like.

5. The Internet was a mythical beast in 1999
In 1999 no one knew what the Internet was. AOL was a legitimate thing to pay 21.99 a month for dial up access and people would sign multiple year commitments to an ISP for a cheap computer... actually that trend has just moved on to cellphones. The Sega Dreamcast could browse the Internet and a year in, play games over the included 56K modem. Yes 56K sucks but it was playable, Sega actually had decent networking in the games I tried and I didn't encounter too much lag despite using WebTV for dialup access. By the time online play/SegaNet kicked off the PS2 was out and the Dreamcast pretty much admitted defeat, but it is rarely acknowledged as the thing that really kicked off the whole console online gaming thing.

But back in 1999 I assume the general public were mainly using the Internet to keep their GeoCities updated while looking for nude codes for Tomb Raider (another game that looked much better on Dreamcast [although the ones that came out for it were terrible]).

So those are the 5 reasons I believe that we as a people failed the Dreamcast. I think in a couple years from now this will be clearly stated as humanity's greatest mistake. The destruction of the environment and various genocides that have taken place over the years will pale into comparison to the fact that we did not throw enough money at a mismanaged company's video game device.

Our grandchildren will be paying the cost of our video game purchasing transgressions.
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