Gamer's Outpost Press (archived)

by L.W. Barker

The SEGA of my childhood was a great company and the single competitor to the “Big N” aka Nintendo. This is my personal history of SEGA in the years before Sony and when Nintendo ruled the World!

1986

I worked for the summer at Woolworth’s department store in Brooklyn, New York City (NYC) with one goal in mind—to acquire enough cash to buy the SEGA Master System. I worked that store for a few weeks, stocking merchandise and cutting up boxes on the sales floor and down in the basement level. It was hard work for a teenager, but I did it and quit after a few paychecks—walking out of Macy’s that year with my SEGA Master System in hand.

Many games came afterward —as gifts from my parents and through trades which I did at various pawn shops around town. Thus games such as ‘Alex Kidd,’ and ‘Double Dragon’ gave me hours of enjoyment.

1988

I wasn’t doing too well in High school in 1988, so my parents shipped me off to an Adventist boarding school (I’m not Adventist by the way), located in the mountains of Pennsylvania. Blue Mountain Academy (BMA) brought its own unique tales and adventures that I will save for another time, but I was known to many at this school as “SEGA Master” because I was seemly a video game ace, especially with games from SEGA.

1989

I returned to NYC in 1989 after only a year at BMA, and just in time for the release of the SEGA Genesis. I made a lot of trips to Macy’s Electronics Department just to see this new 16-Bit console in action—and the game,“Altered Beast” was its highlight.

I had to have this new system, so I quickly got a job at Alexander’s Department Store which was located in the concourse level of 1 World Trade Center. I worked on the sales floor while my little brother Andrew was learning the ropes of a first job as a stocker in the store’s basement level. I remember at lunch how we would compete on the ‘Burning Fight’ arcade game in the Cafeteria area of the store—fun times. I got my SEGA Genesis at the end of that year.

1991

After two years of direct competition with my little brother, Shaun, who was at that time a fanboy of Nintendo, and my friend Sharrod aka ‘Tick’ who was kicked out the house by yours truly for insulting my Genesis and being a pesty Nintendo “fanboy”, I indulged even deeper into gaming.

1991 was also the year that I returned a survey card to SEGA of America that asked candidates to name their new mascot. I looked at the picture of the blue hedgehog with sneakers and wrote down “Sonic” . Now whether my card was the one that gave Sonic the Hedgehog his name, or if it was one of literally thousands cards with that name written is debatable—but I will always be thankful to SEGA for allowing me to provide them with my input.

1992

In December 1992, I left NYC for Lackland Air Force Base, Texas for Basic Military Training. I packed everything I owned to include my Sega Genesis and its games. However, this bag of personal items which linked me back to the real world confiscated on arrival, so I had to do without my games for 6 weeks while I trained to become an Airman in the United States Air Force.

1993

I completed basic training in February 1993. Graduation night was unique—-a few of my peers decided to break curfew and venture over to the female dorms to celebrate with them. Well, they were quickly caught by a our Training Instructor (T.I.), and he brought friends—I was horrified when one of the T.I.s picked up my bag full of games, opened it and held my SEGA Genesis over his head making throwing motions as he yelled at not only the culprits, but at all of us to include me, who was asleep only a few minutes before. Thankfully he placed the console back in my bag and put it back in place—but the culprits—their punishment was another 2 weeks of basic training.

I was flown to Biloxi, Mississippi the next morning to Keesler AFB to start my career-field education. I had to be in uniform for the first few weeks in Tech School, however, SEGA and its new CD peripheral for the Genesis overruled that. I sneaked off base one night—dressed in my civies—taking the bus to the local mall to buy the SEGA CD and its first game, ‘Sonic Adventure’ which gave the Genesis spectacular speech and video—a clear technological advancement for that period of time.

1995

SEGA released its Saturn which I never bought. And even though it was a financial flop for SEGA, I regret not having gotten it to this day. Perhaps, one day I will.

1999

I bought what is still considered to be SEGA’s best system, the Dreamcast in 1999. And with it game the short-lived SEGANET feature which allowed for games to be played online via the console’s 56K modem. I also acquired a ton of games for the Dreamcast—‘Blue Stinger’, ‘Crazy Taxi’, ‘Ecco the Dolphin’, ‘Resident Evil 2’, and ‘Shenmue’ just to name a few. I was recently given ‘WWF Royale Rumble’ a few years ago and its now in my collection.

Today

I’m now a military retiree having served 20+ years in the USAF. I’m also the founder and CEO of Gamer’s Outpost.net . However with these accomplishments, I’ve often wondered if SEGA will ever return to the console market. The public image of SEGA shows that they are doing well as a software developer, but I would personally like for them to one day return to doing hardware—just one more console to satisfy this fanboy of SEGA!

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by L.W. Barker

Two games that have disappointed me in the past—Aliens: Colonial Marines; and Watch Dogs. One game may disappoint me in the future—Tom Clancy’s The Division. Recent insider rumblings have confirmed comments directly from the developers of the game which to put it bluntly:

“We have already downgraded a few things.”

Okay, let’s get a handle on this by going back to the games that disappointed me.

Aliens: Colonial Marines

A:CM blew everyone out of the water at E3 2012. The graphics, sound and gameplay gave us all a rush that lasted for months up to the game’s official release in February 2013. It was also Gearbox software’s # 1 selling game in its first week at retail, then the truth came out—A:CM had been downgraded to substandard levels, and Gearbox Software had basically lied to our Community.

I let them have it with a petition page that acquired 500+ likes and up to 75K fans from all over the World who shared in my anger towards Gearbox and every other developer/publisher who dared follow in their footsteps.

Gearbox Software eventually succumbed to our pressure and pushed out a patch that corrected the game’s graphics to slightly below what was shown at E3.

Watch_Dogs

E3 2013 was the debut event for next gen gaming and Watch Dogs was its highlight. I was captivated by the game’s graphics and its promise of true next gen gaming with a “complete badass” protagonist, Aiden Pearce. I wanted to be him and I wanted this next gen game right then and there. And I wasn’t the only one—many in our Industry as well as throughout the gaming community held high regards for this potential leader of next gen games.

Well, all that ended this month—Watch_Dogs had been downgraded to well below PC standards to what looks to be only a fraction above what can be found on PS3 and Xbox 360. And Ubisoft’s response after hidden graphical settings were discovered in the PC version was:

“We test and optimize our games for each platform on which they’re released, striving for the best possible quality.”

I’m sorry Ubisoft, but you had an extra 8 months to test and properly optimize Watch Dogs to ensure that it was released with the same graphics quality that was shown to the World at E3 2013. The fact is even though the game is a financial success, like Gearbox Software, you lied to our Industry and stole our hard earned cash—that is unforgivable in my book.

Tom Clancy’s The Division

So now we return to The Division and its potential downgrade from what was shown to us at E3 2014. Our insider, who is also a developer working directly on the game had this to say:

“Truth to be told, while our lead platform is PC, we just cannot have such a big gap. As you know, when the first Watch Dogs review was published by that one site, Ubisoft called it a “false review” and I’m sure everyone can see how bad that sounded when they saw that the game did look marginally better than something that was a last generation GTA IV. But no, they will not admit that they practice this or that they actively downgrade a game. It is much easier for them to say that they remove things for stability which is often a lie which you can tell by the post issues which are expected in any production we do.”

So we can confirm that the demo of the Division that was shown to us at E3 2014 will be downgraded as every other game that have disappointed me in the past.

However, I wrote this article with the hope that Ubisoft Massive, Ubisoft Reflections and Ubisoft Red Storm will read and understand that publishers and develops must stop lying to our Industry. This bait and switch routine is sick and only serves to undermine our hard earned trust that once lost, is next to impossible to reacquire.

They should not hold back graphics power on our games as some sort of sadistic reservation ploy for PS5, the next Xbox, or Nintendo’s mystery machine—we want that power now—this is why we bought our PS4, Xbox One and Wii U—let us experience next gen’s true potential!

Source: WhatifGaming.com

http://www.gamersoutpost.net

by L.W. Barker

Gameplay—what a concept. When did we lose our focus on it and let resolution take its place? We may never know, however, this concept of resolution is a waste of our hard earned time.

I’m a so called “old school gamer”, and back in the day, games were played for their fun factor. In the 80s and 90s, Nintendo and Sega’s gaming machines dominated our living rooms as well as the Arcades, and it was the gameplay that made them great!

Fast forward 20+ years—games are sadly bought and played not for their fun factor and overall gameplay, but for how they look. As long as a game has nice, 1080p graphics, and is running at a smooth 60fps, its deemed to be great—no matter if this same game’s plot and overall gameplay sucks to all Hades! It makes absolutely no sense to base the quality of a game on its resolution. It’s all just over hyped media BS that needs to be thrown out the window.

I’m the proud owner of a Xbox One, a PlayStation 4, and a Wii U. I also own most of the consoles of the past—SEGA Genesis, Super NES, Turbo Graphics 16, 3DO, Neo Geo, Xbox, and PS3, just to name a few. But focusing on this current generation—games such as ‘Tomb Raider: The Definitive Edition’, played side by side on the PS4 and the Xbox One look exactly alike. I do not see ANY difference in graphics on either console.

The same goes for the Wii U—resolution does not matter! Nintendo knows this, but somewhere along the way, that knowledge was lost to us. Now the Wii U’s current and upcoming strong line up of quality games will no doubt garner it the strength it needs to get a firm grip on its sagging sales.

So let’s throw resolution out the window and focus on gameplay. For as gamers, its our memorable acts of living numerous “lives” and  “saving” countless worlds that really matter.

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