Whew.

After a real push over the last weekend, and some concetrated effort last night, I finally finished TXRD2 to completion.

And in 'game that must go on forever' fashion, it drew out even the last few rival encounters for maximum drama... or exhaustion.

Yesterday there was the boss of the final area to take down, then the ultimate boss of each 'villain team'. THEN the former champ of old (who is foreshadowed in cutscenes) comes out. He's the final boss.

Then you get the final ending screens. I say 'final' because Genki racers usually have ending screens and credit rolls at each major juncture in their games. But wait.

The TRUE LAST BOSS challenges you at the very first track you started the game in. He has a weird almost science fiction car.

After he is down, some upstart team challenges you at one of the winter tracks. So you have to now defend your crown against a team of new upstarts, sort of simulating what things will be like for your avatar now that you are the new king.

Jiminy Christmas, that's a lot of game!

For all my blather about this game being too big, it was very exciting and emotional getting down to the end. My son was on the edge of his seat for much of it. And there was a lot of high-fiving when it was over. I can't say I'm actually SORRY it's over-- but it will be strange not putting any more time in on this. Okay, maybe I'm a little sorry it's over.

And the game was really good.

Just About Enough

Okay, some games are just too goshdamn big. I’m all in favor of value for money, but there’s limits… or there should be limits.

The game that has got me posting is Tokyo Xtreme Racer Drift 2. A Genki racing game that is a fucking fixture on my Backloggery work in progress list. You’d think I’d be used to this by now, with as many of these games as I’ve gone through, but they just keep getting bigger and more complicated!

Don’t get me wrong. Its fine for a game to have some meat on its bones. The hour-long runs on a Mushihimesama or Street Fighter IV are great. The twelve hours of delicious combat action to get through the story in Bayonetta, awesome. But sometimes you need something you can just dig into like a big book. Spending two or three weeks on an RPG can be truly enjoyable with the right game… I’ll be playing Skies of Arcadia before long.

BUT. Jeezis. Enough is enough! TXRD2 is gigantimous! There’s the usual, for Genki, SEVERAL HUNDRED listed rivals. THEN there are a bunch of randomly-created ones… some forum guy has counted FIVE HUNDRED random rivals. Then there are dozens of sponsors to earn (with races) so they basically count as rivals. Ten long courses each with sets of basic, advanced and master level races. Six short courses full of daytime rivals (and YET MORE sponsors to race). And each long course also has a gymkhana parking lot with ten levels of both time attack and drift attack to master.

The stuff you’re given to handle all that shit: A gigantic list of like two hundred cars, some based on real life track cars, some only available in the used lot… yes, there are like four car dealers in the goshdamn game… umpteen squillion parts, an ingame computer complete with multiple forums (one for each track!) a general info site, and an effin’ email system! What the fuck? I pride myself on beating all rivals and finishing each Genki racer into the ground, but who the hell has time for all this?

Role-playing game? I’ll give you role-playing game! You are an up and coming racer, and you will get up each day, check your emails and forum posts including replying to the asswipes that challenge you, back out and go make yourself a sandwich (that’s a real-life sandwich, by the way). Then you’ll go down to all the car shops. Sometimes some motherfucker is waiting for you at one (or more!) of the shops and challenges you. Then after you are all done shopping… oh I dunno, for parts or paint or layers and layers of vinyls or gauges, you go back to your garage and install your parts, tweaking the settings in every detail including reflashing the engine management chips. THEN you can test drive it on any course including a GIGANTIC circuit that isn’t even used for anything else in the game. Once that’s all good you can… wait, better make sure your sponsor stickers are all up to date and placed in optimum position on your car! Don’t want to lose out on any sponsorship money every time you win!

Now motherfucker! Go race! Pick a course. Either do an official course challenge; time attack or drift. Or choose one of the more advanced races limited to certain engine sizes or cars or ability levels YOU MIGHT NOT HAVE YET! And if you don’t have them you MUST buy the appropriate make or size of car and go shop and install all the shit that car will need to be competitive. AND/OR go to the parking area and see if that dickburger that challenged you in the shop is there. After you’ve done everything you can do, go on to the next course. Make sure you alter your tires or suspension for each different kind of track, challenge or CLIMATE CHANGE.

Oh yeah. There’s climate in the game. Sunny, cloudy/foggy, rainy and snow. So don’t fuck up your tire choice. And after you’ve gone over all ten long courses and six short courses, depending on how much you’ve unlocked, and done whatever you can do or until you keel over… THEN go back to your garage and save your game.

Guess what? If you were to do all that for umpteen days in a row and rested every game night you wouldn’t even scratch the street race rival portion of the game. So just like a street racing junkie who has no money for drugs but pours all his funds into repairs, parts, and RockStar energy drink… you get to stay up at night and race, race, race until dawn. And as you face each rival he has some shit he needs to say to you—usually trash talk, and if you want he has a whole background card you can read up on. Fuck you, man! I don’t want your life story. Shut up and race!

Day/night/day/night. Over and over. And some of these guys WAIT. They wait until a certain day or a certain type of weather, or you’ve beaten someone else.

All of this should be great. And in a way it is. It is the culmination of everything Genki has been doing to make the street racing experience immersive. It takes like EVERYTHING they’ve used in games before and mooshes it altogether into one monster highway world. The only thing that I think is missing is the freeway tracks from the Shutokou games (this is about rural racing) and the special non-car items you could buff your abilities with in Racing Battle. It is really impressive actually. The parking areas are detailed. The rivals are all fleshed out. When you read a post from one of them, if you’ve beaten them you can link to their car and their bio. Its all connected and well detailed. And there’s a lot of tracks. A lot of cars. The rivals cars all look different and they act and talk as individuals with their own interests or emphases. There’s cool dramatic cutscenes of the bosses. It all adds up to make a compelling race world.

But it is JUST TOO BIG. I thought Racing Battle: C1 Grand Prix was big. RB isn’t Gran Turismo big, but it’s close. I generally don’t play Gran Turismo because for the size of the thing it is just too dry and colorless. Even if it did have more flavor it’d still be too big. Which is becoming the problem for me with TXRD2. It is so big that even all the cool immersive shit is beginning to get old. And it is so complicated that you just flat forget to cover all your bases. Its realistic in its way. The street racing world, especially with internet communications, is a really big sphere. But there’s a point where non-driving aspects threaten to overwhelm the fun. Amazingly, there is almost NO grinding in the game. Everything you do moves you forward. The game doesn’t make it difficult to buy new cars. There is always something new to do. But there is just so much. What fun is the fact that you are the fastest swimmer if the goal is crossing the Atlantic? I don’t care how fast you are, that opposite shore is going to seem a long way away!

I think I’m just tired of seeing this thing in my PS2. I could take a break from it, but the last time I did that, when I came back I discovered my drift skills had atrophied and I went through about two weeks of struggling to get back to being able to handle it. Never mind forgetting where I left off in this vast, non-linear game world. The thing is, it’s a great game. I’ve felt bitchy about Genki games before, much as I love them, but that usually revolves around grinding. Having to race over and over in order to get the cash to upgrade enough to beat a boss or buy a car to get a rival to appear. This game has none of that, but it seems like Genki felt you still needed X number of hours in the game, so if there’s no grinding we’ll just have to have more of everything.

I will persevere of course. I’m actually not that far from finishing the game if online rival lists are anything to go by… probably 85% done. It might be telling that Genki’s race game output went WAY down after this.

I said somewhere before that the smaller scale of Import Tuner Challenge was because of time probably spent on current-gen graphics, but now I think it is because most of the staff committed suicide after giving every iota of themselves in building TXRD2. They had nothing else to give and nothing to live for. I’m going to eat a bullet soon to if I don’t finish the damn game! I’m one of those players who doesn’t like to just rush pell-mell through RPGs, action adventures, or even first person shooters. I like to explore. Look at the art, interact with the characters, do the side quests. I’m not super-meticulous about it, but I don’t need to rush my game experience to get to the end. I probably dragged Bayonetta out about 40% longer than a straight-ahead playthrough because I just wanted to ‘look’ at everything. But with TXRD2, unfortunately, I now find myself skipping the color and just trying to be as efficient as possible and get shit done. My goal is 100% rivals defeated, so no skipping opponents, but there is no way I’m going to try to win every non-critical event too.

There really can be too much of a good thing.

Whew.

Still Engrish or Janglish.

But still.

I AM The Legend, Baby!

Wow. I just started to really get into playing Tokyo Xtreme Racer Drift 2 (Kaido Battle: Touge no Densetsu)... and this is just a kickass game.

I know I need to get over my frustration with Blazing Lazers and just finish the damn thing, but it'll be hard while I've got this one going on. Drift 2 is not a new game in terms of release date, and I actually bought the Japanese version quite some time ago, but by the time I was ready to play it, news of the English one was out, so I waited. I got into Racing Battle: C1 Grand Prix and then got stuck trying to find all the 'wanderer' character cars in THAT game when I bought the English Drift 2.

So blah blah blah, long time 'til I started this game that I should've started (and finished) a long time ago. This game just reminds me of why I love GOOD video games (or books or movies)-- immersion. And I pretty much go through this every time I start a new Genki racing game. These games are not well-loved by the critics. They are very kvlt, especially in English-speaking countries, most players totally dismissing them as not enough of a simulation, or not up to Gran Turismo or Forza graphic levels. Or having 'skatey' controls. Missing the point of the games one and all.

Genki games have COLOR. Gran Turismo is pretty, and realistic (for a medium that can't actually grant you the physical feedback of being in a real car), but has shite for driver AI and is the driest, most plot-bare game world you can imagine. The other end of the spectrum is the Pro Race Driver series and they are perhaps TOO story-oriented, tracking you pretty linearly through an adventure game-style plot, but with cars instead of guns or items, and races instead of fights. Games from the Genki Racing Project have a world. Opponents with names, identities, and driving styles. They communicate with you. You have to go find them sometimes... or wait when they get off work, or when they agree with the weather. The controls are slippery in some sense, but nothing I've found that is particularly difficult to get used to, and it actually enhances what upgrading your car will do for you. If you want your car to control just like it would in some other racing game, some effort and the right parts and settings will get it there. And it usually doesn't take very long. Genki racers aren't about grueling your way through 500 of the same goshdamn race for peanuts at a time. There is some repetition, but you get different styles of course, variable weather, different victory conditions AND a staggering number of individual opponents. The game has a constant flow of goals for you to reach. Not just 'man I gotta win this race 61 more times and I can get that Skyline R34'. You are always in a state of wanting to see what comes next, whether it is a new track to be unlocked, a new gang of drivers to defeat, or just wanting to get on the ingame BBS to read the trash talk or cries of defeat from your rivals. Reading what defeated drivers say to you when you walk up to them at a later date in Drift 2 is worth the price of admission, re: 'You spanked me so bad last time, I don't even want to talk to you, yo.' or 'It's the drift god! I'm not worthy!'.

The best entertainment experiences are about immersion. This whole world in each Genki game comes at the cost of the most detailed cars or most realistic physics. It is a compromise or a balance. I don't know if I'd characterise these as arcade racers so much as sort of 'idealised'. While the controls may seem odd at first, you can adjust so much (including your controller's sensitivity typically), that once you get used to it, the number of cars, parts, tracks, track conditions and all of that put it squarely back into 'simulating' what it would be like to be a highway or mountain pass street racer. If someone is a fan of Initial D or another racing manga getting these games is like dropping yourself into the comics. Especially the Kaido Battle games, since those are based in the mountain passes like Takumi's adventures. And of course Genki includes all sorts of nods to Initial D.

I've recently joined up with a message board for fans of Genki racing games. I guess there are just enough of us to create an online goober space. I'm inspired to find those last few wanderers in Racing Battle, and maybe someone at that forum can help me.

Currently On My Plate

So I've been playing STGs (2D shooting games) almost exclusively lately. I like other genres but I've been in kind of a mood (rut) the last six weeks or so. Two months from now, I could be totally immersed in fighting or driving games. I am getting something of a hankering to tackle Tokyo Xtreme Racer Drift 2 (the US version of Kaido Battle Touge no Densetsu), but I keep putting it off because I have not quite finished (100% completion) Racing Battle: C1 Grand Prix and I don't like to have too many of the same sort of game 'open' at the same time, if that makes sense. I already have Need For Speed: Most Wanted and an iteration of Burnout still waiting for me to complete as well. So actually that makes three racing games on my plate.

I was working through GT4 at one point, but y'know? I just find the Gran Turismo games to be 'too big'. They are great for what they are... but what they are is also just endless. They are simulations-- lots of realism, no drama. They have the some of the best physics, but no wrecks, no damage, no story, and no real opponent AI. So to get through the entire Gran Turismo experience (in all the chapters) is about endless racing in very pretty cars through very pretty scenery but absolutely no emotional content apart from just digging the cars. I find that some kind of competition really makes my motivation to get through this sort of game. Even a game somewhat thin on the human drama like LeMans 24 hours is more interesting to me. THAT game wasn't quite as big (so as not to seem so endless) and had more of a focused goal, even if one of the things you had to finish was a real-time 24 hour endurance race, amongst all the other races. I liked that game so much that I've played all the way through two different consoles' versions though the difference between the two was miniscule... only a couple of new/different cars. It doesn't hurt that I'm a huge sports car racing fan though.

Ever since Need For Speed went 'import tuner' with the Underground chapters, I started playing them. I finished Underground 1 and 2 in pretty much no time flat. Then got into Most Wanted, and pretty got hung up on cop evasion issues. I'm at 69% completion but the level the cops pursue now gets so much in the way of the actual racing that it is frustrating. I like the idea of the cops involvement but they just throw so much at you so quickly... and a large part of completing the game is involved in very un-racing behavior-- wrecking stuff, hitting cop cars, ad nauseum. So much of it isn't a real racing game, kind of the point of playing a RACING game. Complicating things is the fact that doing well at it requires a lot of memorisation of the city layout, and the more time I spend away from the game the more time I'm going to have to spend re-learning what is where when I do pick it up again. A lot of the same could be said for Burnout (Revenge I think). Good game, awesome wrecks. BUT. Racing is only part of the overall play. It has a lot of non-racing you have to do. And to top it all off I was at 89% complete and my game save got corrupted. That's just discouraging. In my head I want to start over and try again, but my heart just isn't in it. I'm hoping to let enough time go by before restarting so that the game will seem somewhat fresh, but as time goes by there' always that next newer, cooler game... including new chapters of Burnout, of course. I probably won't be a completist and try to do a lot more Underground or Burnout chapters. I played through the DS version of Need For Speed Carbon and it was just okay. I think the only racing game company or series that ritually holds my interest is probably anything by Genki Racing Project. That'll be the Kaido Battle, Racing Battle, and Shutokou Battle games.

Like any car game, racing in Genki games gets repetitive. The Underground games (which are from Electronic Arts, not Genki) tried to get around this by really mixing up the race types. They have drag races, circuit races, street races, drift competitions, etc. all aimed at giving you a varied experience and keeping your interest in the long career modes. And of course they want to cover all the types of racing that can appeal to import car fans. Apart from Racing Battle: C1 Grand Prix, Genki games don't really have that many different types of racing in each game. But what they do have is drama of a sort. They have characters, even gangs of racers for you to compete against, all with their own customised cars, driving styles, and in the later games, messages. There are even 'bosses' to defeat to get to the next level. There's a whole immersion factor here that most racing game makers just don't reach. The Underground games give you a whole city to roam around in and 'find' your races. That helps it feel like you are in a lifelike environment, really strutting your car around in a city. But Shutokou Battle did that first. From a pretty early point in the series you could literally drive around the Tokyo freeway complex looking for opponents, and because the streets had real counterparts, it added a dimension of 'you are there' that other racing games just don't have (to me). Genki driving games are all still like this. I love the games so much, a few times the release of one has tipped me into buying a new console earlier than I otherwise would have. I think Import Tuner Challenge, which is Shutokou Battle for the Xbox 360 is probably the only one I don't have, and the reason for THAT is a different, longer story that involves the high price of the console AND my indecision over whether to spring for a US or Japan version machine. I'll discuss my feelings about the Xbox in a near-future rant about region lockouts or the state of video gaming in America.

Its hard to explain the Shutokou/Kaido/Racing Battle to other gamers. Genki racing games are kind of a cult thing. A lot of driving game fans play them and just don't see what makes them so great. Its like being a fan of STGs, which are generally 2D, have somewhat old-school graphics most of the time, and a play mechanic that is based on one of the oldest video games known (Space Invaders or more correctly Galaxian). How can you explain to the modern gamer the badassedness of an STG when they are ducking for cover from 1000-polygon missiles in surround sound in the latest FPS, or trying to put one over on another dozen gamers in the massive multiplayer online RPG du jour?

You either get it or you don't. Age probably makes a difference. While newer-generation gamers ARE getting turned on to some of the cult genres, most of the hardcore seem to be old enough to have some firsthand experience of the time when the genre in question ruled the arcades. Genki racing, though not specifically arcade based (Wangan Midnight aside). They don't have the spiffiest graphics (though they aren't bad either). Their driving physics tend to 'arcade-style' as opposed to GT's more simulation-style.... though not as arcade-y as Underground. But they are just more exciting I think. Sometimes you really get some rivalries going-- just as in some more human character-based games. There'll be that one diver (often a boss) who is just a pain, and its just awesome when you squeeze out a victory over them. And the rivalries and feelings can carry over into other games. I remember seeing a boss in Shutokou Battle Zero who I'd met and raced in previous chapters, and if he had given me trouble it was like, 'okay man, let's see what you've got in your new car', because frequently the characters will upgrade between games, 'I will still leave you sucking my exhaust.'. Most racing games with a career mode (and that would be almost all of 'em) have a sort of RPG-aspect to them. You go along in your career and as you conquer opponents you get cash and can buy upgrades to your car, analagous to a character in an RPG, who defeats enemies, gets gold and buys better equipment. I guess for me, Genki racers just do this better because they put faces (or rather car stickers) and names to all your rivals, even having some come looking for you when you defeat their rivals or friends.

So yeah. I really should be getting back to finishing my racing games. As I said, I've only got a few characters left to beat for 100% completion in Racing Battle, but getting those last few to appear has been difficult. Difficult enough for me to put THAT game aside for awhile too. Racing Battle is one of the few Genki racing games that has not gotten an english version and so it is much harder to figure out and fulfill the conditions required to make all the rivals available if you don't read japanese.

On the shooter front:
I made a giant jump in progress in Lords of Thunder. Probably would've beaten it by giving it another go, but I had other stuff I had to do so conquering must wait. The game, according to internet information isn't actually that hard, but it took me awhile to come to grips it, as I posted in another 'blog entry. I did fit in completing Gleylancer though. This is an odd-duck little shooter. Great option system (options being the generic term for the little side pods that are power ups in many shooting games), and your hit box is pretty forgiving-- smaller than it might appear from the size of your ship. But the art style is strangely primitive, just sort of utilitarian with some enemy designs just sort of slapped together. Some of the choices in backgrounds are weird too. The colors chosen and the scrolling speed make some of the enemies and their bullets really difficult to see. This is mostly a game-breaking problem in the first level, so once you get past that, the visibility goes way up most of the the rest of the game. But it is still a strange game. It was fun, but compared to contemporaries like Thunder Force 3 or Gates of Thunder it is no classic. Can't complain though. You can get it for pretty cheap as a download on the Wii Virtual Console and it was an rare-ish import-only title.

There's a lot of neat little import titles appearing on the Wii shop channel. I have always been an import maniac through all the consoles I've owned, but even I couldn't find or afford all the titles I'd have liked. This service gives me a second chance. I downloaded Cho Aniki awhile back and that game was a hilarous good time. I see Gradius Gofer no Yabou on there, and when I get into a Gradius mood, I'm sure I'll get that one too.

STGs are a great pick up and play game genre. They generally only take a half hour or less to complete (Treasure mega-epics aside) if you are expert enough to get all the way through. Even if you aren't a couple good runs that get you part way to the end can be really fun (or you can credit feed to the end, but that cuts their replay value way down). The graphics may be old-school (2D) but they are often spectacular, with pulse-pounding music to go along. And their difficulty (optimistically read 'challenge') is something not often found in more modern gaming genres. Shooters are kind of the archetypical 'boss fight' genre. In short, they're kind of a potent gaming 'shot'. Good stuff for adults that just can't sit down for hours at a stretch or who may be away from their consoles for long periods and don't want to have to figure out where they left off. They also lend themselves to being a good one-player experience.

Current STGs playing: Thunder Force VI, Lords of Thunder, Mushihimesama, and Border Down.