The era of Demo Discs.
Think back to the days when video game reviews online weren’t as big as they are today, and digital demos were strictly for PC games. We lived in a dark time where the only chance you had to test out a video game before you bought it included renting it, borrowing it from a friend, using one of the many video game kiosks strewn about almost every store that sold electronics, or demo discs. Where would my generation, or perhaps even the whole of video gaming, be without demo discs?
Demo discs became the gateway to seeing, testing and experiencing games, and came from darn near everywhere. They often came packed in with consoles, magazines, handed out as promotional items (who else remembers the Pizza Hut demo discs!?) and sometimes even came packed in with full games. Demo discs were heavily prevalent throughout the lifespan of the Playstation, Saturn, Dreamcast, PS2 and even the odd Gamecube demo disc popped up. Without them I wouldn’t have been exposed to half as many games as I was, nor would I have been able to enjoy the games I found on them and love.
Sometimes demo discs offered slightly more, like with Playstation Magazine’s save data you could download and put straight onto your memory card. Having a tough time beating that boss? Playstation Magazine had you covered, in some cases. Want to get that super rare yellow Dodge Copperhead concept in Gran Turismo? Again, Playstation Magazine had you covered!
Demo discs were the greatest thing as a kid, but alas they were just that, demos. Among the demos were also movies, which only made my adolescent mind wish it was a demo! Sometimes, even though it was merely a small portion of the game, the action lasted long enough that I could play it over and over again, and although I did want the full experience of the game I was demoing, the demo alone was plenty enough to keep me busy until I could save up enough lawn mowing money to purchase said game.
When I see demo discs I get that nostalgic feeling in the pit of my stomach. I fondly remember sitting alone in my room, playing the demo of Gran Turismo over and over again until I had mastered the one track it offered with the three cars I could choose from. Heck, I still use demo discs to find games I still may not know about! Sure we’re 17 years on from the Playstation being king of consoles, but demo discs are still play a part, at least in my life, in finding games I was never exposed to and may find enjoyable.
Today’s generations will never understand the feeling of popping in a disc and playing through a handful of game snippets and having the time of their lives. With wifi being integrated into consoles, digital demos downloaded straight to the hard drive have crushed the poor demo disc. Forever in my heart will demo discs reign supreme!
Racing for the Playstation
After reviewing a pair of end of life era Playstation games released by Mud Duck and ZeniMax, I remembered that there was yet another company that did this as well. With titles such as Bowling, Billiards, Boxing, Shooter: Space Shot and simply Racing, A1 Games and Agetec were seemingly kings of the generic, end of life Playstation game market. As you can tell by the list almost all of their games are named after exactly what they are, and with such creatively titled games comes equally bland and lifeless cover art.
I will admit, however, that I actually own a few A1/Agetec games. Why? Because A1 Games did release some games that were quite good, with names that invoked a little bit more intrigue than just a boring name like Bowling. I bought Battle Hunter because it claimed to be a turn-based RPG, clinging to the success of Final Fantasy Tactics, and while it clearly doesn’t have the polish that FF Tactics did, I find Battle Hunter to be surprisingly enjoyable. But after the kind of mess that Mud Duck and ZeniMax made of All Star Racing what could we expect from A1 Games’ disasterpiece titled Racing?
See? Painfully generic.
What Racing immediately has counting against it is extremely bland cover art, a painfully generic name and being released at the end of the Playstation’s life, but that’s just scratching the surface. Once you get into the game you’re greeted with A1/Agetec’s patented blandness throughout. The screens are almost all black, with very little life or effort put into drawing you into the game. I suppose A1 Games figured if you got this far they’ve already got your $10, why try any harder?
Initial options are Start, Continue or Tutorial, the latter being nothing more than just a dozen static screens explaining the controls and a little bit about what not to do in this game. You see, while their heart may have, perhaps accidentally, been in the right place by offering this tutorial, none of it matters due to the poorly programmed racing mechanics.
As with almost all racing games trying to be a racing sim you’ll have to start from the bottom and work your way to the top. Your first class option is Novice, and you only have 1 car to choose from. With this one car you’re allowed a few more options, only making Racing seem slightly more like a real racing game. Choose between Automatic or manual, grip traction or drift and now it’s time to decide which of the two tracks you’re going to face. Yes, only two tracks; perhaps there is a mirror option later on, but I didn’t stick around long enough to find out.
Now that you’ve picked your options and track, it’s time to win, because in Novice that’s all you can do, unless you try really hard to lose. Handling in Novice feels amazing, which is a poor setup for later classes, being three in total, so all you need to do is put the pedal to the metal, corner safely and bring home the win. Immediately you may notice a few things such as there is a musical track that can’t be turned down nor off, there are only two view points with no option to look behind you, and that once you’ve won the race the game actually acknowledges you’ve won. Yes, this game acknowledges you’ve won by showing a replay and by putting a golden 1 on a flag at the post race summary. Although better than All Star Racing, this still doesn’t make you feel your effort was appreciated in any way.
After mastering both tracks in Novice you’ll unlock the Pro class, which is where all the game’s flaw shine brighter than a million Suns. Remember how easy Novice was? Well forget that, because in Pro the struggle is real!
What the game does in the Novice class is setup a false sense of security, as if you’ve learned to control the car completely. In any class above Novice you’ll notice the car breaks loose far too easily in corners you could, and should, be able to take at full speed. This tends to cause the car to do some weird, anti gravity spin that forces you to let off the gas completely, or else the car will just do donuts in place, regardless of which way you’re steering to correct it. What it really boils down to is simply learning to nurse the accelerator without hitting the brakes at all, which is a lesson in frustration. And this is on Grip settings, don’t even get me started on Drift!
Many of the inherent flaws of Playstation era racing games show up in Racing too, but mostly due to poor programming and design. Collisions are the era standard, merely bumping each other and slowing each other down instantly, albeit better than All Star Racing. Approximately 5 feet from any corner or wall are invisible bumpers that slow you down and sometimes even stop your car instantly for no good reason. But the creme de la creme of the programming flaws in Racing happen on the long track, mostly, where all the cars, including AI, will bottom out on inclines, causing them to slow down dramatically.
What Racing has going for it is that it is indeed racing, so the title isn’t a lie. The car models do look nice, even if there isn’t any real variety at all and they handle like they’re driving on baby oil. However, the flaws in this game outshine the the few, very few, beams of glimmering hope. Oh, did I mention second place isn’t good enough? You’ll need to suffer through this game to get first in both tracks before you can unlock the new classes. All that said, this game is horrible!
All Star Racing 2 for the Playstation
After playing All Star Racing and giving it a not so great review, I decided to give it’s sequel a play through and see whether they had managed to polish dirt or just slap new makeup on the same, grimy old hag. Still proudly brought to us by Mud Duck and ZeniMax Media, All Star Racing 2 now seems to right most of the wrongs that it’s predecessor committed. Although still not a diamond among coal, All Star Racing 2 can easily be mistaken for a thoroughly enjoyable racing game on the Playstation.
This actually looks kind of promising!
All Star Racing 2 still offers four different styles of racing, but this time you’re not limited to just cars. Now you can choose from either Formula One (or GP to skirt lawsuits), Karts, Motorcycles or Semi-trucks. One thing I praised the original for doing was offering quite good looking car models, and I wasn’t disappointed here either, although the same can’t be said for the models of the riders for bikes and karts. Not only does this refreshing roster of choices add a very much needed shot of interest to the game, each class seems to have it’s own unique handling as well. While handing still isn’t the greatest, it is better than the original.
As well as unique handling, each class offers five different tracks per class. All of which look quite good and offer some challenge, as well as upon loading there is a best time, which both helps fill out the loading screen and gives you something else to achieve in this game. Each class now offers six color choices, which also adds a small, yet very welcome change from the previous game. Even with six total choices you are still limited to six total cars on track, as well as you’ll still often be competing against your twin for some reason.
I did say the sequel righted most of the wrongs, but not all of them. This time around collision is still a mess; bump, pause and nothing else really happens, but I must say it is slightly improved. Difficulty seems to be toned down and is challenging on medium, and not a complete blowout, yet it still seems to vary from track to track and class to class. Winning is still useless too. Again you’re presented with a lackluster screen dimming, results appearing and the end, nobody cares. At least you get to put in your name for some credit, which is something.
Look ma, I’m famous! In my own mind.
While the handling for the GP class is tight, yet rife with under steer, the karts are a bit tighter, and the semi-truck class seems to do quite well with the original level of under steer that the first game offered, although that’s to be expected from such a heavy machine. I must admit that I am quite impressed with the Bike class handling, in a funny way. I’ve never been good at bikes games as there is a learning curve on the whole rider physics. Before you can actually turn the bike, the rider must lean into the turn, causing me to instinctively hold the turn button too long, often causing me to over correct when I need to straighten up. The same lack of control feel is present here too, but I believe that isn’t to say biking racing games are bad, but this is a fact to point out that All Star Racing 2 actually may have gotten this one absolutely right!
I feel it bares repeating to say that All Star Racing 2 can easily be mistaken for a thoroughly enjoyable racing game. I prepared myself for another complete mess, but I was pleasantly proven wrong. I’ll even go so far as to admit that while taking screenshots for the article I found myself getting upset that I wasn’t doing better. This sequel is what the first should have been, it’s competent and actually can be fun!
All Star Racing for the Playstation
Back in the Playstation era racing games went through a complete change, a puberty if you will. This change either sent racing game fans running for the hills to conserve their memories of yesteryear, or attracted them to a whole new world, as well as dragging in a completely new crowd of fans. Racing games went from being simple point to point, choose your car and win or lose, to far more complex strategy based games that caused you to not only focus on the race at hand, but also allowed you to setup the car through many changeable variants.
While not completely the first time a video game allowed the player to buy upgrades or change parts to make their racing machinery better, this was the first time this was attempted on such a large scale. You see, before the days of Gran Turismo you had games like Formula One: Built to Win for the NES, that offered a little bit of what Gran Turismo offered, albeit with only a handful of cars at most. Gran Turismo offered over 150 vehicles to choose from, as well as brought a whole new look to the genre and inspired many to emulate it’s depth, it’s compassion and it’s… well it’s drive for a lack of better pun.
Now let’s strip all that away and crap out a budget title for the dying console, poorly titled All Star Racing. As the Playstation was drawing it’s last few breaths companies were in a panic to get rid of any stock they had left, which ended up on store shelves at prices that, I’m quite sure, cost more to actually ship the items to that store to be placed on said shelf. Many were actually quite good and sadly overlooked. All Star Racing, however, is a game that deserves it’s shadowed corner in obscurity and abandonment.
Four styles of racing? Ok, not bad!
On paper All Star Racing sounds like quite the bang for your buck, but in reality there is no currency denomination low enough for this game. You start out with the option to play one of four styles of racing, which is just a mirage as you’re not given as much freedom as you originally think, only laying one of four different racing style skins over the exact same thing. After choosing your desired racing class (for the sake of this review I’ll go with Stockcar Frenzy) you’re presented with what seems to be yet another title screen, with three choices; Start, Options or Quit Game.
While Start and Quit are self-explanatory, options is where things are really kind of important. The default lap count is 3, which you can manually change to up to 15, because… why not? Here you can also change the difficulty, center the screen and apparently pick on the disabled. I’m not joking, there is an option for disabled, but it does NOTHING! The difficulty levels are quite odd, which I’ll explain further in just a little bit.
See? Disabled. It makes no sense!
After you’ve set the game to your liking it’s time to pick one of the three cars allotted per class. Yep, that’s all she wrote. Three cars per class. Not four, not five, just three. Oddly enough they’re all extremely well done representations of real-life cars with craftily parodied sponsors to skirt lawsuits. Once you’ve picked your car, it’s time to pick from three tracks, same joke from above applies here. Once you’ve picked your car, picked the track and gotten to the loading screen it’s time for racing! Which will quickly disappoint you again, as your only competition is five cars, two sets of the two cars you didn’t pick and an exact clone of yourself, making that a total of only 6 cars on track!
So the lack of cars on track may not upset you, but the racing mechanics may very well be the point of contention. Depending on what difficulty level you set, as well as it seems to vary from track to track, you may experience anywhere from a complete blowout in your favor, an almost enjoyable race, or a complete blowout where you can’t even hope to catch the competition. The extremely tight and laggy controls don’t make this any better, but if you’re a masochist and practice to learn the track you may find that you can actually maneuver the car around the track in an almost tolerable fashion. Although there is no damage modeling, which is ok as it wasn’t widely used in PS games anyway, smashing into someone, or something, is bouncy and stops time and your ability to steer momentarily.
So let’s say you’ve done your homework, you’ve setup the difficulty to your liking and you’ve learned every corner of your favorite track and now it’s time to furrow your brow and get yourself the big W. You speed past the competition and you hug those curves for the three to fifteen laps you’ve chosen, you’re seconds from crossing the line and you can already taste the champagne, see the trophy girl’s lycra bodysuit and you’re prematurely basking in a glory that is highly uncalled for. What do you get once you’ve grossed the line ahead of the competition? The screen dims, the end results appear, then a loading screen and then… the main screen of whichever class you chose to race in. No fanfare, nobody cares.
I will say that the game looks decent for a Playstation game and the car models actually look quite stunning, even compared to Gran Turismo, perhaps as good or slightly better! The game does have quite a few glaring flaws and it’s cut down to seem so sparse that it’s downright painful in areas. I mean, the game is playable and if you fiddle around with the difficulty and can stand to play it long enough to build up any real skill with what it offers you might actually enjoy it. It’s in no way a beaming example of what Playstation era racing games should have been, but at least it’s not completely broken, just moderately uninteresting and gravely disappointing.
It’s not perfect, but what do you expect from a death of a console release from companies such as Mud Duck and ZeniMax Media. Wait, what? ZeniMax Media? The same ZeniMax who own Bethesda and id Software? The exact same! While ZeniMax was busy releasing games like this, the companies it bought were busy releasing games that are now considered video game history makers. Let that sink in for a while. A good, long while.
And yes, there is a sequel.
Sam’s Scores X
It is finally here, Sam’s Scores edition 10! Perhaps a milestone, perhaps just getting started, we’ll have to see! Scores have been slim, for a number of reasons, and the fact that thrift stores are closing down left and right doesn’t help, but that is a story for another day. Today, however, I will show you four of my latest finds, which just so happen to be the only finds of any real worth, enjoy!
4) – ASCII Pad SG
I had seen this controller many years ago while looking through an old video game magazine, and it wasn’t until recently that I even saw one. I’m no stranger to picking up strange, innovative and sometimes completely useless controllers, if they’re cheap. It was a little dirty, but I took it apart and thoroughly cleaned it, although I have yet to test it.
3) – Sega 6-pak
It isn’t everyday that I walk through a flea market and find anything priced where I just can’t pass it up. On this day I found a booth that had a box filled with cassette tapes and said how much they were each, sitting in the same box along side were numerous Sega Genesis games. After sifting through the lot I grabbed this one, because it had 6 really good games on it, and it was cheap!
2) – Light Crusader
I had read about this game before and for some reason I never bothered to put it on my wanted list. Even though the game is loose I figured for the price I couldn’t pass it up! I’ve given this game a try and although it isn’t in what some would consider an RPG style, it is worth a try for those Genesis fans looking for an RPG for the system.
1) – Mega Man Legends
Sometimes I should be able to tell that I’m going to run across a certain item, and although I never foresee it, I always put the puzzle together in hindsight. When I happen to take an interest in any given item in a youtube video for no apparent reason, I usually end up finding that item within a week after watching the video. In this case I watched a review on Mega Man Legends on retrowaretv.com, I enjoyed the review and got that warm feeling in my stomach that I wanted to go thrift store hunting after I watched the video, you know at 4am! In reality I was hoping to find the much harder to find sequels, but finding the first one was good too, especially the black label version.
Sam’s Scores IX
Finally Sam’s Scores has made a triumphant, yet brief, return to it’s maiden format, the article! Some changes have to be made as the video format simply isn’t working out very well for myself, as well as the complete and utter lack of anything worth buying that isn’t outrageously overpriced. In previous editions I loved to show off the price tags as proof that I was indeed getting a score, but nowadays I often buy things in bulk from the Goodwill Outlet stores.
From now on most scores will be noted as bought from the Goodwill Outlet store as well as the bulk price paid, but when I do indeed get a score from somewhere I will do my best to show the price tag. Sadly the price tags on two of today’s scores were both on the back and were removed when I cleaned them. Normally I clean around them, take the pics I need for the article and then remove them after I’ve gotten what I need, but since it would do no good to simply show the back of the items I decided to just remove them anyway and toss them up, enjoy!
4) – Superbike 2000
Number 4 isn’t really anything to brag about, but it is a rare find none the less. Not the game itself, no, but the fact that this game is still wrapped and sealed (note the hologram to the right of the helmet in the image), with the exception of the lower right corner being ripped. From the reviews I’ve seen of the Playstation version, which this one is, perhaps that is where it is most rightful to stay, forever! But finding it still intrigued me enough to warrant a purchase.
3) – Interact Superpad for the SNES
Number 3 is an interesting tale of going back for something you wanted, but finding more than you originally went in for. I went into a Goodwill looking to find score #2 (see below), as I had previously passed on it, and couldn’t find it, but instead ran across this sad looking controller. The controller had damage on it and had been pried half open, as if some idiot couldn’t simply remove the 6 phillips screws holding it together. In the end I picked it up, and after a good cleaning, and careful reconstruction, the controller works great. It also has a contoured back, making it quite comfortable to hold as well!
2) – Sega Sports edition Dreamcast Controller
As I mentioned above I had passed this one up but it stayed on my mind for a week, until it’s price tag color was half off. I hardly find anything related to the Sega Dreamcast, and even less related to the Sega Sports edition, so when I saw this at the price they wanted AND the 50% off, I couldn’t walk away a second time.
1) – Final Fantasy VII
And finally, an original black label copy of Final Fantasy 7, with all 3 discs but no manual. I used to own this when they were between running out of the original stock and making up the green labelled “Greatest Hits” version. Personally I don’t mind either, as long as I can play the game, yet as a collector I’m glad I have the original version.
Sam’s Scores VIII
Well everyone, after this article I will be doing more of the new video format than written articles. Today’s Sam’s Scores is going to have more than usual. I’ve had all these items for quite a while and I feel its time to get the old stuff written up to make way for the new stuff!
8) – Bag of Atari 2600 Games
For some reason thrift stores love to use plastic bags and my favorite Salvation Army is no exception. Normally I check the bags for signs of old happy meal Nintendo toys, etc. but this time there happened to be 10 Atari games: Adventure, Combat, Air-Sea Battle, Asteroids, Casino, Football, Air Lock, Missile Command, Space Invaders and Warlords. Even though my 2600 isn’t working, I couldn’t pass it up!
7) – 3 Vectrex Games
In the same thrift/consignment store I found the Atari Jaguar in, were 3 Vectrex games. I checked high and low for the system, but I only found the games. I’m assuming there had to have been a system there, but I prefer to think there never was. These are the first Vectrex games I’ve ever seen, so I had to snatch them up!
6) – Blades of Steel Red Label
Blades of Steel for the NES isn’t a rare game, in fact I’ve had a handful of them. What makes this version harder to find (as I don’t think it is “rare”) is the fact that it has a red label and was re-released with a handful of other games late in the NES’s life. I found this at Disc Replay, where I believe 2 others were eying it before I was, but I asked for help at the case first!
5) – Resident Evil 2
Ever since I played a demo for this game, I’ve always wanted to own it. Disc Replay has it in stock on occasion, but $10 is a bit on the high side for me. Ever the one to hold out hope of finding it in the wild, luck and persistence finally paid off when I found this in the CD bin at Salvation Army. The case is cracked in some areas, but its complete and the discs are in good shape.
4) – N64 Memory Expansion
When you buy an N64, the first thing you should check is the memory expansion slot in the front. If you see a memory expansion, you’re good to go. That isn’t to say the jumper is bad, without the jumper or memory expansion the N64 won’t even display video! I found this memory expansion at a flea market, just sitting on a table and since my N64 needed one, I bought it. (Being displayed already installed into my system.)
3) – 3 N64 Games
My favorite Salvation Army does some insane pricing variations on their cartridge games, it ranges from super cheap or super expensive. This case just so happened to be a super cheap day, and I ended up getting DK64, Rayman 2 and Star Wars Episode 1 Racer, extremely cheap.
2) – Zelda 64: Majora’s Mask
I will admit that this isn’t one of my better scores, but the price still isn’t bad. Half Price Books was marking their games at a standard rate, and this one just so happened to slip through at a decent price.
1) – Vintage Donkey Kong plush
If its video game related, I’ll buy it cheap. Plush gaming characters are fairly easy to find, but when I saw this sitting on a shelf looking at me, with no rips or tears, I had to own it.
